2026 Board Professionals Conference: Schedule

Board professionals are essential partners in advancing institutional fundraising and ensuring board members understand the fundamentals of endowment management. This session will outline a clear framework for:

• Why board member participation in fundraising matters.
• How to establish realistic and meaningful giving expectations.
• How to facilitate fundraising initiatives and stewardship activities.

Participants will also gain a stronger grasp of endowment structures, oversight responsibilities, and key terminology, equipping them to accurately capture critical discussions and action items in board and committee meeting minutes. Attendees will leave with practical tools and a concise reference guide designed to strengthen their ability to support boards in these vital areas.

Governance as a concept is often misunderstood or unclear to trustees, administrators, and members of our institutional communities. This session will provide a practical set of four questions that help to demystify governance. By asking these four questions, boards can create effective governance-level discussions that advance the work of their institutions.

Hear from two board professionals who have served through the good and bad times for a total of 50 years. Mistakes made by board professionals, and the leaders they serve, often yield the most valuable lessons throughout the course of a career. Learn how to add these experiences to your toolkit and have them strengthen your skill set rather than undermine it.

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Meaningful engagement extends beyond the board’s time together in formal meetings. This session will offer proven, successful strategies to engage board members between meetings. From providing opportunities to build key competencies for board service, learning more about niche areas of the institution, and building relationships through strategic social opportunities, board members will go from feeling disconnected to fully immersed. Presenters may utilize the University of Central Florida Foundation’s Board Enrichment Program, implemented in 2023, as a key example and “case study.”

This session will focus on effective strategies for recruiting new board members to serve on university-affiliated foundations. With increasing expectations for board performance and strategic oversight, it is critical to recruit individuals who bring specific skill sets, professional expertise, philanthropic capacity, and regional representation that align with the foundation’s mission and institutional priorities. The presentation will outline methods for assessing board composition needs, identifying gaps, building candidate pipelines, and engaging prospective members through a structured and intentional recruitment process.

Explore an updated approach to onboarding that sends new board members to “regent school.” In this session, board professionals from the University of Minnesota System will present how they organized an onboarding curriculum into several “courses” that provide self-paced, online content for board members. Using a flipped model, this “homework” is reviewed in advance before focused meetings that are guided by the board members’ questions. You’ll learn how the board professionals developed new content and leveraged existing presentations to create each course module.

What makes an effective committee, and how can board professionals help facilitate that process? This panel discussion will highlight the essential elements of effective committees: the right people, in the right roles, focused on the right priorities. Experienced board professionals will share how to guide trustees and regents through the process of creating and sustaining successful and effective committees that advance the work of their boards.

In today’s climate of lean resources and expanding responsibilities, board professionals are often tasked with juggling multiple roles across their institutions. With competing deadlines, shifting priorities, and limited time, how can they effectively manage the demands of the boardroom alongside their many other duties? Together, we will explore tactics to make it all happen and remain the magicians that board professionals are every day.

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You’ve crafted a strategic plan, but the real challenge is bringing that vision to life. Whether you’re part of a foundation or an institution, this session will help you bridge the gap between planning and execution. Discover how to translate your strategic plan into a clear, actionable strategy map that connects goals to measurable outcomes. Through practical frameworks, real-world examples, and interactive discussion, you’ll gain tools to prioritize initiatives, assign responsibilities, and track progress effectively. Leave with a roadmap to activate your strategy with clarity, accountability, and confidence.

Boards can sometimes be distracted by flashy headlines or the hot news of the day. In this session, the University of Central Florida Foundation will share how the foundation adopted a “gold standard” model, which outlines key metrics related to strong governance practices, board composition, engagement, and philanthropy. The purpose of the program is to drive the aggregate success of the board, assisting board members in effectively “rowing in the same direction.” Individual board members have a clear understanding and peer accountability to achieve “gold” in the aggregate weighting system. A simple scoring system provides bronze, silver, and gold achievement status at the end of the fiscal year.

