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Hosting is often the most exciting part of a fundraising event like a gala. A room full of people, high energy, and months of work that finally comes together over a few hours. What guests see that evening is only a small part of everything that went into making it happen.

Nonprofits and foundations have been hosting galas for years, and they remain a popular choice because they bring people together, get them invested in a cause, and create a wonderful opportunity to raise funds. The format has changed over time, but the gala has hardly gone out of style.

Bringing hundreds of details together in one evening takes more than a few good ideas working well together. It takes planning, the kind that gives you the room to create an experience that feels true to your organization and leaves guests with something to remember. In this article, we’ll look at the different pieces that go into planning a fundraising gala and how thoughtful execution can turn a well-planned evening into lasting impressions and meaningful fundraising outcomes.

Planning your next fundraising gala? Check out our blog with 10+ Fundraising Gala Ideas for Nonprofits.

A step-by-step look at  planning a fundraising gala

A fundraising gala calls for more preparation than other types of fundraisers. Its success depends on careful preparation, thinking ahead, and having the right people involved from the start. Put together a planning committee, assign clear responsibilities, and agree on what you want the gala to accomplish before getting into the finer details. With that foundation in place, you can work through the event's practicalities one area at a time.

1. Setting your fundraising goal and budget

Before you start planning the evening, decide what you want the gala to accomplish. For a healthcare organization, that usually starts with the need behind the fundraiser. Is it new equipment, patient care, research, or a capital project? Once you know what you’re raising money for, put a number to it. This number becomes the target everything else works toward.

Now that you have the fundraising target, work backwards to decide how you’ll get there. Build the event budget around the net amount you want to raise. Factor in the cost of the venue, food, production, entertainment, and other expenses, and leave room for unexpected costs.

Look at what each part of the event will cost and what each revenue stream will contribute. That means considering ticket pricing alongside the cost per guest, and sponsorship income and auction revenue alongside the time and resources it takes to secure and manage them. Consider what you’re promising in return and what it will cost to deliver those benefits.

By the end, you should have a clear picture of what you want to raise, where it will come from, what the gala can afford to spend, and what should ultimately go to the cause.

2. Choosing the right date, format, and venue

These three decisions are easier when made together. The date affects who can attend, the format shapes how the evening will run, and the venue needs to support both.

Start with the people you most want in the room. Look at your key donors, sponsors, board members, and prospects, along with other events or busy periods that could compete for their attention. Once you have a few workable dates, think about what kind of evening makes sense for that audience and for the fundraising goal.

Then decide what you want guests to do during the evening. That will help you choose the format.

• Seated dinner: Works well when you want a more structured evening with speeches, patient stories, entertainment, and a focused giving moment.
• Cocktail reception: Gives guests more freedom to move around and network, and can work well for a shorter program.
• Dinner + reception: Lets you use the reception for networking and the dinner for the main program and fundraising.
• Hybrid or online elements: Can bring in people who cannot attend in person and give you more room for online bidding or giving.

You don't have to choose one format from start to finish, either. A reception can lead into dinner, a silent auction can open before the main program, or an online auction can run for several days around the event. The best combination depends on how much time you want to give to networking, entertainment, storytelling, and fundraising.

Choose a venue around this plan: think about how guests will move through the evening, where the fundraising moment will happen, and how easily the space can accommodate catering, AV, auctions, sponsors, and accessibility needs.

3. How to build your gala guest list

Once you have a fundraising target in mind,  think about who can help you get there. You need to bring together people who can support the cause, give, introduce others, or build a relationship with your organization.

Your list could include:

• Existing donors and major-gift prospects
• Corporate sponsors and their guests
• First-time attendees with giving potential
• Community and business leaders
• Patients, families, and others connected to your mission
• Board members and key supporters

This is also where your past events and donor data can help. As you build the list, look at who attended, who gave, who brought guests, and who has stayed engaged since the last event. You may find people worth inviting who aren't obvious from your current donor list.

The seating plan can make a lot of difference as well. Think about who could make useful introductions, who should sit near a hospital leader or board member, and who can make a first-time guest feel welcome. Table hosts can take responsibility for some of these conversations rather than leaving them to chance.

Finally, give your most important guests some attention before they arrive. Know who invited them, who will greet them, and who should make the introductions. The right person at the right table can do more for a relationship than a perfectly planned seating chart.

4. Develop a fundraising plan for your gala

 At this point, you should have a clear idea of the net amount you want to raise and the total revenue you can expect. Decide what you expect from tickets, sponsorships, auctions, direct giving, and any matching gifts, then look at what each one will cost you to run. Ask yourself these questions:

• Sponsorships: Who are the right partners to approach, what can you offer them, and how many sponsors can you realistically support?
• Ticket sales: Will tickets cover the cost of the evening, contribute to the fundraising goal, or mainly get people through the door?
• Auctions: Is your audience likely to bid, and can your team source and manage items that will generate enough revenue to justify the work?
• Direct giving: How much of the target should come from the main ask, and what will you do before the gala to prepare guests for it?
• Matching gifts: Can you secure a match, and where would it have the most impact during the evening?

Then look at the economics of each expense. What does it actually cost to put one guest in a seat? Add up the venue, food, rentals, production, and other per-guest expenses, then decide how much of that cost the ticket should cover. You may want tickets to cover the event itself while sponsorships and donations drive the actual fundraising, or you may choose a different mix based on your audience.

The same thinking applies to fundraising activities. An auction that brings in $30,000 still takes time and money to source items, manage bids, and run on the night. Factor in those costs, along with payment processing, event technology, marketing, and other fundraising expenses.

 It’s also prudent to pay attention to when the money comes in. Sponsorships may be committed months before the gala, while ticket revenue comes in gradually and some donations may arrive after the event. Keep a running view of what has been promised, invoiced, paid, and still outstanding.

When the gala is over, close the loop. Compare the original budget with what you actually spent and collected, reconcile tickets, sponsorships, auctions, and donations, and work out the final net amount raised.

5. Secure your sponsors, tickets, and auction items

Sponsorships

Build your sponsorship menu around the gala itself. Alongside the main sponsorship levels, look at the parts of the evening that have their own value, such as the Fund-A-Need, patient story, reception, dinner, live auction, or guest experience. Keep a few opportunities open so you can shape an offer around a strong prospect rather than forcing everyone into the same package.

This gives you more ways to match a prospect with something they genuinely want to support:

• Large sponsors: Offer a substantial part of the evening, such as the Fund-A-Need or a major program segment, with prominent recognition and premium seating.
• Mid-level sponsors: Package specific experiences such as the reception, dinner, entertainment, or auction.
• Smaller sponsors: Create accessible options around a table, dessert station, photo experience, or guest amenity for local businesses and newer supporters.

Tickets

Ticket sales can help shape the room you want. Look at your previous gala data for where guests came from, which ticket types sold, how many seats sponsors filled, and how many first-time attendees you brought in. Use that to decide what you offer this year.

• Offer individual tickets, two-person options, and table packages where they fit your audience. A small number of premium tables can work if there is preferred seating or another benefit worth paying for.
• Board members, sponsors, and loyal donors can host tables and invite people from their networks. This can be a useful way to bring prospective donors into the room for the first time.
• Give past attendees, donors, and sponsors an early registration window before opening tickets more widely. It gives you an early read on demand and gets some of the room filled early.
• If most of the early registrations are coming from existing donors, for example, shift the next round of promotion toward corporate contacts, patient families, alumni, or another audience you want at the gala.
• Keep some capacity available for major donors, sponsors, speakers, and other priority guests so you are not trying to find seats for them at the last minute.

Auction items

Use last year's bidding results to decide what you need this time. Look for categories that attracted strong bids and gaps in the catalog, then give your team specific categories to source.

• Ask past donors to contribute again when their previous items performed well.
• Make the request specific. A hotel is more likely to respond to “Would you donate a two-night stay with breakfast?” than a general request for an auction item.
• Combine smaller contributions into stronger packages when they work better together.
• Keep a few standout items for the live auction rather than spreading all your strongest lots across the catalog.

