All right, well, welcome to our two gather. My name is Lindsay Valdine and I serve on the case district five cabinet as the committee chair for the venture fund. My day responsibilities include leading the alumni engagement team at Northwestern University. My name is Jen Smith Wyatt, and I serve as the case district five scholarship and awards chair. My daily responsibilities include leading stewardship and campaign management at the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. And my name is Jeremy Mishler, and I'm the trusted cabinet chair for case district five. By day, I'm a fired up chip from Central Michigan University, and I serve as the deputy chief of advancement and campaign strategies there. Awesome. Today we're here to help you in unlocking significant potential by crafting winning applications for the district five scholarship and venture fund grants. Think of us as your application specialists. As we move along today, be sure and drop any questions that you might have into the chat, and we'll be sure to leave time for them at the end. But first, a quick intro for anyone who's new to case district five. We're all about empowering educational advancement professionals, especially those in the Great Lakes region. And we're also part of a big international case organization, so we have serious reach. As an extension of Case International, we offer a wide variety of options for our members, including workshops, conferences, and volunteer opportunities. Let's start off today by focusing on the scholarship. It provides an exceptional opportunity to attend our annual conference in Chicago from March 30th through April 1st, 2025, with your registration completely covered. Talk about a game changer. This opportunity is transformative. At the conference, you'll learn about the latest trends, connect with the top professionals, and likely bring back fresh ideas to elevate your institution. It sounds incredible, but I bet it's competitive. Jeremy, as our past case district five awards chair, what are we looking for in those applications? Jen, we're looking for passion for professional growth. That is a must. But here's a key takeaway. We want to see how attending benefits not just you, but your institution as well. It's about bigger impact. That's insightful, Jeremy. Thanks. Now, to provide us with some insider advice, let's welcome two exemplary past scholarship recipients. Joining us today are Melissa Nye-Prenzlin, Assistant Director of Advancement Services at Heidelberg University, and Shannon Cremins, Annual Giving Marketing Associate at The Ohio State University, both of whom attended the conference last year. Shannon, can you start us off by sharing what made your application stand out? Yes, I think two things helped. First, I had an amazing letter of recommendation from my supervisor. And second, while I'm new to higher ed and advancement, I've brought over 17 years of prior work experience. And I highlighted that I was looking to gain a lot of knowledge about higher ed and advancement to excel in my new career path. Those are great insights, Shannon. Thanks. Melissa, what made your application stand out? It would help if I unmuted myself. For my application, I focused on, I lost my place, I messed everything up when I went to unmute. So I focused on answering each question thoroughly and honestly. Since I was new to the role and I had never attended a case conference, I highlighted my responsibilities in detail, including additional tasks that I had taken on. Our advancement office is really small. And with our donor relations and stewardship position having been recently eliminated, I wanted to gain knowledge to help improve our office's efficiency. I emphasized my role in taking on these extra responsibilities and exploring new software and CRM systems that would help us take on these tasks and adapt. And I think showing my eagerness to bring back practical insights from the conference made a difference. Additionally, I included strong letters of recommendation from both my immediate director and our associate vice president, which I think definitely helped support my application for the scholarship. It's clear that you both took a thoughtful approach to your commitment to professional and institutional growth. Shannon, what advice would you give to someone new to the profession who's applying for the scholarship? I would highlight what you'll gain from the conference, overall knowledge, new ideas to bring back and implement with your team and your college or university, and networking opportunities. I think networking is a huge piece. That's excellent advice, Shannon. Thanks. Melissa, would you add anything to that? I would say to elaborate on your strengths, what you bring to your position, and how you could benefit from attending the case conference. Also, as Shannon mentioned, making sure you have recommendation letters from people who know your work well and are able to write a strong letter of recommendation for you. Great points, Melissa. Tell us, how did you balance showing both personal and institutional benefits in your application? I think for me, the best way to tell about how I did that is just to read what I actually put on my application. One of the questions was, what do you think distinguishes you from others who may apply for the scholarship? And I said, Heidelberg is probably one of the smallest advancement offices when compared to institutions of similar size. So it is imperative for us to be as efficient as possible. I anticipate learning a great deal from the conference sessions, as well as from fellow advancement attendees, in order to improve our efficiency. Since our donor relations and stewardship position was eliminated in July 2023, we are juggling these added responsibilities. I have seen how good stewardship leads to major gifts and large bequests, so I am in a key role to help maintain and strengthen this effort. Lastly, we have started to explore moving to Ellucian CRM or another CRM software, and because of my technology expertise and advancement experience, I will be a key part of this task force as well. Great. Thanks for that, Melissa. Shannon, looking back, how did attending the conference impact your work at your institution? The conference helped me, as someone brand new to higher education and advancement, gain a better understanding of the field overall. Melissa, what about you? How did attending the conference impact your work at your institution? I brought back a wealth of information to share with my division. I downloaded all of the available presentations and saved them on a server