I am ashamed to say it has taken the events of the last several weeks for me to finally roll up my sleeves, take a long hard look, and actually begin doing the work needed to understand my place and how I personally contribute to, benefit from, and tolerate racism and systemic oppression. I am committed to listening, reading, following, sharing, and supporting the voices that need to be heard. In the last two weeks in Advancement, we were provided with several opportunities to do just that. I want to share some of those opportunities again in case you missed them or want to read or listen a second time.
Both the Principal and Provost have issued statements on anti-racism. In the Principal’s statement on anti-racism protests in the United States and Canada we are encouraged to “take time to reflect on our own experiences and biases, and learn about and understand how to challenge racism in all its forms.” The Provost’s statement on Confronting Anti-Black Racism at Queen’s speaks to his experience and reflection as well as his commitment to address systemic barriers that exist throughout the university, stating, “When we see racism we must name it and bring it into the light. We must continue to fight for a Queen’s that is open, equitable, and inclusive for all.”
Advancement Enhancement Kick-Off Keynote Address with Mike Young from The Empathy Institute on June 4 was so good that it’s worth a second listen.
There was a virtual town hall event on June 5 called Kingston: Let’s Talk Race that was recorded and included a number of panelists including our colleague, Tianna Edwards, Officer Direct Response Appeals. Tianna was also interviewed on Ontario Morning from CBC Radio with Wei Chen on June 3 where she discussed her experience that she recounts in her essay Being Black in Kingston on her blog, Keep up with Kingston. This is not the first time Tianna has written about race in Kingston. She contributed to the human rights blog, Together We Are, last spring in How Representation can Fuel Change.
The Queen’s Black Alumni Chapter released a statement to the Queen’s alumni community providing a number of action items for allies and non-Black folks, including the need to be intentional and act, listen, use your voice, get involved, and never give up. You can read the full statement here.
On June 10, the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science streamed a conversation about racism in academia and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) between Dean Kevin Deluzio and Dr. Aba Mortley, Sc’02, an entrepreneur and Queen’s alumna. Watch Dialogue and Reflection. The conversation was followed by a panel discussion featuring students, staff, and faculty to develop a framework for supporting initiatives to take action against systemic racism at Queen’s. This will be posted to the FEAS website next week.
Kelly Cox, Advancement’s Administrative Assistant in Events and Communications created a list of resources to continue to educate ourselves on anti-racism and ways we can support black lives today and every day. Another great resource is the Anti-racism resources: A Living Library, created by GenW, which was founded by two Queen’s grads, Amy Yu, Artsci’18, and Hana Chaudhury, Com’18.
I would also like to encourage anyone who has ideas about the things Advancement can do to drive anti-racism, equity, and inclusion forward to let me know. Let’s not be silent.
2020-21 Unit Objectives
At our staff meeting in March, Karen presented Advancement’s five-year strategic plan, Forward, Together, which outlined the six strategic directions and provided details about the 2020-21 annual goals and objectives for Advancement. Read the presentation.
Drilling down further I can now share with you the finalized objectives for each unit. Across the five Advancement units there are a total of 38 annual objectives for 2020-21. The alignment with Forward, Together is indicated, in brackets, after each objective. ALT members will be visiting your team in the near future to present objectives in more detail.
Development
Fiscal Year 2020-21 fundraising projection of $70-90 million for university-wide units and faculty/program Advancement teams (Forward, Together, 4).
Plan and execute a university-wide, campaign-style priority setting process to integrate faculty priorities with university-wide strategic directions informed by the Principal's Conversation on or before April 30, 2021 (Forward, Together, 1-2).
Develop an annual major gift fundraising program (more than multi-year campaign objectives) on or before Dec. 15, 2020 (Forward, Together, 4-2).
Work with university leaders, volunteers, and dedicated staff on principal gift philanthropy (gifts of $1 million or greater) to generate 70 per cent of annual private revenue. Create identified pool of PG-level prospects and donors, accessible to all partners, and develop concierge style approach (Forward, Together, 4-4).
Assess and recommend appropriate investment in the growth of the planned giving program, look at ways to build the endowment through personal legacy giving by October 2020. Full execution to be underway by April 1, 2021. Engage university leadership in a discussion about establishing a definitive strategy/projection for the endowment (Forward, Together, 4-4).
Implement revised performance metrics on May 1, 2020 and to help drive major donor philanthropy, donor retention (stewardship), and new donors (acquisition) (Forward, Together, 4-7).