Keep a sourcing tracker

The tracker should tell the team what has been asked for, who owns the relationship, and what happens next. Keep fields for:

• Prospect and opportunity
• Specific ask and expected value
• Relationship owner
• Response or status
• Confirmed value
• Next action and owner
• Follow-up date

Update the tracker as people respond, and record both the commitment and the next step. It should leave you with a quick view of what is locked in, what is still up for grabs, and who needs to hear from you next.

6. Plan the  program

Build the evening around the moments that need to happen in a particular order. A healthcare gala might move from a welcome and patient story to dinner, auction, case for support, Fund-a-need, and closing, with the exact sequence shaped by the kind of response you want from guests.

Then work through the most important details: who speaks, how long each segment runs, when guests eat or move around, when the auction opens and closes, when the giving appeal happens, and how each transition is handled. Keep speeches short and put the strongest story close to the fundraising moment it supports.

The program also needs a production plan. Confirm scripts and talking points with speakers, give the AV team the final videos and presentations, prepare the auction and giving teams for their cues, and build a run-of-show that includes timings, transitions, responsibilities, and technical cues. Run through the program with the people involved before the event and have a backup for anything that could hold up the evening. The final plan should make it clear what happens, who owns it, what guests are doing at that point, and what needs to be ready before the next segment begins.

7. Managing gala registrations and promotions

Make registration easy for everyone. Keep the form short, make ticket and table options clear, support mobile registration and multiple payment methods, and collect the guest details you actually need.

Start promotion early across email, social media, your website, posters, partner networks, and direct outreach. Tailor the message to each audience and give board members, sponsors, and table hosts ready-to-share emails, graphics, and videos.

Build momentum with an event announcement, speaker or patient-story videos, sponsor spotlights, countdown posts, and timely registration reminders. Use a simple event hashtag consistently across social posts and event-day content.

Watch registration as it builds. See which audiences and channels are responding, follow up with people who have shown interest but haven't registered, and help sponsors or table hosts fill their seats. If you have an online auction, livestream, or digital giving option, promote those alongside the gala so people who cannot attend can still participate.

8. Prepare your team for event day

By event day, every part of the gala should have a clear plan. Run through the guest journey, logistics, program, fundraising, and technology with the team so everyone knows what happens at every stage.

Assign people to registration, seating, sponsors, auction and giving, speakers and emcees, food and beverages, entertainment, AV, and guest support. Keep a run-of-show with timings, contacts, vendor details, speaker cues, and backup plans. Your emcee should have the latest script, including sponsor acknowledgments, auction instructions, giving cues, and what to do if a segment runs over time. Entertainment should have a defined setup and teardown window so it does not interfere with the program.

Walk through the venue once more to check signage, check-in, seating, stage access, parking, food service, auction displays, payment points, restrooms, and accessibility. Make sure dietary requirements, step-free routes, accessible seating, and other guest needs are covered.

If the gala has a virtual audience, test the stream, audio, captions, slides, giving and auction links, and assign someone to manage online interaction. Finally, give the team a clear escalation plan. If the auction system stops working, a speaker is late, a guest needs assistance, or the program falls behind, people should know who makes the call and what the backup is. That keeps small problems from becoming visible to the whole room.

9. Follow up with guests and close the loop

Start with a timely thank-you. Send guests, donors, sponsors, volunteers, speakers, and partners a message that reflects their role in the evening rather than sending everyone the same note. Follow up separately on outstanding pledges, auction payments, sponsorship commitments, and promised introductions or next steps.

Keep the conversation going after the gala. Share event photos and videos, highlights from the evening, and early fundraising results through email and social media. For donors and sponsors, follow up with something more personal and show what their support will help fund. When you have a concrete update, share that to show what their contribution is making possible.

Then close the loop internally. Compare attendance, revenue, expenses, fundraising by source, auction performance, sponsor participation, and donor response against your original targets. Gather feedback from the team while the event is still fresh. Note what worked, what caused problems, which vendors or processes need changing, and what you would repeat next time. Keep those records with the event data so the next gala starts with a clear picture of what you already learned.

Common mistakes to avoid when hosting a fundraising gala

Keep these in mind as you work through the details:

• Relying on one big fundraising moment: Give guests several opportunities to give throughout the evening.
• One-size-fits-all sponsorships: Tailor packages to each sponsor and the relationship.
• Last-minute sourcing: Secure sponsors, auction items, speakers, and suppliers early on.
• Poor supplier communication: Use clear briefs, regular check-ins, and written confirmations.
• Complicated participation: Make registration, bidding, donations, and virtual access easy.
• Forgetting remote guests: Include online giving, auction access, and virtual participation where relevant.
• Unclear ownership: Assign a clear owner to every part of the event.
• Weak post-event follow-up: Thank supporters, follow up on commitments, and share results.
• Losing the lessons: Capture numbers, feedback, problems, and decisions while they’re fresh.

Fundraising gala checklist

There’s a lot to juggle as the gala gets closer, so we’ve put together a simple fundraising gala checklist to help your team keep track of it all. Add your own deadlines and owners, and use it as a shared document to keep everyone on the same page.

How Almabase can help you run a successful fundraising gala event

A gala has a lot of moving parts. Tickets, sponsors, auction items, guest information, communications, payments, and event-day check-in can quickly end up spread across different tools and make it harder to see what is happening across the event. Almabase brings these workflows together while keeping event and donor data connected to your CRM.

You can set up your event page, ticket tiers, registration forms, sponsorship packages, and fundraising asks in one place. Sponsors can have their own registration flow, select their package, submit guest details and collateral, and manage their payment separately from individual attendees.

For the auction, you can run silent, live, or hybrid auctions through Almabase. Set starting bids and increments, assign items to specific funds, send bid updates, and automate payments after the auction. That also means less cleanup afterward, with auction data syncing back to your CRM.

With Emily AI, you can use segmented email and SMS campaigns for invitations, reminders, and follow-ups. It also helps you draft event emails and subject lines based on the context of your event.

On the day, your team can manage QR check-in, payments, seating, guest tracking, and real-time event data from the same platform. After the gala, registrations, attendance, gifts, and engagement can flow into constituent records through Almabase’s CRM integrations, including bi-directional TrueSync with Raiser’s Edge NXT.

That gives your team one connected view of the gala, from the first invitation to the final follow-up, without rebuilding the same data in multiple places.

Wrapping Up

Organising a fundraising gala is a big undertaking, but when the event is well thought through, and nothing is left to chance, magical things can happen. It is an opportunity to connect with your support base, generate excitement, and offer multiple ways for supporters to donate money.

While the upfront cost can be higher than other fundraising events, the many payoffs make it well worth the extra effort. From registration and sponsorships to auctions, event-day management, and donor follow-up, the right technology can help your team manage the gala from start to finish.

Want to see how Almabase can support your next gala? Book a personalized demo and explore how the platform can help you plan, manage, and make the most of your event.

FAQs

1. What are some fun fundraising gala ideas?

Try ideas that give guests something to take part in, such as a themed experience, live auction, interactive entertainment, or a mission-focused giving moment. For healthcare organizations, patient stories and hands-on experiences can also make the cause feel more personal.

2. What are the best things to auction at a fundraising gala?

Experiences, travel packages, dining, and items that have a strong connection to your audience tend to work well. Look for prizes people actually want rather than simply collecting a long list of donations.

4. Can a fundraising gala be held without a live auction?

Yes. You can build the evening around direct giving, sponsorships, a silent auction, or a Fund-a-need instead. The right mix depends on your audience and fundraising target.

5. What should guests wear to a fundraising gala?

The dress code usually depends on the venue and tone of the event. Black tie, formal, cocktail, and themed attire are all common options, so make the expectation clear on the invitation.

6. How long should a fundraising gala last?

Most galas work best when the evening has a clear rhythm and doesn’t let the program drag. Keep speeches and transitions tight, and leave enough time for guests to eat, socialize, and participate in fundraising.

7. What entertainment works well at a fundraising gala?

Live music, performances, comedy, interactive experiences, and guest speakers can all work. Choose entertainment that fits the audience and leaves enough room for the fundraising program.

