The CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement, held in New York City last month, delivered a tremendous, thoughtful experience for all those in attendance, including the Cloud for Good team. Over 800 attendees—from Seattle to Singapore, representing 49 states (and D.C.)—consisting of leaders from all sizes of advancement organizations, vendors, and industry experts came together for three days of learning, sharing, networking, and discussions on the future of advancement, higher education, and technology’s role in revolutionizing and innovating education and advancement. Here are the highlights from the summit:
Does the University Have a Future?
The opening keynote at the summit featured Dr. David J. Staley, Associate Professor of History, Design, Educational Studies at the Ohio State University, who walked leaders through a jam-packed, thought-provoking presentation titled, “Does the University Have a Future?” which focused on the eponymous question that many education leaders have. His conversation discussed numerous thoughts and trends, including:
- Amazon and Starbucks Education Models: Staley posed that perhaps the future of education is the Amazon model, where large organizations create their own educational institutions as Amazon has done? He also highlighted Starbucks’ “pre-reimbursement” approach to educating staff as another potential future education model, where Starbucks staff’s education is provided through Arizona State University and already paid for, but they have the option to simply use it at will.
- AI Will Have a Dramatic Impact: Staley argued that 40% of the workforce will have to reskill due to automation, according to a study by the IBM Institute for Business Value. He further discussed that AI—a tool that is only as powerful as the questions it is asked—will be coupled with workers’ skills, and the true measure of AI’s effectiveness will be in how well workers learn how to ask questions to AI in order to benefit from its usefulness.
- New Needs Need New Majors: “Inquiry” or “Wonder” will potentially become majors at universities in the future in order to align with the need to learn how to ask questions best.
- Expectations Must Change: Students can no longer expect that a four-year degree will cover their needs for life as there is “[a] shrinking half-life of a degree.”
- There Is No Graduation: Education should be open to new models, such as a subscription-based model that functions as an education provider for life.
- Alumni Definitions Must Change: If education models change, especially those aimed at providing lifelong learning, then the definition of alumni must change. For instance, in the future, will the definition of alumni also include subscribers of subscription-based lifelong education provider models?
Ultimately Dr. Staley drove home that in this dynamic environment, the need for investment in education is prominent. Furthermore, he argued that towns with shrinking campuses can survive by becoming “talent magnets” and having the local college or university play an active role in knowledge workers in order to design the future.
Our team loved this conversation and the questions discussed because it aligned with Cloud for Good’s strong belief that now is the right time for higher education institutions to leverage technology to help design this future, and Salesforce technology can enable institutions to harness their most valuable asset—data—to drive engagement and fundraising capabilities like never before.
Salesforce Product Announcements
Cloud for Good was proud to co-host a breakfast with several Salesforce executives Chris Clark, Director of Product Management, Advancement, Corey Rittvo, Sr. Director of Industry Solutions & Strategy, Dr. Tom Green, Director of Strategic Enrollment Management, and other institutions where we had an open roundtable discussion and learned about major Education Cloud product announcements.
Alumni Engagement Insights with Data + AI
Arriving in Winter 2025, these amazing features will fuel alumni engagement and fundraising activities like never before by leveraging Education Cloud, Data Cloud, and Generative AI.
Advancement Reporting Framework
CASE Alumni Engagement Metrics and Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) metrics and templates are coming to Education Cloud in Spring 2025. This feature is powered by Education Cloud and the Disclosure & Compliance Hub, which are included in Education Cloud’s base license.
Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) Automation
With the coming VSE Involvement metrics, new automations will be available to support various out-of-the-box capabilities with identifiers like Alumni Graduation Cohort, Generation Cohort, Giving Levels, etc. This feature arrives Spring 2025.
Sessions, Meetings, and Topics
CASE does an exceptional job of putting forward diverse topics and thoughtful discussions, and those at this year’s CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement were no exception. Sessions ranged on topics from:
- The power of AI in advancement
- Corporate partnership and what it can do for fundraising
- Fireside chats with industry leaders
- What the data shows about the need to diversify the donor pipeline
- Talent attraction and retention
- Navigating the turbulent times that many institutions have faced
- Navigating the impact of NIL (name, image, and likeness) with collegiate athletics
As tremendous as these sessions were, for the Cloud for Good team, the real draw of CASE was every coffee break and session break that offered valuable opportunities to talk to new customers and old friends alike.
Cloud for Good stopped by one table and talked about one advancement team’s current challenges with email engagement, and our team shared with them how Cloud for Good can solve that problem with Marketing Cloud. At another table, Cloud for Good conversed with an organization that struggling with its online giving platform, a shrinking donor pipeline, and antiquated payment methods. Consequently, our team discussed with them how Cloud for Good has helped institutions achieve a 230% growth in recurring gifts with Commerce Cloud.
During coffee breaks, Cloud for Good staff learned about the incredible challenges some institutions are having harnessing the power of their data and getting it out of their “spaghetti plate of point solutions”—opening up opportunities for our team to talk about Cloud for Good’s very affordable Data Cloud package. Our team even had an opportunity to talk to the president of an institute whose legacy platform is preventing its goals to innovate about Cloud for Good’s offer of Phase 0 startup projects that can help provide answers for where to start their transformation journey.
Many Cloud for Good partners and friends that Cloud for Good has helped empower to meet their goals were also at the event, and it was great to talk with them, see how they’re innovating, and the problems they’re solving firsthand.
Lastly, CASE offered an irresistible opportunity for our team to bring plenty of Cloud for Good branded socks, which our CEO and Founder Tal Frankfurt and Salesforce Industry Advisor Dr. Tom Green wore proudly and with smiles!
The Future Is Bright
The Cloud for Good team that attended unanimously agreed that the CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement left them feeling energized about the future of advancement. It’s clear from this conference that:
- The need to understand your donor base has never been greater
- Salesforce technology can revolutionize the way you engage with constituents and empower your fundraising like never before
- Institutions can benefit tremendously from assessing whether their current technology will set them up to design their future – and this is something that Cloud for Good can help with!
If you’re curious about how your institution or school can use Salesforce to innovate and revolutionize advancement or learning efforts, or how to leverage any of the new features and products announced at the CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement, please contact us to talk about your goals.