for my team, so that anybody else who could relate to any of those could view it and look at the things that related to their role. I also typed up a detailed summary of what I learned, the sessions I attended, and any suggestions I had for our roles in our office to share with everybody else as well. I also focused on networking, meeting with others with roles similar to mine, and gathering ideas that we could implement in our own office. The vendor space was also great for exploring new software solutions, which we ended up scheduling software demos from that, and even reconnecting with a donor who had previously completed a feasibility study for us and giving them an update of where we are now. That's terrific, Melissa. And thank you both, Shannon and Melissa, for sharing your insights with us today. This has been incredibly valuable. It's inspiring to see how the scholarship has opened doors for professional growth, but also contributed to meaningful changes at both of your institutions. Thanks, Jen. I'm going to talk a little bit more about the Venture Fund. Building on those opportunities for growth and innovation, let's shift to another valuable resource, our Venture Fund. This program provides grants from anywhere from $500 to $5,000, helping members bring impactful projects to life, whether by developing workshops, enhancing alumni engagements, or introducing new networking opportunities. It is all for our betterment of the K-5 district. Let's bring in someone to help us understand what it takes to secure this funding. We're joined by Connie Molesberger, Director of Annual Giving and Engagement from the Francis W. Parker School here in Chicago. She successfully was awarded a Venture Fund grant for her Midwest Independent School Development Network and Summer Camp. What a mouthful, but it's a lot of good work going on. Connie, can you tell us about your project and what made your application a success? Certainly, and it is a mouthful. The purpose of the Midwest Independent School Development Network and Summer Camp is to connect independent school development professionals in the Midwest region with one another to network, share resources, and learn from one another at minimal expense. Our goal is to bring as many perspectives, ideas, tools, and experiences as possible together so that participants can learn something innovative and new to help them achieve their goals. Each year, the Midwest Summer Camp organized discussion sessions for different development groups. We have annual fund ones, ones for major gifts, special events, alumni relations, and giving, as well as advancement services. Participating schools can submit questions or topics that they would like to discuss in their breakout sessions. Each year, these questions and discussions change and adapt to the relevant circumstances. Generally, these discussions are about sharing successes, what's worked for your school that might work for somebody else, or challenges, what you're struggling with, maybe getting some feedback and ideas from other schools who have faced the same thing and how they approached it, and sharing those with the group. We're producing some new ideas and feedback from a core group of peers who are working towards the same goal with a similar population since we're all in the same region and a similar local culture. Thanks to funding from KSB Venture Fund, our annual summer camp conference was able to maintain a conference length of seven and a half hours, a full day. We have more unique speakers each year and more Midwest school speakers. We've been getting all the people that attend the conference year after year to come and start taking on roles in speaking, which is amazing. We're promoting, sharing, and having collaboration and leadership from within, which has been really valuable. Over the last few years, we've been able to increase attendance of the conference from 35 attendees from 13 schools in 2017 to regularly having 50 to 80 attendees from 30 to 35 schools, which is amazing. That really is amazing. You've doubled, if not tripled, your effort. The ripple effect was really key, benefiting multiple people and institutions, not just within your own organization. Can you tell us why professional development has been so important to your project? Yeah. Affordable, easily accessible, and useful professional development is at the heart of why the Midwest Independent School Development Network and the annual summer camp conference are so successful. All attendees are able to attend the conference for free, and if you're traveling from out of state, we provide travel grants to those attendees. We started this network and summer camp to connect with local independent schools with similar programs to provide a professional development experience focused primarily on open dialogue and idea sharing. Each year, we gather together to help each other be successful and share our best practices. Connie, I imagine having a clear plan was beneficial. Another common question, though, is about aligning those types of projects with CASE and our district's priorities. How did you identify the specific needs and the desired outcomes you all had and approach these and aligning it with CASE with your application? A group of schools, including Parker, came together in 2015 organically to share ideas and perspectives, and we decided that more schools should be able to do the same thing without large costs. We put together our first summer camp conference and charged only a nominal fee, and shortly after that, we discovered the CASE B Venture Fund and realized that the priorities to invest in professional development and grow a network of colleagues like this was their priority as well, and that enhanced roundtable discussions was exactly aligned with what we were doing and their support would enable us the funding to make this conference and eventually network accessible to even more schools in the Midwest. This is really great advice, Connie. It's not just about the idea, but how it fits into the bigger picture. Can you talk a little bit about how important the budget was in securing the grant? Sure. The budget allowed us to support expenses related to the summer camp conference as well as provide travel grants and speaker grants to those within and outside of our network. The funding was critical to allowing us to expand both the number of people who attended, but also to provide the tools for those who did attend to grow in their profession, speak about their work, and become leaders in their field. Okay. One last question, Connie. How did you approach working with