8. Should you invite patients to a healthcare fundraising gala?

Patients and families can bring a personal connection to the mission, but their participation should always be voluntary and handled with appropriate care and consent.

Before making a gift, many donors will do their homework by visiting your website, scrolling through your social media, and searching your organization’s name to see what comes up. Along the way, they’re watching for red flags like slow-loading pages, a cluttered or spammy layout, or an events page that hasn’t changed in three years.

And they’re doing this with good reason. Online scams are more convincing than ever, and AI-generated content has made it harder to tell what’s real. As a result, users are increasingly approaching unfamiliar websites with a dose of skepticism. This means that non-profits and higher ed institutions cannot assume trust and credibility, and it has to be built with donors.

Building donor trust online comes down to a handful of practical habits that can also support strong donor relationships in the long term. In this article, we will walk you through three ways to show donors your organization is secure, active, and credible.

1. Prioritize Ironclad Website Security and Data Privacy.

Even if donors connect with your mission, they need to know their credit card and personal information are safe. If your site feels risky, even the most moving story won’t get them to click “Donate.”

Start with these basics:

• Keep an active SSL certificate. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is technology that encrypts the data moving between your site and your visitors. This puts the “HTTPS” and the padlock icon in the browser bar. Without it, many browsers label your site “Not Secure,” which can quickly dissuade donors.
• Choose secure, dedicated hosting. Inadequate hosting can leave your site open to slowdowns and attacks. A reputable host with strong security features protects your site and your supporters.
• Keep your platform updated. If your site runs on WordPress, update the core software, themes, and plugins regularly. As Cornershop Creative’s guide to WordPress for nonprofits explains, developers release regular updates to fix bugs and maintain security. A plugin that is no longer supported or has an unpatched security hole can quickly become a risk.
• Use a trusted, PCI-compliant payment processor. Your donation form should embed securely on your site rather than bouncing donors to an unfamiliar third-party page. A sudden redirect to a page with different branding can make donors wonder if they’ve landed somewhere they shouldn’t.
• Post a clear, current privacy policy. Link to it in your website footer so donors can easily see how their data will (and won’t) be used.

Privacy expectations are shifting as technology changes, too. Many donors now want to know how organizations handle their information, including whether AI tools are involved. It’s worth reading up on how advancement teams are approaching AI and donor trust so your data practices keep pace.

2. Keep Content and Impact Metrics Fresh.

Picture this: a prospective donor lands on your homepage and sees “meals served in 2021” as your highlighted metric. Then they go to your Facebook page and see that your most recent post is from last year. This could send confusing messages about if your organization is still active or not.  

Fresh content signals that your organization is still at work pursuing its mission. Here are some tips to help keep your content fresh and engaging:

1. Update your numbers. Review the stats on your homepage and “About Us” page regularly. A stat that mentions the current year is much more compelling than work that was achieved in the past.
2. Share recent stories. Stories from people you serve prove that donations are making an impact right now. A quote from this year’s scholarship recipient or a short update from a program participant goes a long way.
3. Publish regular impact reports. An impact report connects donor contributions to real outcomes. Posting one on your site each year shows supporters you’re open about where their money goes and how it supports your organization’s mission.
4. Swap out generic stock photos. Replace them with real, recent, high-quality images of your team, volunteers, students, and community or campus. Authentic photos feel more trustworthy than polished images donors might’ve seen on a dozen other websites.

The same principle applies to your outreach. Short, timely donation messages that mention current campaigns and recent wins show donors their support is part of something happening now.

Regular nonprofit website maintenance makes all of this easier. When you set a schedule for reviewing content, checking links, and refreshing stats, your site will never have the chance to look abandoned.

3. Fight Misinformation with Search Authority.

When prospective donors want to learn more about your school or the issues your nonprofit tackles, they search. If they can’t find you, or worse, if they find inaccurate information about you, they won’t see you as an authority on the subject.

Search is also changing fast. Tools like Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity now summarize answers right in search results, and many people ask their questions directly to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. That means organizations need to optimize for traditional search engines to make sure AI tools cite them as the trusted source.  

Luckily, many best practices support both traditional search engines and AI tools. To help your content show up where your donors and advocates are looking, try the following:

• Answer real questions. Think about what prospective supporters are typing into search bars and AI tools, like “How does [your school] use scholarship donations?” or “What does [your nonprofit] do?” Then answer those questions clearly on your site.  
• Publish clear, factual, and skimmable content. Use descriptive headings, short paragraphs, and lists. Content that’s easy for people to scan is also easier for AI tools to understand and reference.
• Create an FAQ page. A well-organized FAQ page gives search engines and AI models structured information to learn from and cite.
• Keep key facts consistent. Make sure your mission, programs, and contact details match across your website, social profiles, and directory listings. Consistency makes it easier for search engines and AI tools to trust (and repeat) the right information.  

While AI search is growing, traditional search still drives a significant portion of website traffic. Strong search engine optimization remains the foundation of both. It works best when it’s tied to your overall fundraising strategy, ensuring every optimized page leads visitors to clear calls to action and a straightforward path to donate..

Wrapping Up

Building donor trust online isn’t a one-time project. It’s an ongoing commitment to keeping your website secure, current, and easy to find. When donors feel confident in your organization, they’re more likely to give and keep giving. That confidence is at the heart of any long-term donor retention strategy.

Small updates add up, and donors notice. Start off by opening your website in an incognito window and look at it the way a potential first-time donor would. Is the copyright in your footer from 2022? Does the browser bar say “Not Secure?” Pick one or two quick fixes and tackle them this week. Donor trust grows through these small moments. Keep your website secure, current, and easy to navigate, and you give donors more reasons to feel confident supporting your organization.

People trust healthcare organizations with some of their most sensitive information. For hospital and healthcare foundations, too, this information is extremely valuable since it could bring a patient to a diagnosis, treatment, provider, or healthcare experience. As it moves across teams, systems, and individuals, protecting this information becomes a crucial, shared responsibility for all involved organizations.

This makes HIPAA compliance indispensable for fundraising and advancement teams, particularly when patient information touches donor records, grateful patient programs, communications, or third-party technology. A good HIPAA compliance program covers much more than keeping information behind a secure login. In fact, the most important part is for organizations to understand what information they handle, who can access it, how it moves between systems, and what happens if something goes wrong.

This HIPAA compliance checklist covers the main areas healthcare organizations should review, like identifying protected health information (PHI),managing vendors, and documenting compliance efforts.

What Is HIPAA and Who Needs to Comply?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, established federal requirements around the privacy and security of certain health information.

The HIPAA Rules include requirements covering the privacy and security of protected health information, along with requirements for responding to breaches and protecting individuals' rights.

For organizations handling health information, these parts of HIPAA are particularly relevant:

• Privacy Rule: Establishes standards for how protected health information (PHI) can be used and disclosed and gives individuals certain rights over their information.
  
• Security Rule: Establishes safeguards for electronic protected health information (ePHI), including administrative, physical, and technical safeguards.
  
• Breach Notification Rule: Establishes requirements for notifying individuals, HHS, and, in some cases, the media after a breach of unsecured PHI.

Who needs to comply with HIPAA?

HIPAA applies to covered entities and business associates.

Covered entities include healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses that meet HIPAA's definitions. A business associate is generally an organization or individual that performs certain functions or services for a covered entity that involve creating, receiving, maintaining, or transmitting PHI.

If an organization does not meet the definition of a covered entity or business associate, HIPAA may not apply to it.

Does HIPAA Apply to Healthcare Foundations?

Being affiliated with a hospital does not automatically make a foundation a covered entity under HIPAA. What’s relevant is looking at what information the foundation handles and what role it plays in relation to the covered entity.

For example, a foundation may work with information connected to grateful patient programs or receive information from a hospital that contains PHI. In those situations, the foundation and hospital need to understand their respective responsibilities and how this information should be handled.

The same principle applies when a foundation brings in an outside technology provider. If the provider functions as a business associate, HIPAA requires an appropriate written arrangement covering how PHI will be handled and safeguarded. It’s not a standard answer across the board for every organization and differs each time in relation to the data, partnerships, vendors and other factors involved. So it becomes important to have an understanding of what will make your organization compliant even under changing circumstances.

