Collaboration is (alphabetically), the second value of the Office of Advancement.  It is a word we use often and in many different contexts.  We have defined Collaboration as follows:  “We work together across disciplines to create shared understandings, reach joint solutions, develop common purposes, and achieve our common goals of positively impacting the Queen’s community and the world.”

Sounds simple, right? It seems intuitive, but I think that collaboration needs to be intentional and thoughtful. While we might all have the desire to collaborate, are we truly set up to operate in a collaborative manner?   A Harvard Business Review article states:  “What matters most to collaboration is not the personalities, attitudes, or behavioral styles of team members. Instead, what teams need to thrive are certain “enabling conditions.” In our own studies, we’ve found that three of Hackman’s conditions—a compelling direction, a strong structure, and a supportive context—continue to be particularly critical to team success.”

These thoughts were on my mind recently when I re-organized the Department of Alumni Relations & Annual Giving.  Our recent re-structuring was designed in part to create an organization that would break down silos and encourage collaboration between units. In particular, I focused on bringing philanthropy and alumni engagement together across all portfolios.  For example, our new unit responsible for young alumni is located with Annual Giving and Alumni Services and is titled Young Alumni Engagement & Giving.  This was not by accident.  Our team in Regional Strategy is increasingly partnering with colleagues in Development and will endeavour to create alumni engagement strategies that support the achievement of our fundraiser KPIs.  Homecoming 2020 was executed by a cross-functional team.

Teamwork is essential to organizational success – not just a good practice.  In today’s rapidly changing environment, it is a core organizational competence.

What is your commitment to collaboration?  What are some of the best examples of collaboration you have seen in Advancement? 


Validate our Advancement values

We are continuing our Validate phase of Advancement's Values.

Over the next few weeks, members of ALT will profile one of our five values in ALTogether Now.  Each newsletter will include a call to action for Advancement staff to share a story or stories about an Advancement employee or group you believe exemplifies the value of the week. At the end of these five weeks, in our next phase – Socialize – we will (with permission) share stories or quotes from the stories submitted.

 This week we are focusing on Collaboration. Please submit as many stories or examples as you would like through the survey provided.


Advancement onboarding training, Dec. 11

Have you been curious about what goes into onboarding a new colleague to Advancement? If so, we would love for you to join us on Dec. 11 at 11:00 am to learn all about it from Carla Ferreira Rodrigues. If you are interested, please let Kate Bearse know so she can send you the meeting invitation.


Advancement Regional Strategy Calendar

The Advancement Regional Strategy Calendar has been updated to make sharing and accessing travel data easier and to help Advancement collaborate more effectively in trip and event planning.

The new calendar lives in Outlook and has been developed as part of an Office 365 Group. All members of Advancement will be added to the group, and by end of day Nov. 17, everyone will be able to access the calendar in their own Outlook app (or online). The group is called GROUP-ADV-Regional Strategy Calendar.

While everyone can access the calendar, there is only a small number of designated editors who can make changes. Please do not make any changes to the calendar unless you are an editor. Development coordinators will be the designated editors for each faculty/unit, so please send your updates and event details to your development coordinator. Maddy Palmer will continue to add/edit events for units without a coordinator, or anyone with additional questions.

This document contains set- up details, in case anyone has difficulty accessing the calendar. Please let Maddy know if you’d like to set up additional training through Teams. The set-up document, as well as brief Business Rules, will be accessible to all in the previous Regional Strategy Calendar folder in Teams.

Once travel resumes, updates to the calendar will be requested on a bi-weekly basis, as they were before the pandemic. In the meantime, please send virtual events to your development coordinator to be added to the calendar whenever possible.

Thank you in advance for your help transitioning to the new calendar.


Advancement Holiday Extravaganza

Just a quick note to ask you to save the date for our annual Year-End Celebration. Even though we can't get together as we traditionally do, plans are underway for a fun remote celebration to mark the end of 2020. (And won't we all be happy to close the book on this year!?)

Leading up to the main event on Thursday, Dec. 10 between 11:00 am and noon, where we will present the Heney and Flynn Awards, there will be some fun activities to take part in (think family recipes, friendly games with colleagues, and so much more.)

One more thing…we are pleased to announce that we have the opportunity to hear from Adrianne Haslet on Thursday, Dec. 3 at 11:00 am. Adrianne is an athlete, internationally ranked ballroom dancer, and a Boston Marathon bombing survivor. We look forward to seeing you at the keynote address where Adrianne will discuss the importance of being able to pivot in the face of uncertainty, drawing on resilience and giving ourselves – and each other – grace when we are under pressure. As Adrianne says, “I refuse to be called a victim. A victim is defined by what happened in their life. I am a survivor, defined by how I live my life.” We promise this will be time well spent, full of inspiration and motivation.

Look out for some meeting invitations, we cannot wait to see you there!

Your Year-End Celebration Planning Committee,

Kate Bearse, Gage Benyon, Kymberly Cook, Maura Doyle, Natalie Minnema, Peggy Shanks and Michelle White


Jobs with Advancement

We need your recruitment help. Know great talent that would be a good addition to our team? If so, please promote the vacancies below with your networks and let’s find some amazing new team members.

Applications (including a cover letter and resume) must be submitted through CareerQ. For additional information on this posting, please reach out to either Carla, or the hiring manager for the position you are interested in.

 

Available Position:

POSITION UNIT AND DEPARTMENT CLOSING DATE GRADE
Executive Director, Alumni Strategy Alumni Relations and Annual Giving November 17, 2020 12

Fun fact

Domesday Book of Queen's University

The Domesday Book of Queen's University was established by Queen's Trustees in 1887, at the suggestion of Chancellor Sandford Fleming, to record the names of the university's benefactors and the main events in its history, which were to be written into the book every year.

The book was kept up to date by Professor James Williamson and his successors, librarian Lois Saunders and Professor Malcolm MacGillivray, until 1924, by which time the innovation of annual Principal's Reports (begun in 1916) rendered it unnecessary.

The book takes its name from the original Domesday Book, a survey of England taken by William the Conqueror in 1086. It is now kept in the Queen's Archives.

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