What is advancement?

Advancement brings together alumni relations, communications, development, and marketing to build strategic relationships between campus partners and donors, friends, and the broader UW—Madison community to fuel philanthropic support for campus initiatives. The L&S SCA team works closely with our partners at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association (WFAA) on these efforts.

L&S Office of Strategic Communications & Advancement (SCA)
South Hall
www.ls.wisc.edu
Main functions: assist College and its units with communications and advancement needs.

UW Foundation
1848 University Avenue
www.supportuw.org
Main functions: alumni relations and engagement (build affinity, pride, and community with UW-Madison alumni, friends, and business partners), and development (secure philanthropic and volunteer support for UW). WFAA also manages funds for the university.

Campus Resources

Use these tools to learn more about advancement, and to include them in your strategic planning.

Advancement 101: An Introduction to Annual Giving in L&S
Advancement 101 is an online Canvas course that introduces L&S advancement and communications staff to the College’s efforts to engage and steward alumni and friends in order to build awareness and support for the College’s programs, faculty, and students. Please contact Scott Carter (scott.carter@wisc.edu) for access.

L&S Communications & Advancement Community of Practice
The L&S Communications & Advancement Community of Practice, organized by the Strategic Communications & Advancement team, provides professional development and fellowship opportunities for L&S staff and faculty who support communications, marketing, fundraising and stewardship efforts for their units. We hold regular in-person meetings featuring interactive presentations on topics of widespread interest, plus informal gatherings to get to know one another and share work experiences. 

The Community of Practice is co-led by Advancement Manager, Scott Carter (scott.carter@wisc.edu), and Editor and Content Strategist, Alli Watters (allison.watters@wisc.edu). Please contact the co-leaders with questions, concerns or suggestions for future meeting topics. 

L&S Communicators Google Group
If you are involved in communications and advancement efforts for your department or program, join the WiscList for L&S. Reach out to Scott Carter (scott.carter@wisc.edu) to request access.

Check out Advancement Resources
This platform is managed and updated by the WFAA, and contains extensive tools on stewardship, annual giving, events, and more. Visit uwadvancement.org. If you do not have access to this platform, contact Scott Carter (scott.carter@wisc.edu).

Request a list of alumni contact information
Submit your list request here.

Campus Advancement Collaborative
A group of campus advancement staff members who meet monthly to discuss ongoing projects, to share strategies and resources, and to gather socially. Please contact Sarah Fuelleman (Advancement Manager, School of Education, sarah.fuelleman@wisc.edu) to join the conversation.

Design toolkit 
University Marketing offers visual graphics that embody the UW–Madison brand and provide a sense of fun and vibrancy to marketing materials. Use of these elements, textures, icons, and illustrations should be scaled appropriately to the nature of your project and its audience. For instance, recruitment materials for prospective students would benefit much more from these graphics compared to a formal annual report for stakeholders.

Marketing Automation (Eloqua)
The Marketing Automation Service provides UW-Madison with enterprise-class, enterprise-scale email communications capabilities. Whereas other email services support small-scale email communication between individuals (Office 365) and medium-scale “blast” emails to fixed lists of known individuals (Google Groups), the Marketing Automation Service provides the institution’s only large-scale, mass email communication solution. 

Third-Party Resources

Canva
An online design and publishing tool for creating social media posts, videos, thank you and greeting cards, and more. An excellent resource for creating impactful stewardship statements.

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE)
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is the global nonprofit association dedicated to educational advancement professionals—in alumni relations, communications, development, marketing, and advancement services—who share the goal of championing education to transform lives and society.

All UW–Madison employees receive a free membership to CASE that includes access to many of the organization’s resources.

RAISE blog (EverTrue)
A collection of curated content developed by EverTrue that celebrates innovative thinking in fundraising.

Gravyty blog
Another great resource for learning about trends, best practices, and news about advancement in higher education.