The HIPAA Compliance Checklist

HIPAA compliance addresses everything, including the data you collect, the systems your team uses and even the vendors you work with.

The following checklist will help you review the major areas of your compliance program. Before we get into it in detail, here’s the checklist at a glance:

1. Know What Data You're Responsible For

This is the most  fundamental step to get right before you can approach protecting the data: you need to know where it is and how your organization uses it. The best way to look for it would be to break this down into granular steps.

Ideally, this should include:

• Identifying the PHI and ePHI your organization handles
• Documenting where PHI is stored
• Identifying how PHI enters and leaves your organization
• Mapping the systems and workflows that use or transmit PHI
• Identifying employees, teams, and vendors that can access it
• Reviewing whether each person or system actually needs that access

For a healthcare foundation, this could mean looking closely at how information moves between the hospital, advancement team, CRM, fundraising platform, communication tools, and other systems.

2. Know Who Has Access and Why

Once you’re certain where the PHI is stored, and how it enters and leaves your systems, look at who can access it and deliberate on the access. Of course, trust plays a huge part in this process, and you probably trust your team to be responsible with handling this data.

However, access should be tied to a person's responsibilities. Someone working on donor communications may not need the same access as a member of a grateful patient team, for example. Consider access from this perspective.

Review whether your organization:

• Uses role-based access controls
• Requires appropriate authentication
• Removes access when employees change roles or leave
• Reviews permissions periodically
• Maintains records of system activity and access
• Limits access to the information needed for a person's role

Regular access reviews can also help catch permissions that made sense when they were created but no longer make sense today.

3. Let Your Policies Match How People Work

A HIPAA policy sitting in an internal folder or understood by only a few employees will only be so effective. Employees need to understand what the policies mean for the work they do every day.

Your organization should establish policies and procedures covering areas such as:

• How PHI can be used and disclosed
• The minimum necessary use of PHI
• Privacy and security incident reporting
• Employee responsibilities for protecting PHI
• Appropriate use of devices and systems
• Workforce training and security awareness
• Procedures for updating policies as technology and workflows change

Training should also reflect people's responsibilities. A fundraising officer, IT administrator, and volunteer who encounter health information in different ways may need different guidance. Consider conducting specific workshops and training to address these role-based differences.

4. Secure the Systems and Places Where PHI Lives

The HIPAA Security Rule organizes safeguards into three categories: administrative, physical, and technical.

Here's what to review in each area.

Administrative safeguards

Administrative safeguards focus on the policies, processes, and people responsible for protecting ePHI.

You must include:

• Conducting a security risk analysis
• Establishing security policies and procedures
• Assigning responsibility for security
• Training your workforce
• Establishing security incident procedures
• Creating contingency and disaster recovery plans
• Conducting periodic evaluations

HHS credits risk analysis as a foundational step in identifying and implementing appropriate safeguards. It also notes that organizations should take their own environment and circumstances into account rather than relying on a single compliance blueprint.

Physical safeguards

Physical safeguards protect the facilities, workstations, and devices where ePHI can be accessed.

Review whether your organization:

• Controls physical access to relevant facilities
• Has appropriate workstation security policies
• Protects devices that can access ePHI
• Controls the movement and disposal of electronic media
• Has procedures for handling devices that contain ePHI

Technical safeguards

Technical safeguards focus on the technology used to protect ePHI.

Depending on your environment and setup, this means:

• User identification and authentication
• Access controls
• Audit controls
• Data integrity protections
• Encryption
• Secure transmission
• Automatic logoff and session controls

The exact safeguards an organization needs will depend on its systems, risks, and environment. This is one reason the risk analysis should come before deciding which controls to implement.

5. Put Your Vendors Under the Same Microscope

Your organization can have strong internal controls and still introduce risk through a third-party vendor.

To minimize this risk, identify every vendor that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits PHI on your behalf. Then determine what information each vendor handles and what protections are in place.

Check that you:

• Identify vendors that handle PHI
• Determine whether a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is required
• Review vendor security and privacy practices
• Understand how subcontractors handle PHI
• Establish procedures for reporting security incidents
• Review vendor relationships periodically

A BAA establishes permitted uses and disclosures of PHI and requires the business associate to implement appropriate safeguards. HHS also requires business associates to address certain obligations with their subcontractors.

This detail is particularly relevant when evaluating fundraising and engagement technology. A CRM, event platform, communication tool, or other system may interact with information that falls within your organization's HIPAA obligations, so its data practices should be part of your vendor review.

6. Be Ready If Something Goes Wrong

A compliance program is not complete without a plan for incidents. Your organization should have a clear process for identifying, reporting, investigating, and responding to potential breaches.

Make sure you can:

• Define what constitutes a potential breach
• Give employees a clear way to report incidents
• Identify who investigates and responds to incidents
• Establish an escalation process
• Document the incident and investigation
• Determine if notification is required
• Track corrective actions after an incident

Under the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, covered entities and business associates have notification obligations following a breach of unsecured PHI.

Having these procedures in place before an incident occurs gives your team a defined process to follow if the need arises.

7. Prove That Your Program Works

A part of HIPAA compliance also means having evidence on hand of the work your organization has done.

Document the following:

• Risk assessments and analyses
• Policies and procedures
• Employee training records
• Business Associate Agreements
• Vendor reviews
• Incident reports
• Corrective actions
• Periodic evaluations and security reviews

It’s best to set up a regular cadence for reviewing these materials. Any new development, such as a new vendor, system, fundraising workflow, or a change in how information is shared introduces new risks that were not part of the previous assessment. Regular cadences will help make compliance part of your organization's rhythm and ensure you stay on top of these changes.

How Almabase Helps Healthcare Foundations Support HIPAA-Compliant Fundraising

Healthcare fundraising teams work with a wide range of information across donor engagement, events, giving, communications, and grateful patient programs. The technology used for these processes needs to support the organization's privacy and security requirements.

Almabase is designed to help healthcare foundations manage these fundraising workflows with security and HIPAA considerations built into the platform.

Keep sensitive information protected

Almabase provides controls designed to help healthcare organizations manage access to sensitive information, including permissions and audit trails. The platform also supports a Business Associate Agreement for organizations that require one.

Bring fundraising workflows together

Healthcare foundations can use Almabase to manage donor engagement, giving, events, communications, and other advancement workflows in one connected environment.

Keep your fundraising data connected

Almabase integrates with Raiser’s Edge NXT and other CRMs to help reduce manual data movement between platforms and keep donor and engagement information synchronized. Reducing unnecessary movement of information makes day-to-day data management easier to control.

Wrapping Up

HIPAA compliance is an ongoing process. As your organization adds new technology, works with new vendors, or changes how teams handle information, your compliance measures must adapt to remain airtight.

This means keeping an eye on how patient and donor information moves through fundraising workflows and making sure the right people, systems, and safeguards are in place.

Use this checklist as a starting point for reviewing your current practices, identifying gaps, and deciding where your team may need to take a closer look. Regular risk assessments, policy reviews, employee training, and vendor reviews can help keep your HIPAA program aligned with the way your organization actually works.

Looking for a fundraising platform built with healthcare organizations in mind? 
See how Almabase supports healthcare fundraising →

FAQs About HIPAA Compliance

1. Which entities need to comply with HIPAA?

HIPAA applies to covered entities and business associates. Covered entities include qualifying healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses. Business associates provide certain services to covered entities that involve PHI.

2. What is protected health information (PHI)?

PHI is individually identifiable health information that is created, received, maintained, or transmitted by a covered entity or business associate and is subject to HIPAA's protections.

3. What is the HIPAA Privacy Rule?

The Privacy Rule establishes standards for how covered entities may use and disclose PHI and gives individuals certain rights regarding their health information.

4. What is the HIPAA Security Rule?

The Security Rule establishes requirements for protecting electronic protected health information through administrative, physical, and technical safeguards.

5. What is the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule?

The Breach Notification Rule establishes requirements for notifying affected individuals, HHS, and, in certain cases the media following a breach of unsecured PHI.

