We recently caught up with Julie Donahue from Tower Hill School to talk about her record-shattering Giving Days, and how she turned three separate traditions into major revenue drivers for the school.
Discover AI Summary
• Reimagining existing school traditions for fundraising: Julie boosted Founders Day by letting donors give shout-outs to staff and transformed Field Day into a competitive challenge, showing how creativity can drastically increase giving.
• Optimizing Giving Days for maximum impact: Learn how small tweaks to messaging and design strategy for established campaigns like Giving Tuesday can lead to significantly increased returns, proving that continuous improvement is key.
• Valuing long-term donor loyalty: Julie's next big project is building a Loyalty Society to recognize consistent, multi-decade donors, highlighting the importance of stewardship beyond just gift size.
• Infusing creativity into fundraising: Discover how Julie injects digital, print, and experiential design expertise to make giving truly impactful and resonate with constituents, moving beyond traditional asks.
• Achieving incredible growth from established events: See how Tower Hill School saw a 500% increase in fundraising for their Field Day and significant gains for Founders Day under Julie's leadership, proving that innovation can revive legacy traditions.
“Giving Days are my jawn. If you let me, I’ll turn them into your biggest fundraising flex.”
— Julie Donohue, Director of Annual Giving, Tower Hill School
We recently caught up with Julie to talk about her record-shattering Giving Days, and how she turned three separate traditions into major revenue drivers for the school.
Julie is a talented professional who excels in designing engaging ways for constituents to understand the impact of giving. Her expertise in digital, print, and experiential design has garnered recognition, with designs featured in AGN's "best of" sample library. Notably, she founded the University of Delaware's successful giving day, achieving remarkable growth and fundraising success. Now, Julie continues to make a positive impact on the Annual Fund program at Tower Hill School.
Before Julie joined Tower Hill, their Founders Day Giving campaign brought in $138K at most. Under her leadership, that number climbed to $157K. Hiller Heroes Founders Day allows donors to celebrate faculty and staff through heartfelt shout-outs, giving them a rewarding sense of giving back and gratitude. A more community-driven twist? Yes. More dollars? Also yes.
Tower Hill’s Field Day—a century-old tradition—used to raise around $30K. Julie helped elevate it into the competitive, spirit-fueled giving challenge between Green vs. White teams. This year, they raised a whopping $150K. That’s a 500% increase and proof that legacy can meet innovation and still bring in serious results.
Giving Tuesday was already a fixture, but Julie saw more potential. She optimized the messaging and design strategy to push results further, helping significantly increase returns in just a few short years.
Julie’s next mission? Building out the school’s first-ever Loyalty Society. After noticing multi-decade donors weren’t being meaningfully recognized, she’s determined to design a stewardship program that honors consistency just as much as size of gift. Her vision: “Let’s make loyalty feel legendary.”
Julie’s ability to inject creativity, storytelling, and strategy into everyday fundraising is what makes her a powerhouse in advancement. From leading three giving days to launching a Loyalty Society, she’s turning intention into impact, one initiative at a time.
Want to follow Julie’s work or connect with her? Here’s her LinkedIn.
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“Anybody can do data entry. But that doesn’t mean anyone will do it correctly.”
— Amelia Ketzle, Director of Records & Data Management, Southern Illinois University Foundation
We recently caught up with Amelia to talk about her mission to restore data quality and how she’s advocating for the unsung heroes in advancement operations.
Amelia has been with SIU for the last two decades. From gift processing to data analytics, her well-rounded experience enables her to comprehend the IT needs of colleagues in higher education fundraising and alumni relations. Amelia excels in delivering exceptional reports and software solutions to drive their success.
When Amelia stepped into her current role, she inherited a database where data integrity functions had not had the attention they deserved for some time. While not the flashiest of projects, she rolled up her sleeves and worked to restore confidence in the quality, consistency, and integrity of the Foundation’s data for the past two years. Today, thanks to her persistence, the database is on its way to once again being a trusted source powering outreach, fundraising, and engagement.
Amelia’s biggest goal? Ensuring her team gets the recognition (and compensation) they deserve. Many of her colleagues work in roles that are essential but often overlooked - data entry, backend management, and admin operations. Amelia has added her voice to advocate for upgrades, working with SIU Foundation's leadership team to successfully upgrade pay for some of SIU’s lowest-paid team members. She’s on a mission to make sure good people don’t have to leave just to grow.
SIU Foundation is actively exploring AI, and Amelia's team is right in the thick of it. From experimenting with Microsoft Copilot to streamlining tedious data tasks, she and her team are pushing themselves to find everyday efficiencies. The approach is pragmatic: AI isn’t a threat - it’s a tool, and the key is learning how to use it well.
Amelia’s vision is simple but powerful: make data work more visible, valued, and fairly rewarded. As the Foundation embraces AI and digital tools, she’s focused on helping her team grow with it - and making sure no one gets left behind.
Want to connect with Amelia?
#TheOG50: The one with Amelia Ketzle
We recently caught up with Amelia Ketzle from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale to talk about her mission to restore data quality and how she’s advocating for the unsung heroes in advancement operations.
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“I work with great people. That’s what makes this job easier.”
— Joe Volin, Associate Vice President for Constituent Engagement, Illinois Tech
We recently caught up with Joe to talk about his work on alumni engagement, how he's using AI to scale relationships, and why sometimes, the best strategy is just listening.
When we first recognized Joe as part of the original 50 Under 50 list, he was already making waves at Illinois Tech. Today, as Associate VP for Constituent Engagement, he continues to build meaningful connections between the university and its alumni - but with a much bigger toolbox.
Joe now leads a team of nine and oversees alumni engagement, annual giving, boards of advisors, and the Mies van der Rohe Society. But beyond the titles and org charts, what really drives Joe? “I work with great people who are passionate about what they do. That’s what keeps me going,” he says.
Joe led the transition from their previous alumni platform to Illinois Tech Connect, powered by Almabase. The change wasn’t just a software swap - it was a total reimagining of how alumni connect with their alma mater.
With a sharp focus on user experience, Joe’s team merged the engagement platform with their alumni database and even extended it to support mentoring. The result? An increase from ~2,000 active users to nearly 4,000 engaged alumni - and a new way to define and measure engagement meaningfully.
Ahead of the curve, Illinois Tech became one of the first to adopt Givzey’s virtual engagement officer, Scarlet. The adoption of Scarlet was led by Susan Lewers. Since October, Scarlett has been managing a portfolio of 1,000 alumni - digesting emails, tracking interactions, and driving outreach. Joe credits Scarlet with helping do more with the same resources and sees AI as a core part of future advancement strategy.
Joe’s not just about gut feel - he’s got the reports to back it up. Following an all-alumni survey, Illinois Tech now knows their most active volunteers are from the 90s and 2000s, while their most generous donors are from the 70s and 80s. These insights have helped refine engagement strategies and personalize outreach based on where alumni are in their life journey.
With a strong, cross-functional team and data-led strategies, Joe’s eyes are set on deepening engagement across decades, expanding mentorship, and unlocking more ways for alumni to feel seen and valued - even as the world shifts toward AI and automation.
Want to connect with Joe?
#TheOG50: The one with Joe Volin
We recently caught up with Joe Volin from Illinois Institute of Technology to talk about his work on alumni engagement, how he's using AI to scale relationships, and why sometimes, the best strategy is just listening.
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