DON'T PANIC! A Panel Perspective on Adapting Advancement in COVID-19

Rachel Veron is a social scientist who directs fundraising analytics for LSU. Rachel has worked for 15 years on public policy issues ranging from poverty and child welfare to economic development and workforce to higher education advancement. In her role leading a small, start-up analytics shop at the LSU Foundation, she has focused on applying data and analysis to improving data quality, forecasting, and executive reporting and building new data products and evaluation frameworks for prospecting, fundraising, and stewardship programs. She loves to chat methods, data viz, and data ethics. Rachel lives in Baton Rouge and finds joy in family adventures with her daughter Carolyn and partner Evan.

A graduate of Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication, Jessica O’Connor began her tenure at the LSU Foundation after being in the communications industry for over 12 years.

As Senior Director of Prospect Development, Jessica works closely between Advancement Services and Development to provide robust pipeline insights, nimble prospect identification and hands-on portfolio management in pursuit of LSU's $1.5 billion Fierce for the Future campaign, the largest and most far-reaching advancement campaign ever initiated for higher education in the history of Louisiana.

Prior to her work with non-profit fundraising, Jessica enjoyed nearly a decade  with Louisiana Business Inc. --  local multi-media publisher -- where she lead the Audience Development team through a transformational review of industry practices to grow revenue sources and circulation, drawing on expertise in brand standards, concierge-model customer support, data aggregation and project management. 

When not emerged in lists and data, Jessica's right-brain-pursuits include calligraphy and hand lettering, advising the LSU Delta Gamma recruitment team and leadership development in the Junior League of Baton Rouge.