6. What is the HIPAA Enforcement Rule?

The Enforcement Rule establishes procedures for investigations, hearings, penalties, and enforcement of the HIPAA Rules.

7. What is the Omnibus Rule?

The 2013 Omnibus Rule implemented changes to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules under the HITECH Act and strengthened requirements for business associates and their subcontractors.

8. Are all HIPAA rules necessary to stay compliant?

The HIPAA requirements that apply to an organization depend on its role and circumstances. Organizations should first determine whether they are a covered entity or business associate and then identify the specific requirements that apply to their activities.

Homecoming remains one of the best opportunities for schools and universities to bring their communities together, but getting alumni to participate takes more than just putting together a game or a reunion event on the calendar. Repeating too many of the same traditions year after year can make homecoming feel predictable, especially for alumni who have attended before.

Institutions need to think beyond the usual game-day activities and create experiences that give alumni a genuine reason to reconnect with friends, and participate. That might mean revisiting how students and alumni interact, using campus in unexpected ways, bringing back something forgotten, or creating experiences that make homecoming feel different from any other weekend on campus.

In this article, we have gathered fresh homecoming ideas that institutions can adapt and work into your 2026 events. Rather than the usual list of reunions, tailgates, and themed parties, these ideas focus mostly on creating experiences that encourage alumni participation and engagement and give them something new to look forward to.

Homecoming ideas for 2026

If your goal is to engage more alumni in the homecoming experience, the program is a good place to start. The activities you choose shape what people can do, who they can meet, and what they take away from the weekend. You can use them to build different parts of the homecoming program that offer opportunities to fit into and appeal to different groups. With that in mind, here are some homecoming ideas worth experimenting with in 2026 and beyond:

1. Open Campus

Once students graduate, much of the campus that was part of their everyday life becomes off-limits. Homecoming is a good time to change that for a day. You can have an open day for alumni that gives them access to parts of campus they would not normally be able to visit after graduation. It could be a chance to walk through the archives, visit a research lab, see a new facility, step backstage at the theater, or take a look at the spaces where students are working today.

You can also involve the departments and students who use these spaces. They can show alumni what has changed, explain what happens there now, and share some of the work they are doing. This gives alumni a chance to see a side of the institution that they would not experience during a regular homecoming visit.

For alumni who have been away for years, the day can be a simple way to see how much the institution has changed since they graduated. By doing so, homecoming becomes a way to reintroduce alumni to the institution and create new points of connection with it.

2. Alumni vs. Varsity Athletics

Homecoming already brings alumni, students, and the wider campus community together. You can use that crowd to put a little competition back into the weekend. Bring former athletes back to compete against the current varsity team in a friendly game or a shorter exhibition before the main homecoming event.

Former teammates get to play together again, current athletes get to meet the people who once represented the same team, and everyone watching gets to see two generations of the program in one place. You can add old team photographs, jerseys, or a brief recognition of former athletes from the game to bring some of that history into the day. To deepen the connection, include a panel discussion or Q&A session where alumni and current players can share stories, pass on advice, and talk about how the sport has evolved over the years. 

It can also become a recurring part of homecoming. Over time, the alumni game could grow into something former athletes plan their returns around while giving current teams another way to connect with the people who came before them.

3. Then & Now: a guided nostalgia tour

Homecoming already brings back memories, so you can build on that with a “then and now” tour of campus. Put an old photograph of the campus next to what the same spot looks like today. Take them through a residence hall, classroom, dining area, student center, or favorite campus hangout and let alumni share what they remember about each place. These old photographs could also serve as excellent keepsakes/memorabilia for the nostalgia tour.

Current students can join the tour and add their side of the story. They can explain how the space is used today, what student life looks like now, and what has changed since the alumni were there, and alumni could chime in with how different the same space used to be. You could also collect a few alumni stories before homecoming and build them into the tour.

For alumni who cannot make it back, you can take the “then and now” experience online with old photographs, current images, short videos, and memories from their time on campus. It can also give them a glimpse of what they are missing at homecoming and encourage them to make the trip next year.

4. Let the class take over homecoming

Instead of giving homecoming a broad ’80s, ’90s, or 2000s theme, you can build the day around a specific graduating class and bring their version of homecoming back to campus.

Say it is the Class of 2005. Bring back the music, traditions, clubs, games, campus activities, and other details that defined homecoming for that class. You can even invite former student leaders to step back into their old roles for the day. The former RA can run a residence hall activity, the student body president can lead the welcome, and former club or organization leaders can bring their groups together again.

The class gets to help recreate the homecoming they remember, while current students get to see what campus life looked like for an earlier generation. It is a much more personal way to use nostalgia than simply putting a decade on the invitation.

5. The Homecoming house party

Bring the feel of a college house party into homecoming weekend. Pick a familiar campus space or a beloved dorm and turn it into a relaxed evening with music, food, games, and plenty of room to hang out.

You can have students and alumni add songs to the playlist, bring back a few favorite campus snacks, and set up games that people remember from their college days alongside newer ones that students enjoy today. It does not need a stage, speeches, or a packed schedule. The idea is to give people a place to relax, talk, laugh, and stay for a while.

It also gives homecoming a more informal side. Alumni can spend time with old friends, meet current students, and enjoy being back on campus without having to sit through another formal program. If people enjoy it, it can easily become one of those homecoming events everyone looks forward to. It also works really well as the event to wrap up the Homecoming weekend.

6. Homecoming game day

You can turn a part of homecoming into a friendly competition that students, alumni, faculty, and families can join. A cook-off, campus trivia, karaoke contest, three-legged race, mini talent show, or even a ridiculous relay can work, depending on what fits your campus.

The point is to keep the competitions light and easy to join. You can have people sign up as individuals or teams, mix students and alumni together, and keep small prizes for the winners. For trivia, questions can cover campus history, old traditions, sports, music, and things only long-time students would know.

It gives people something to do together instead of simply attending another event. Alumni who come back for the weekend can end up competing with current students, meeting people outside their own graduating class, and making some new memories along the way.

7. Tailgate with a twist

Tailgates are an oldie but a goodie, but with a little bit of thought, they can take on a more exciting shape.. You can keep the food, music, games, and pre-game buzz, but give each tailgate its own personality.

Take a step ahead and turn the usual tailgate into a friendly campus-wide competition. Let different schools, departments, student groups, or alumni chapters host their own setup and compete for the best food spread, best setup, best playlist, or most creative theme. You can have students and alumni vote throughout the day, with the scores displayed on a leaderboard for some real-time excitement. Announce the winners just before the game to end on a high note

You could also add a few unexpected stops around the tailgate area: a pop-up dessert bar featuring old campus favorites, a local food truck lineup, a small stage for student performers, or a “name that song” challenge that moves from the hits of past decades to today's music. The tailgate remains familiar, but there are enough new elements around it to make people want to walk around, take part, and stay longer.

8. Homecoming court reimagined

Homecoming court is one of those traditions that many institutions have kept for years, but it does not have to be limited to current students. You can open nominations to alumni and create a court that represents the institution's different generations.

Bring the finalists into the homecoming program and let the campus vote. You could have a recent graduate, a longtime alum, a former faculty member, a current student, or even a notable couple among the nominees. Give each finalist a short introduction that tells people what they have meant to the institution.

It turns a familiar homecoming tradition into a chance to recognize people who have been part of the institution at different points in its history. It also gives alumni a reason to follow the event, nominate someone they know, and take part in the celebration even if they are not attending a reunion.

9. Made here

For your upcoming homecoming, you can celebrate  the institution’s notable achievements over the years. It could include the people who studied there, their ideas, businesses, research, art, traditions, and communities that began on campus and grew into something bigger.

You can carry the theme through the entire weekend. Put student and alumni work on display, bring back performances by former students, feature businesses founded by graduates, or ask different departments to share projects that began at the institution and have since gone elsewhere. You could also have students showcase what they are working on now and place those projects alongside examples from earlier years.

It gives alumni a chance to see the impact of their institution today and find new reasons to stay connected to it. They can discover programs, projects, and people they want to support, follow, or get involved with long after homecoming.

