About ASC

A message from the co-founders

Philanthropic proposal writing reaches every corner of campus life—creating new and more equitable educational opportunities for students, laying the groundwork for state-of-the-art facilities, and paving the way for faculty endowments that will catalyze research breakthroughs for generations to come.

For all its relevance and impact, philanthropic proposal writing is a niche communications field in higher education. Those of us in the field can sometimes feel like we’re going it alone—but in fact we’re in excellent company, with hundreds of colleagues engaged in similar work at peer institutions nationally and internationally.

That’s why colleagues at UC Davis and the University of Miami came together to create the Advancement Strategic Communicators (ASC) Network: a community for major gift philanthropy writers across the country to share information, resources and solutions that move all of our collective work forward. Members work in a variety of higher ed communications roles, but most share a common focus on developing philanthropic proposals and other materials to advance fundraising in higher education.

Since launching the ASC Network in 2022, we’ve grown rapidly from a small group of about 25 interested colleagues into a robust network of 175+ members representing more than 95 colleges and universities in 37 states. We meet quarterly to exchange ideas, mutual challenges and best practices—and together, we’re expanding in new directions all the time!

We're so glad to be in this together.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Wood

Senior Director of Proposal Resources
Development and Alumni Relations
University of Miami

Laurel Ode-Schneider

Director of Proposal Services
Development and Alumni Relations
UC Davis