other institutions, and how did that help the application? Early on, we formed a planning committee, and that committee has actively opened up at the end of each conference for anyone to join if they're interested. Each year, we've had more schools join the planning committee, which was incredible because we wanted to have more investment in this, and it's a large group thing. Next summer, we currently have five schools offering to host the summer camp conference, which is incredible. It's a growing community of fundraising professionals that love to connect and learn how to develop their professional skills and programs. I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm sorry about that. So I was thinking, Connie, and just citing that this is a great example of how these types of opportunities, scholarships, venture fund grants, align with CASE's broader mission. CASE is all about inspiring, challenging, and equipping professionals to be effective champions of their institutions. As an organization, we act as a catalyst for advancing education worldwide, fostering a community of professionals who act with integrity and make meaningful impact. It's not just about maintaining the status quo. It's about driving real, lasting change and innovation, and CASE sees advancement professionals as essential forward-thinking leaders in education. And that's where programs like the scholarship and the venture fund come in. They empower professionals to grow and actively shape the future of our field. Speaking of growth, Shannon, we'd love to hear how the scholarship and attending the conference helped you grow as a professional and connect with the new to the profession cohort. Yes, I would not have been able to attend my first CASE conference without the scholarship. Being new to advancement and higher ed, I was very excited to join the new to the profession cohort to continue learning and networking all year. The conference was incredibly valuable for me, and not only did I gain insights into the field and connect with others, but I also left with practical ideas to bring back to my role. The new to the profession cohort has been an ongoing source of support and growth, allowing me to build on what I learned at the conference and keep developing my skills with the help of others in similar roles. That's wonderful to hear, Shannon. It's great that the cohort has been a resource for you beyond attending the conference. Melissa, what was your experience like? The scholarship was essential for me as well. It included the pre-conference new to the profession workshop, which I jumped into to try to make the most of the experiences that were available to everybody. While I had seven years experience in advancement services, I was new to the assistant director role as well as taking on the additional responsibilities from the eliminated positions. I needed to build my skills quickly, especially since I hadn't had any formal training in advancement or had attended a case conference before, so the new to the profession workshop gave me the foundational knowledge that I needed, and the cohort has allowed me to keep learning professional development skills that I can continue to directly apply in my daily work. Also through the cohort, I've continued to network and collaborate with other advancement professionals, which has been completely invaluable. It's so good to hear from each of you how new to the profession and the conference experience has expanded your network and skills while building a strong foundation for your growth. Connie, how has the network and summer camp evolved since receiving the grant? As you probably saw already, the program has really taken off. We've had participants from several institutions, and I've seen a real difference in how it's helping new professionals feel more connected and supported through having connections and a network that they need to be successful. Even after new professionals attend this annual summer camp conference and gain insights and make valuable connections with other people involved in entering similar positions, we have an email list serve that allows them to continue to connect with one another and survey local professionals on a regular basis on best practices and network year round. This has ensured that new professionals can continue to plug into this network even after our conference has ended. That's really dynamic. Whether it's attending a conference or launching a transformative project, these programs are about making a bigger impact on the field of educational advancement. That's right, Lindsay. Thanks, everyone. Again, thanks to Melissa, Shannon, and Connie for sharing your insights today. We'll now turn to our audience. Jeremy, what questions do we have in the chat? There are no questions in the chat right at the moment. Sorry about that. I had a question directly sent to me. Should I respond to that? Go ahead and read the question and then do so. Alina, I don't know if I'm saying your name right, she had asked, do I apply to the fund every year to continue to offer free attendance? And we do. Parker and our Midwest Independent School Network, so it's a planning committee of multiple schools, apply every year with the goal of making it a free and accessible conference for other local independent schools. All right, well, I think we've covered a lot today. We've talked about scholarships, we've talked about venture fund grants, we've heard some fantastic advice from our panelists, thank you both. And when you're early in your career, launching a bold project like Connie, or if you're seeking professional growth like Melissa and Shanna, there's a place for you in the Amazing Case community. So remember, when applying for scholarships, focus on how attending will benefit both you and your institution, and don't be afraid to showcase your potential. And those applying for the venture fund, remember that collaboration, a clear budget, and aligning with Case and District 5's priorities are key to standing out. And a final quick reminder for everyone, venture fund applications are due on November 30th, and scholarship applications are due on December 13th. So I want to thank Melissa, Shanna, and Connie once again for sharing their insights, as well as Lindsay and Jen for helping with today's together. And to everyone here, please keep an eye out, we'll send helpful resources soon to support your applications. Thanks for joining us on today's together, and keep making an impact.

CASE District 5

scholarship applications

Venture Fund grants

professional growth

networking benefits

application guidance