10. The next chapter

Homecoming can be an excellent chance to show alumni what's next. Instead of focusing only on the institution they remember, you can use the weekend to introduce them to the people, programs, and plans that will shape its future.

You can give alumni an early look at a new academic program, a campus expansion, a research project, a student venture, or a new initiative that is still taking shape. Invite the people behind these projects to share what they are working toward and what they hope to accomplish. Alumni may find areas that connect with their own experience or expertise and want to stay involved. This also lends itself beautifully to showing the impact first and then making an ask, in case fundraising is part of your Homecoming.

You can also bring current students into the conversation. Let them talk about what they are building, what they want to do after graduation, and what they hope to see from their institution in the years ahead. Alumni can respond with advice, introductions, ideas, or support based on their own experience.

This gives alumni a reason to keep paying attention after homecoming. They are not only coming back to see what they once knew; they are getting a look at what they may want to be part of next.

At the end of the day, homecoming is about bringing people back to a place they still care about. The traditions give them a reason to return, but the way you bring those traditions to life can make each year feel different. A little creativity can go a long way in making alumni want to come back, take part, and stay connected.

Carrying the engagement beyond homecoming

A homecoming can create a lot of alumni activity in a short period and open the door to regular alumni involvement. Homecoming gives you a useful snapshot of what alumni care about. The key is to identify and use the interactions and interests you learn about during homecoming to shape future outreach. When you map the follow-up to what your alumni paid attention to when they were on campus, over time, these can turn a once-a-year homecoming visit into an ongoing relationship with the institution.
A few ways to build on the momentum:

• Send relevant follow-ups- if someone attended a student mentoring session, invite them to a future mentoring opportunity. If they joined a chapter event, keep them informed about what that chapter is doing.
• Share the highlights- send photos, videos, student stories, or other content from the weekend while the event is still fresh.
• Invite them to something specific- use what you learned from homecoming to recommend the next event, volunteer opportunity, or program that may interest them.
• Stay in touch with new connections- if alumni met classmates, students, faculty, or other alumni during the weekend, give them ways to continue those conversations.

How can Almabase help

A successful homecoming represents a means to a beginning. It gives you a chance to learn more about what brings alumni back and what they want from their relationship with the institution.

But when registration details, attendance records, event participation, and follow-up information are spread across different spreadsheets or must be gathered manually, it can be difficult to get a clear picture of alumni engagement. Almabase brings this information together so your team can manage the homecoming program and use what you learn from it to plan future engagement. Your team can use Almabase to build the program, promote it to the right alumni, manage registrations and attendance, and keep that activity connected to each alum’s engagement history.

• Build and manage your event in one place- create the homecoming event, add individual activities, set registration options, and manage attendee information.
• Target your outreach- use alumni segments to promote different parts of the program to the audiences they are most relevant to.
• Keep track of engagement- registration and attendance data give your team a record of how individual alumni participated, not just how many people came.
• Connect event activity with alumni profiles- participation becomes part of an alum’s engagement history, giving your team more context for future outreach.
• Use that data across your engagement strategy- homecoming activity can help inform future event invitations, volunteer opportunities, mentoring programs, chapter engagement, and other outreach.

Finishing up

Homecoming is fertile ground for trying something new and learning what brings your community together. A change to the program this year could become a tradition worth keeping or finding out what alumni respond to most. Either way, each homecoming gives you another chance to make the experience more relevant to the people you want to stay connected with. We hope our ideas have inspired you to use the weekend to try something new and find ways to keep them involved throughout the year.

Want to see how Almabase can help you manage homecoming and turn event participation into ongoing alumni engagement?

Book a personalized demo today and see what you can do with Almabase.

Blackbaud recently announced that support for Raiser’s Edge NXT’s database view and related functionality will end on September 15, 2027, affecting several Blackbaud products. These include Blackbaud Online Express and Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC). For advancement teams that have spent years building forms, pages, workflows, and other processes around the platform, this means choosing and migrating to a new platform. The prospect can feel like a lot to take on, especially if it wasn't something you'd anticipated.

If you're looking for an alternative, Almabase can help you replace the functionality you currently rely on across these products. We've already covered why teams might be thinking of a move off BBNC and how the main alternatives compare. In this article, we’ll be focusing on what happens once you've made that decision: what the migration process looks like, what your team can expect along the way, and how Almabase approaches the move.

In case you’re evaluating how Almabase stacks up against BBNC, check out our comparison blog here.

There’s also another question that comes up around a platform migration: How much is this going to cost?
This question extends beyond the immediate, visible technical costs. In fact, the technical side of the move might just be the simplest to figure out. It’s the broader, more abstract elements like shifting scopes, changing requirements, or even figuring out the right set of requirements in the first place that could end up costing the most amount of money and time, if not approached thoughtfully.

That's why we want to walk you through the Assisted Fast Pass Migration process upfront: what happens at each stage, what your team is responsible for, what our migration team handles, and where costs may come into the picture. We hope to give you a clear idea of what the move to Almabase will look like before you get started, so there are fewer surprises along the way.

Why transparency matters during a migration

A migration project always begins with an agreed-upon plan. But it’s also very likely that, a few weeks in, you discover a form that needs some additional customization or a request that seemed straightforward seems to fall outside the original scope, on second thought. These are perfectly reasonable hiccups during the migration, but if work is already underway, it could seem harder to understand what you're paying for, and even harder to plan around the rest of the project.

Clear expectations are at the heart of our migration approach, starting with total transparency around what extra requirements cost. With Almabase’s Assisted Fast Pass Migration, each stage gives you a chance to understand what's being proposed, what falls within the standard migration, and where something would require additional work.

Basically, you shouldn't find out about an extra requirement after the work has already been done. Your approval and sign-off comes first. The five steps in the migration process are built around this intention. Let’s get into them.

1. Kickoff: Getting the project off on the right foot

The migration process starts with a kickoff between your team, a dedicated CSM, and an implementation specialist. This is where we get the groundwork in place. This is usually access to your current site, your branding assets, and the dates your team needs to work around.

Another important step here is understanding your calendar and priorities. Your Giving Day, reunion, fiscal year-end, or another major event may determine what needs to happen first and we would be building the migration calendar around it. So, the migration sequence might look a little different for each institution, as each gets to choose which product goes first.

The kickoff is also a chance to flag anything unusual about your current NetCommunity setup.

After years on a platform, it's normal for your setup to have accumulated a few workarounds, custom configurations, or integrations that made sense when they were created. We don't need to solve all of those questions in the first meeting, but we do need to know about them.

That way, we can account for them during the next stage: the inventory. 🤗

Your team mainly needs to provide:

• Key dates and deadlines
• Relevant branding assets
• Access to your existing NetCommunity site
• Any known custom configurations, integrations, or unusual workflows
• From there, you can let us take on the heavy lifting.

Your dedicated CSM and implementation specialist work with you throughout the migration, while your team focuses on the decisions and approvals. A migration shouldn't require your advancement team to take on managing a project full time on top of everything else they’re already handling.

Your data doesn't have to wait for the build

Your data migration is handled alongside the rest of the process. Almabase's bi-directional TrueSync integration connects with Raiser's Edge NXT and supports two-way syncing for configured entities and fields, including constituent, event, and gift data.

Admins can also decide which fields update automatically and which should be reviewed before they're pushed or pulled between systems.

That means your team doesn't have to wait until every page and workflow decision has been finalized before thinking about what happens to your data. The data side of the transition can move forward alongside the rest of the migration, with real time decisions being made.

2. Discovery and inventory: weeks one and two

Once kickoff is complete, your implementation specialist carefully starts building a complete inventory of what's currently running on NetCommunity: pages, forms, events, programs, memberships, and other key components of your site.

This process is useful in its own right, especially when taken on by someone external. After years on a platform, it's easy for a site to accumulate things that no one thinks about anymore, simply because they’re too involved in the process. The inventory gives you one place to see what's actually there, anything you might’ve forgotten about, and to make decisions about what needs to move vs what can be left behind.

