The Advancement Lab. November 5 and 6, 2026.
Omni Tempe Hotel at Arizona State University.
Twenty institutions. Forty senior leaders attending in pairs. A working session that designs the bridge from the next twelve months to 2035.
AI has raised the bar for every institution, closing the distance between what we promise and what we can prove. Alongside evolving revenue models, rising expectations for ROI, a shifting workforce and a new generation of supporters, the opportunity to modernize has never been clearer.
Advancement is the engine of institutional ambition, funding research, financial aid and the bold visions that every president champions. It deserves infrastructure worthy of that mandate.
Collect the dots. Connect the dots.
The advancement office of the next decade looks fundamentally different from the one that exists today. Not in its tools alone but in how it is organized, how it operates and how it leads inside the institution.
Advancement can no longer be optimized as a set of functional disciplines. It evolves as an enterprise capability that integrates engagement, intelligence, partnerships and capital in service of institutional strategy.
The advancement leaders who move first will shape the category. The rest will be reorganized by it.
The Advancement Lab will explore what becomes possible when three strengths turn into one advantage.
The biggest conversations on campus about AI, data infrastructure, workforce design and institutional transformation—are the ones where advancement has the most to offer. You sit closest to the community that speaks for the institution. You hold the data on alumni, donors, employers and the constituencies whose loyalty is the institution's most durable advantage. That makes advancement's voice strategic and increasingly essential to where the institution is headed.
This lab gives you the language, the framing and the artifacts to claim that seat with confidence—and lead the conversation.
The Lab is held at the Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU—a public-private partnership between Omni, Arizona State University and the City of Tempe, purpose-built on university land to host convenings like this one. Set at Mill Avenue and University Drive, it places the work inside one of the country's most active ecosystems for AI, advanced research and higher-education industry partnerships.
The Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU offers a purpose-built setting for university convenings, on a campus known for reimagining what higher education can be. A modern, sustainably designed hotel steps from ASU's Tempe campus and the energy of Mill Avenue, it pairs thoughtfully appointed meeting spaces with the ease of a single destination.
The advancement CEO or VP, and an innovation partner from within the organization who can translate strategy into operating reality. A chief of staff, a chief data or technology officer, a head of strategy or a head of digital engagement.
Decisions of this scope are made together. Attendance is by invitation, and the room is composed for strategic depth and a concentration of leaders equipped to act.
For institutions on a Fundmetric program. $2,500 per participant on a client team.
For institutions joining the room for the first time.
Travel and accommodation are not included. Our clients receive preferred pricing by design—a reflection of the partnership behind everything the Lab creates.
CEO, Fundmetric
Mark Hobbs is the CEO of Fundmetric and the author of the paper this convening is built on. He has spent the last decade arguing that advancement is not a fundraising function. It is an enterprise capability running on the wrong infrastructure. The Lab is where he introduces the new operating model that argument points to.
Fundmetric was selected for a six-month Google Canada Residency in Waterloo that accelerated its research on the donor journey. Mark has co-authored peer-reviewed work on machine learning in fundraising, including an IEEE paper on Machine Learning the Donor Journey, and his work is cited in textbooks on the subject. He sits on Canada's Digital Governance Council, the body setting national standards for the responsible architecture of digital systems.
He has been named one of Atlantic Canada's Top 50 Emerging Leaders and is a recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal for his contributions to Canadian entrepreneurship. Canada's national newspaper called him a "new tech luminary" for his work bringing modern data infrastructure into a non-tech sector.
VP Strategy and Operations, Fundmetric
Rachel Crosbie is the VP of Strategy and Operations at Fundmetric. She oversees client activities, business operations and talent management, and is the driving force behind scaling Fundmetric's data capture infrastructure and shaping the company's brand identity.
Dedicated service standards remain a core advantage of Fundmetric, influenced by Rachel's background in the hospitality industry. Rachel brings a unique perspective to her role, emphasizing the importance of customer experience and creative problem-solving.
She is known for building a collaborative work culture that values individual growth, believing that supporting individuals in becoming the best versions of themselves leads to organizational success.
President and Co-Founder, The Napa Group
RJ Valentino is the President and Co-Founder of The Napa Group and the program designer and facilitator of Advancement 2035. He designs and runs the working sessions. For more than three decades he has been the consultant university and foundation presidents call when an institution is at an inflection point and the next move is not obvious. He works at the level where strategy, governance and people decisions intersect.
The Napa Group advises university and foundation presidents, corporate CEOs and senior leadership teams on the questions that do not fit cleanly inside a single function: organizational design, change management, executive transitions, board development, strategic talent. RJ bridges the for-profit and non-profit worlds, importing the operating disciplines of business into the institutions that need them.
He is the person in the room who makes peer leaders say the harder thing. Advancement 2035 needs that from someone the field already trusts.
Each institution sends two participants. The advancement CEO or SVP. An innovation partner from inside the organization who can translate strategy into operating reality. Attendance is by invitation. Selection is built for strategic peer density, not logo diversity.