Having a robust annual planning process helps to enable a board to be informed, transparent, engaged, and effective in exercising its responsibilities. This session will offer a framework for how the University of Minnesota System develops and uses an annual planning process that produces clear priorities, consequential agendas, and active learning sessions that advance the board’s work. The discussion will show how building an annual plan helps to create alignment between the board, president, and administration. All of this planning work helps equip boards to govern their institutions and engage in meetings that move their missions forward.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the landscape of higher education, governance. and administration. From streamlining workflows to enhancing strategic decision-making, AI offers powerful opportunities—but also introduces complex challenges around data privacy, academic integrity, and ethical implementation. In this interactive 50-minute session, participants will explore three foundational skills for working effectively with AI:

• Prompt Engineering—Learn how to craft precise, effective prompts to get the most relevant and actionable responses.
• Iterative Improvement—Discover how to refine AI outputs through feedback and follow-up.
• Tool Integration—Explore ways to evaluate and choose AI tools—such as ChatGPT, AGB’s Board Bot™, or other platforms—based on task needs and institutional requirements.

Whether you’re new to AI or looking to deepen your understanding, this session will equip you with practical strategies to confidently engage with AI tools in your professional role.

Six topics in (less than) 60 minutes. How is that possible? Join us for a fast-paced, mostly entertaining, and always helpful session to get insights and actionable items around six key topics for board professionals, including 1) Committee Leadership Liftoff, 2) AI in the Boardroom, 3) Flipping Out, 4) Weed-Free Board Zones, 5) Crisis-Ready Boards, and 6) Boards Just Want to Have Fun.

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In this session, board professionals from the University of Minnesota System will share examples of timely, concise, and attention-grabbing communications that ensure board members are engaged and prepared for their governance role. Examples include “Know Before You Go” emails, “Things to Know” emails with highlights of upcoming board meetings, Board Briefs, and many more.

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Engaging a foundation board at a high level requires more than just well-run meetings or informative updates. It involves cultivating a shared sense of purpose, trust, and ownership. This presentation will explore practical strategies to foster meaningful engagement among board members serving on foundation boards. Engaged boards are more effective in advancing the foundation’s mission, supporting fundraising efforts, and providing strategic guidance. The session will cover key drivers of board engagement, including clear role expectations, purposeful meeting structures, mission-driven involvement, and ongoing relationship-building with institutional leadership. Participants will learn how to assess current engagement levels, identify areas for improvement, and implement actionable practices to enhance board participation, ownership, and impact. Presenters will share real-world examples and engagement frameworks to support foundation staff and board leaders in cultivating a committed and energized board culture.

When engaged correctly, former board members can be a valuable asset to your institution. During this session, University of Georgia board professionals will share their experience in designing and implementing an innovative engagement program for emeritus trustees. Their initiative includes a quarterly speaker series, a dedicated leadership committee, and tailored communications—along with other strategic touchpoints that foster meaningful ongoing involvement. Planning for the program began in 2019, and in 2023, the university hired a committed staff person to implement it. Since then, the focus has been on developing a “trustee for life” culture. Presenters will explore specific programming strategies, offer practical methods for tracking emeritus trustee engagement, and outline key considerations for setting appropriate boundaries.

Trustees don’t just need data; they need insight. This session will demonstrate how committee self-assessment data can be translated into actionable strategies that clarify performance, identify gaps, and guide governance planning. Participants will learn how to design meaningful assessment instruments, analyze results at both the committee and board level, and present findings in a way that leads to action—not just reflection.

During this session, participants will review the basics of Robert’s Rules and get answers to all the questions they were afraid to ask. Although board professionals do not serve as parliamentarians, they are expected to know and understand basic rules, motions, and procedures, which in turn help boards run orderly and efficient meetings. This session will be interactive, encouraging discussions and questions from participants.

Whether you’re planning for retirement, moving to a new position, or you’ve just won the lottery, the question of how to leave your successor with the tools and knowledge to succeed is one many of us may be pondering. Join us for a conversation about identifying and defining the critical subjects and details your successor will need to know and create a roadmap for building successful meetings and fulfilling the needs of the board. Each institution is different, and our panel of seasoned board professionals will add their perspectives to the toolkit we will be developing. You’ve built a legacy at your institution. Let’s work on how to preserve it once you’re off spending those millions!