Probably the most effective part of this is that it's a shared inventory that you can review alongside your specialist. If something looks outdated, doesn't need to move, or needs a closer look, you can flag it before it moves to the new product.

The inventory can surface things like:

• Duplicate or unused event pages
• Old forms or pages that are still live
• Site elements that don't need to be carried into Almabase
• Custom fields and configurations that don’t make sense on the new platform

This idea is to document your NetCommunity site so well that both teams end up on the same picture of what exists and what needs to happen next. The Almabase team handles the actual inventory work, and all you need to do is review the inventory and flag anything that should be changed, removed, or investigated.

3. Sign-off: deciding what moves forward

At this stage, the migration project starts taking on a more defined shape as you decide what you need to bring into Almabase. You and your implementation specialist review the inventory, decide what carries forward, and establish what the finished version should look like.

For each item being migrated, the team, along with you, defines the acceptance criteria before the building begins. If your existing alumni directory has eight fields and three filters, for example, those requirements can be documented as part of the scope. By the end of this discussion, everyone has arrived at the same definition of what needs to be delivered.

This is also where you’ll be able to clearly separate standard migration work from anything that requires additional effort.

If something falls outside the standard scope, you'll know before the work begins:

• What the additional work involves
• What's included and what's excluded
• The estimated effort
• The associated cost

You won’t have to decipher this from the invoice later on, because the work only moves forward once you’ve signed off on the scope.

This is exactly why your input here matters most. The Almabase team handles the building, but it’s you and your team deciding what is important enough to carry forward and what “done” needs to look like, within the standard process or with additional effort layered on.

4. Build and launch: 30 days for each product

Our team takes up building only once you’ve greenlit the scope. Each product gets its own dedicated 30-day track, with the order of products taken up built around your events and fiscal calendar.

This is to accommodate your calendar: giving days, reunions, Homecoming, we’ll build that product first so you’re ready in time for go-live day. If your immediate priority is your broader alumni site, we might begin with building that instead. The point is, even at this pace, you’re not forced to adopt a one-size-fits-all solution. Your implementation team works with you to determine what needs to come first.

The build itself happens on your Almabase pages, so you can review as it gets built while also familiarizing yourself with the new platform.

The timeline typically looks like this:

• 30-day build track: Each product moves through its own focused build.
• Weekly working session: Your team meets with the implementation team to review progress, provide input, and make decisions.
• Training as you go: Your team gets hands-on experience with the platform during the build, rather than waiting until everything is finished to start learning it.
• First launch: The fastest migrations can have their first product live around 45 days from kickoff, depending on the scope and sequencing of your project.

Having the scope agreed upon shows up in smoothness at this point: you can expect fewer decisions to make from scratch during this stage. Your team knows what's being built, your implementation specialist knows what they're working toward, and everything can move as planned, on track.

5. Cutover: moving from NetCommunity to Almabase

As you get closer to launch, the focus shifts from building to making the transition itself as smooth as possible.

The most important part of that is making sure people can still find the things they've been using. Your team receives a redirect map that pairs each carried-forward NetCommunity URL with its new Almabase destination. You'll also want to review where those old links appear outside NetCommunity: your main institutional website, email templates, QR codes, printed materials, and any other places where an old URL may still be in circulation.

The redirect map gives you a clear list of what needs to change and no one has to discover old links one by one after launch.

Before each product goes live, your team gets to review it thoroughly and explicitly approve the launch.

The aim, with these five steps, is to get your Almabase programs ready before your NetCommunity access ends, so the transition remains smooth and doesn't become a last-minute scramble.

What happens when something doesn't fit the standard scope?

Not everything that comes up during a migration falls neatly into the original plan. But there's also an important conversation to be had: what counts as additional scope and what is a limitation in the platform itself?

If something requires work beyond the standard migration scope, that's identified and quoted before the work begins. You can then decide whether you want to take it on.

But if there’s a requirement you have that Almabase cannot support yet, we’ll be fully transparent with you. Essentially, you haven’t asked for too much, we’re just not there yet. Depending on what you need, the team can look at a workaround or determine how the functionality could be addressed after launch.

This conversation is also one of the reasons the earlier stages matter. The shared inventory, defined acceptance criteria, and upfront scoping give everyone a common reference point throughout the project.

That's really the principle behind the entire migration process. You're not expected to know every detail of what needs to happen before the project starts. The process itself is designed to show you those details early, give your team a chance to make the calls that matter, and keep the build moving while minimizing unexpected, last-minute surprises.

Ready to make the move?

A BBNC migration may not have been on your roadmap, but that also doesn't mean it has to become a project that takes over your team's calendar.

With a clear process, an agreed scope, and the right support, you can move the parts of NetCommunity that matter to your team and work for your institution without having to figure everything out as you go. The Almabase team handles the build and migration work, while your team stays in complete control of the decisions, priorities, and final approvals.

And because the scope and any additional costs are addressed before the work happens, you can go into the migration knowing what to expect.

If you're planning your move away from BBNC, let's talk about what it could look like for your institution.

Talk to the Almabase team about your BBNC migration →

A paddle raise (also called a fund-a-need) is a great and simple fundraising format for nonprofits. It is easy to host, fun, and similar enough to auctions that if you have experience in one, you can easily incorporate the other.

All this is to say that, with proper planning, it is one of the most effective ways to get donations for your nonprofit or a particular project.

In this blog, we’ll look at what makes a typical paddle raise work, its benefits, and the essential steps to start hosting one on your own.

What is a Paddle Raise?

A paddle raise, also often called fund-a-need, is a live, direct appeal during a fundraising event such as a gala where donors pledge a financial contribution to a nonprofit, charity, or a particular cause. This is usually done by raising paddles containing varying numbers or ‘levels’, or through bidding devices and software.

Unlike charity auctions though, there aren’t any items or art involved, and attendees will not be bidding on a piece. An ask is made, and donors willing to contribute that amount raise their paddles. Due to the simpler setup and direct contributions, paddle raises have high ROI and are generally considered to be very effective.

How does a Paddle Raise work?

Usually taking place at the peak of the fundraiser, a paddle raise takes around 10-20 minutes (it happens quite quickly). This is typically how it unfolds:

• A designated speaker or emcee gets the event rolling by showing a video or narrating a quick story that introduces and emphasizes the impact of your mission.
• The emcee announces the fundraising target for the night, or if there are multiple causes, the goals for each.
• Tiers of contributions are planned beforehand ($10k, $7.5k and so on), and the emcee starts with the highest tier and works their way down to the lower tiers. When they ask for contributions, attendees express their willingness by raising numbered paddles.
• Volunteers and staff keep track of all the pledges and note it down.
• After going through all the tiers, the pledges are processed, and the total amount raised is announced. Attendees are thanked for their contributions and the event draws to a close.

Now that we’ve gone through what a paddle raise is and how it usually plays out, let’s get to how you can run one of your own.

How to Run a Successful Paddle Raise (Step-by-Step)

While paddle raises are simple enough in concept, they do require proper planning and coordination to capture pledges accurately and create good energy overall.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Pick the right cause/project for your targets and set your targets

Paddle raises are a lot more effective if you can tie them to a specific initiative that makes donors feel like they’re making a meaningful impact. It could be an annual raise for cancer, providing education to underprivileged children, etc.

Set a tangible goal and be clear on where the money goes. Sharing this with your donors builds trust. The goal shouldn’t be so high that hitting it feels impossible. All in all, you want to set a realistic but fairly ambitious figure.

2. Decide the contribution levels or tiers

You should aim for 5-10 levels and make sure it’s inclusive of everyone’s giving capabilities. You can discuss with your pre-committed donors (more on that later) to decide amounts for the higher giving tiers (or conversely for lower giving tiers depending on the situation).

This is where having a regularly updated donor database helps greatly, as you can base your levels off of giving history and data.
A basic example would be to have $15k as the highest tier, followed by $10k, $5k, $2k and so on all the way to $50. Remember that you have to be inclusive, so don’t skimp out on small or micro-level contributions.

3. Pick your emcee or host

The emcee is critical in setting the stage and the energy before the raise begins. An enthusiastic crowd can make a massive difference in contributions. If possible, hire a professional emcee who has been on the mic for other charity events before. You know your donors best; use that knowledge to pick out a host that can connect with them and elevate the room accordingly..