Audit the prospect assignment process by June 1, 2020 and recommend improvements to increase efficiency and effectiveness for a more donor-centered and co-ordinated approach to prospect assignment by September 1, 2020 and evaluate over the course of the FY with a final assessment of the approach in May 2021(Forward, Together, 4-9).
Work with Advancement Communications, Marketing, Events, and Donor Relations unit to reinforce the value of Advancement with the Senior Leadership Team, key campus partners, and world-wide alumni population.
Alumni Relations and Annual Giving
Develop a multi-year strategy for alumni programming based on the external review to be completed by June 2020 (Forward, Together, 3-9).
Grow an international alumni engagement strategy that is not location dependent with a multi-year plan developed by Oct. 31, 2020 and three to five program deliverables identified and delivered by April 30, 2021, including full launch of Global Alumni Ambassadors program (Forward, Together, 3-5).
Develop a strategy for and execute a virtual homecoming in October 2020 and expand experiential events for stakeholders throughout fiscal 2020-21 (Forward, Together, 5-8, 3-3).
Raise $4.25 million in annual donations with a focus on LAG acquisition by April 30, 2021 and develop and execute personalized AG stewardship strategy (Forward, Together, 3-7, 3-8).
Create business rules and function to support opening the prospect module for the LAG program by June 30, 2020, implementation and testing by April 30, 2021 (Forward, Together, 3-7, 3-8).
Develop a plan for university-wide virtual and non event-specific alumni engagement (participation and volunteerism) to respond to COVID-19, support Advancement strategic priority 3.3, and align with the alumni programming review by August 31, 2020 and implement ongoing through April 30, 2021 (Forward, Together, 5-8).
Establish and embed customer service standards into the work of Alumni Relations, ongoing as of May 1, 2020 (Forward, Together, 3).
Develop business rules and infrastructure for AG Metrics and LAG Scorecard with a focus on LAG acquisition by August 31, 2020. Integrate and launch AG Metrics and LAG Scorecard to Insights Advancement by April 30, 2021 (Forward, Together, 3-7).
Create a strategy to value all alumni (even those who do not participate in formal ways). Identify three to five pilot initiatives (Forward, Together, 3-1).
Communications, Marketing, Events, and Donor Relations
Implement first year tactics of three-year Advancement communications plan by Q4 (Forward, Together, 1-3, 1-6, 5-1, 5-2, 5-5, 5-6).
Develop refreshed brand infrastructure, narrative, and awareness campaign by Q3 (Forward, Together 1-1, 5-4, 5-7).
Review and renew websites by Q3 (Forward, Together 1-3, 1-6).
Redesign Queen’s Alumni Review magazine and website to align with overall brand by Q3 (Forward, Together, 1-3, 1-6).
Implement approved CMEDR unit structure by Q2 (Forward, Together, 2-1, 2-3, 2-4).
Develop virtual events strategy and plan by Q2 (Forward, Together, 1-6, 3-1, 3-3).
Implement email/events software upgrade processes by Q4 (Forward, Together, 2-6, 2-8, 3-3, 5-2, 5-8).
Begin developing Advancement digital marketing strategy by Q4 (Forward, Together, 2-1, 2-6, 5-2, 5-3, 5-7).
Retain appropriate digital-first strategies coming out of COVID-19 crisis by Q4.
Advancement Services
Implement the iModules mass communication system, including the communication preference center, by December 2020. Commence primary implementation of the iModules event system by end of fiscal with launch by June 2021 (Forward, Together, 2-6, 2-8, 5-2).
Increase use of business analytics to improve all aspects of business decision making and operational effectiveness by end of fiscal. Increase usage across Advancement by 30 per cent. Focus on dashboard development for strategic initiatives. Explore opportunities for skillset recognition, training, onboarding, and feedback mechanisms (Forward, Together, 2-1, 2-6, 2-8, 5-2).
Develop infrastructure to report on and share data dimensions with Advancement by the end of the fiscal year. Assign dimensions to key data sets. Migrate Data Quality Library to an accessible tool for users. Create an overall data quality assessment dashboard (Forward, Together, 2-6, 2-8).
Initiate a complementary strategy of enhanced principal gift fundraising support and the development of additional tools and service that support more self-service prospect research by end of fiscal. Implement Automated Profile Report. Expand and deliver expanded Pipeline Builder Report. Develop and publish PMATS-related training and visualizations to support self-serve model (Forward, Together, 2-1, 2-6, 2-8, 4-1, 4-4, 4-7).
