Takeaways from Apra-Illinois’ Fall Symposium 2025
Dear Diary,
On September 12, 2025, I attended Apra-Illinois’ Fall Symposium at DePaul University. For today’s Diary entry I want to share some takeaways from each session.
The morning started with refreshments and remarks from Apra-Illinois’ Director of Marketing, Martha Ortinau Rowe. There was an introduction to the Apra-Illinois board, and well wishes to the board president, Peter Kotowski, whose term was ending at the end of 2025.
The first session was called Where Insight Meets Impact: Turning Dashboards into Dollars, presented by Ron Eisenstein, Senior Engineering Manager for EverTrue, a fundraising software company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Where Insight Meets Impact: Turning Dashboards into Dollars was focused on how to create great dashboards that generate gifts, blend designs, functionality, and include the human touch.
Key takeaways: Dashboards should be simple; You should provide a summary; Key data points should be at the top.
- Components of a great dashboard:
Curiosity (do you want to know the “why”?)
Creativity (apply creative solutions)
Analytics (a number means nothing without context, so you need to make comparisons such as FY25 versus FY24)
Clever
- Example of a dashboard: Top prospects contacted versus not contacted (Author Note: Consider what a top prospect means – this is something to define)
- Be mindful of how color communicates and is intentional.
The second session, From Ancestors to Assets: Unearthing Connections Through Genealogy and Prospect Research, was presented by Rachel Hammond, a Donor Research Coordinator at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. Rachel’s session showed how tracing family history can reveal critical relational insights, uncover hidden philanthropic patterns, and strengthen the overall quality of donor intelligence.
Key takeaways: Genealogical research can be done by anyone (fundraiser and researcher) because we’re all gathering relational information but utilizing it in different ways.
- What can be considered as valuable information?
Family relationships; Inheritance patterns and estate transfers; Martial and household connections; Obitual and death records; Census, voter information, family foundation, alumni, and educational lineage; Immigration
- Tips, Tricks, and Tools?
Start with the Obituary
Visualize family structures (build a family tree)
Interpret, don’t just collect information
Track key life events
- Some Tools?
Familysearch.org (free)
Usgenweb.org (The USGenWeb Project) (free)
Access Genealogy (free)
The third session was Portfolios in Different Area Codes: Building a Location-Focused Approach to Assessing Capacity from Real Estate presented by Lee May, an Associate Director, Research with University of Chicago Advancement. This presentation articulated why organizations should factor differences in location, specifically local or regional real estate markets, into how capacity is assessed from real estate value.
Key takeaways: Values differ greatly from market to market.
- Example – A home valued at $1 million in Boston does not equal a $1 million home in Jackson, Michigan
These owners probably don’t feel the same about their wealth
Most likely they have different approaches to philanthropy
- Chicago market is competitive with New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, DC, and Miami
- Total Value of Market – long term indicator of stability
Captures value and scale
Less volatile than sale prices or median value alone
Speaks to larger economy, job market, infrastructure, etc.
The presenter concluded with how the team finalized a new method of property valuation based on 5% modifier. For example, a $1.08M (assessed value) home in Chicago calculated at 5% would indicate that the prospect has $54K capacity and in turn would fall within the $50K-$99.9K capacity range.
(Author Note: Please remember that property value should not be the single decision maker for your capacity analysis. If it is the sole asset being analyzed, please indicate that to your fundraiser and your research.)
The final session was Alumni Engagement Scores: A Kellogg Case Study presented by Liam Sexton, a Senior Business Analyst on the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management's Advancement Analytics team. Liam talked through the alumni engagement model scoring process he has been working on for the last two years. The process measures the level of engagement among Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management alumni. This score sums engagement levels along many different datapoints, producing a single engagement metric which can be used to identify an alumni's perceived level of engagement with the school.
Key takeaways:
- Identifying the problem
No models existed to measure alumni engagement, which can help gauge how they feel about the organization
- Project Goal
Model scores are meant to give an estimation of an alum’s previous engagement to gauge their likelihood of performing volunteer efforts on behalf of the organization
- These scores will be used to identify
The most engaged alumni in a region or industry (great starting point for finding speakers events hosts, potential regional committee members, etc.)
Alumni whose engagement level is “warm” (Help engagement officers locate alumni to contact and provide ways for them to get more engaged with Kellogg)
(Author Note: This is a great model to create for your organization, especially if you have an analytics specialist.)
In between the full day of speakers and learnings there were breaks, a wonderful lunch, and a breakout session. Final remarks were made by Martha, and then the Symposium was adjourned. It was a great and enriching day.
Diary Reader, I hope this recap of the Symposium has given you a lot to think about and review. Professional development is a critical part of growth in any career path, and an experience that I consider to be personal and essential.
Many thanks to Apra-Illinois and the presenters for sharing their knowledge and experiences.
Until next time,
October 15th!