Enhance business processes in Gift Services by investigating paperless office functions, explore innovations in gift processing through Payment Vendor change, initiate Donor Advised Fund project, explore conversion of monthly reporting to Tableau and conduct gift/grant/research contract analysis and publish related educational materials for Advancement users by end of fiscal (Forward, Together, 2-1, 2-6, 2-8).
VP Office
In addition to the continued refinement and rollout of the talent acquisition and onboarding programs, identify and implement ways to promote Queen’s Advancement brand as a great place to work (i.e. LinkedIn profile, EVP, employee brand ambassadors – elevator pitch) to attract and hire passionate, ambitious, and diverse individuals that within one year are meeting or exceeding their on-the-job performance expectations (Forward, Together, 2-2).
Focus on Advancement manager effectiveness, initiate activities with management team to determine core management responsibilities/expectations for October 2020, create a structured management/leadership learning and development framework by February 2021, implement DiSC 363 assessments in April 2021 (Forward, Together, 2-2, 2-5).
Align longer-term planning and budget, for both the Multi-Year Budget Submission and Annual Budget Load, involving managers, to ensure adequate resources to achieve objectives, transparency and regular review by June 2020. Develop a process for identifying opportunities for innovation/investments by October 2020 (Forward, Together, 2-4, 2-5).
Use the Management Team Meetings as an opportunity for managers to share unit/department X-matrices by June 30, 2020 and to ensure regular quarterly updates on progress. Develop a reporting mechanism for annual objectives and performance measures for Q2 reporting (Forward, Together, 2-5).
Finalize business continuity plan by May 30 (Forward, Together, 2).
Work with the Advancing IDEAS committee to reinvent Advancement Enhancement Day for June 2020 (Forward, Together, 2).
Review and revise Advancement's space plans, in light of COVID-19, to consider different types of space allocations/layout and develop Advancement's approach for re-entry to campus, considering physical distancing and work arrangements, by August 30, 2020. Work with the university planner to have a feasibility study completed for Summerhill and Old Meds buildings to develop the five-year space plan and budget (Forward, Together, 3-12).
Advancement Enhancement Month Continues
Advancement Enhancement Month continues this week. If you haven't already registered, don't forget. You can check out the activities on the Advancement Enhancement Month calendar.
Just a reminder this coming week is the Baking Challenge. All instructions for posting photos and judging are under the Advancement Enhancement Month channel on Teams. Look for the "Together at Home" pillar.
A big thank you to everyone that has donated to our charity of choice, Lionhearts Inc. Advancement is very close to our goal of providing 300 meals. If you haven't yet donated, please consider helping Advancement meet our goal!
Advancement Employee Resource
Advancement Human Resources continues to develop and refine our Onboarding Program for new employees. One of the tools they developed is a digitized resource document and it occurred to us that all employees, not just new ones, might benefit from this resources. Take a look for yourself.
Painting a Picture of What Strong Management Looks Like
The Advancement Management Team is working on painting a picture of what strong management looks like and we would like your input.
Think of the best manager you’ve ever had. Visualize, and consider the actions and behaviors that made them great. Maybe consider actions and behaviors across various managers. In 100 words or less, describe manager-specific actions and behaviours that have the greatest impact on retention, engagement, and effectiveness. Submit your thoughts. The link will be open until the end of June.
Alumni Relations Review Complete
The external review of Alumni Relations programming has been completed by Chris Vlahos of The Offord Group. The report has been provided to Alumni Relations and Annual Giving staff and will be circulated more broadly in the upcoming weeks. If you have any questions, please contact Leigh Kalin.
Jobs with Advancement
We need your recruitment help. Know great talent that would be a good addition to our team? If so, please promote the vacancy below with your networks and let’s find some amazing new team members.
Applications (including a cover letter and résumé) must be submitted through CareerQ. For additional information on this posting, please reach out to either Katelyn, Carla, or the hiring manager for the position you are interested in.
Available Position:
| POSITION | UNIT AND DEPARTMENT | CLOSING DATE | GRADE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Designer | Communications, Marketing, Events and Donor Relations | June 17, 2020 | 7 |
Fun Fact
Within Reach
At a recent meeting some of our Advancement colleagues played a game where they were asked to quickly grab something that was within reach of their home office spaces. In a funny coincidence, both Karen and Liz had fascinators within reach!