Alternatively, if your organization has deep ties with the attendees, you could consider a leadership figure (directors, chair, etc.) for familiarity. Of course, they need to be a good orator as well.

4. Decide the schedule and script

Since a paddle raise is relatively short, decide when the paddle raise should take place during your fundraising event or gala. You should aim to host the raise during the peak of the fundraiser, when everyone is energetic and receptive to instructions from you or your host.

Come up with a script, including your opening statement, tier announcements, anecdotes, and expressing gratitude at the end. Have alternative scripts ready for different scenarios since you can’t always predict if you’ll hit your target, overshoot it, or come close.

5. Pick the right tools for your event

You can choose to host your paddle raise with either physical paddles or through bidding software, though incorporating the former is heavily recommended.

You’ll need to assign numbers to each attendee and give them a paddle with the corresponding number. When a certain giving tier is called out, they can choose to pledge that amount by raising the paddle while volunteers keep track of it.

If you’re opting for a digital process, look for mobile-friendly bidding platforms. There are some other options as well like scanning QR codes to pledge. However, keep  your attendees’ preferences in mind and try to find a balance between their experience and your team’s feature set. This is important, since  the bidding and giving data will need to be synced to your CRM.

6. Running the paddle raise itself

When opening your event, it helps to set the energy high. Start with the mission statement and targets you set earlier. Here’s where the emcee does the heavy lifting. Videos and stories with emotional angles work really well at establishing a connection with your donors and creating empathy for your cause. If you have first time donors in the mix, a quick explanation of how the paddle raise works would also be helpful.

Make sure your volunteers are in place to clearly record everything. The emcee announces the levels in succession, starting with the highest one and working their way down.
Seeing major contributions right at the start might encourage the others to go beyond what they had originally planned. Make sure that the emcee acknowledges and celebrates pledges briefly for each tier before moving on to the next one.

How your staff records the pledges is up to you. You can use an app, spreadsheets, or simply pen and paper. Choose whichever would be the most convenient and accurate for your team.

7. Gratitude and stewardship

After going through all the levels, tally the total amount raised and announce it as the event draws to a close. Celebrate the impact everyone has created on the day. Tying the money raised to a tangible outcome (for example, 50 scholarships granted for struggling children, or feeding 100 people) creates even more positivity and really drives home a sense of accomplishment and giving.

After your fundraising event, follow up with your attendees to collect the pledged amounts, preferably within a day. Include key details like their paddle number, amount they pledged, and multiple payment options. Thank all the participants, regardless of whether they donated or not.

A Few Tips to Enhance Your Paddle Raise

Here are a few extra things to ensure you get the most out of your paddle raise(s):

• Pre-committing a handful of donors: Reach out to some of your long time supporters, and ask for an early commitment to a particular level, especially the higher ones. Hesitation in the opening rounds of the raise can affect the overall contributions negatively. When attendees see paddles being raised immediately even at higher tiers, it gives them confidence to donate more.
• Host it at the right time: If your paddle raise is part of a larger fundraising event (as is most common), avoid doing it right after a meal break when attendees are a bit languid, or at the very end of the event when a lot of them have left already.
• Celebrate milestones during the raise: Every time you get significantly closer to hitting the day’s target, celebrate it. For example, if your goal is to raise $30000, then announce and celebrate when the contributions reach $5000, $15000, maybe hit a gong at $25000, and so on. Also, make sure to recognize all contributions, big or small, with equal excitement.

Almabase - A Powerful Tool for Hosting Your Paddle Raise

At its core, a paddle raise is fairly simple. But behind that simplicity is a lot of manual tracking like volunteers noting down pledges, someone tallying totals, and follow-up calls or emails to actually collect what was pledged. This is usually where a platform like Almabase can take some of that load off your team.

Instead of clipboards and spreadsheets, Almabase gives you a real-time dashboard of the event as it unfolds, so pledges don't need to be re-entered after the fact. Since collecting payment is often the trickiest part, you can also capture a guest's card at registration and charge pledges automatically once the raise wraps, rather than chasing donors down individually.

A couple of other things worth mentioning: contributions can be routed straight to the fund or project they were raised for, and everything syncs directly with your CRM so your donor records stay accurate without extra data entry.

None of this replaces a great emcee or an emotionally engaged room, but it does mean less time spent staring at numbers, and more time celebrating what you raised. 
Request a personalized demo to see how this would look for you!

Modern donors expect deeply relevant, personalized communications, especially when it’s alumni hearing from their alma mater. Generic messages won’t cut it, but it can also be difficult to make your appeals stand out when you’re making the same ask every year. To develop annual fund appeal letters that drive revenue and deepen relationships, you need a strategic approach.

Annual fund appeals succeed when they have refined messaging, emotional resonance, and enough variation to win donors’ support outside of flashier, major campaigns. In this post, we’ll explore a few key ways to elevate your university’s next ask.

1. Center Authentic Student Storytelling

Donors give to people, not institutions, making personal narratives one of the most effective fundraising and marketing strategies you can use. By shifting the focus from university-wide achievements to the tangible success of individual students, you foster a direct emotional connection with your audience and demonstrate the real, lasting impact of their donations.

Instead of relying on generic asks for annual fund appeal letters, incorporate the stories of individual students and the scholarships and programs that empower them to thrive. For instance, you might share how a first-generation nursing student used a grant to complete their clinical rotations, or include a quote from a scholarship recipient about how attending your university made their dreams a reality.

No matter how you incorporate storytelling into your appeals, Meyer Partners recommends using the three R's of storytelling to make them as impactful and ethical as possible:

• Resonance: Every story should include real, humanizing details that resonate with donors. Let students tell their stories in their own words, and pair testimonials with photos whenever possible.
• Relevance: Make sure the donor can clearly understand their role in the story. Use donor-centric language that appeals directly to supporters’ values, inspiring them to become the changemakers who support the next generation of students.
• Respect: Respect both your readers and your storytellers by maintaining authenticity. Be direct and honest about what donations can achieve, and always focus on positive emotions like empowerment rather than guilt or scare tactics.

Incorporate these stories into multiple elements of your annual fund campaign to ensure maximum visibility and consistency. For example, you might include quotes from a student in your direct mail appeals, then post a selfie video of the same student telling their story on social media.

2. Highlight Impactful Giving Opportunities

To maximize revenue and increase average gift sizes, ask for more than standard, one-time cash gifts in your annual appeal letters. Offer additional giving options that provide greater flexibility and can increase donors’ long-term impact. These opportunities are often more compelling, especially for young alumni looking for accessible options and for high-capacity donors looking to make the most of their donations.

Specifically, use your annual appeals to highlight opportunities like:

Matching Gifts

The easiest way to make supporters’ donations go further is to double them. Typically, donors can double the impact of their gifts at no extra cost in one of two ways:

1. Your university offers a matching donation challenge. Organizations often partner with a major donor who commits to matching every dollar donated within a set timeframe, up to a certain amount. These challenges motivate individual donors to give urgently so they don’t miss out on the match.
2. Donors request corporate matching gifts from their employers. At any time, donors who work for participating companies can independently request matching donations from their workplaces. If the request meets the employer’s guidelines (e.g., a donation between $10 and $100 to a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit), they’ll match their employee’s gift.

Either way, donation matching is a powerful motivator, especially during year-end giving season. Feature matching gifts prominently in your annual fund appeals, explaining how to participate and why these donations are so impactful.

Recurring Giving

Imagine you’re a recent graduate just starting your career and trying to pay off student loans. You wouldn’t want to donate $1,000 to the university you left last year, but it might be feasible to give $20 a month. In this case, you’re much more likely to respond to an appeal that highlights recurring giving.

Recurring gifts offer a more manageable opportunity to support your university while deepening donor relationships. In your annual fund appeal letters, include the option to give monthly and provide several accessible donation tiers.

Legacy Giving

Plant the seed for long-term support by introducing planned giving and bequest options in your annual appeals, too. These avenues empower alumni to leave a lasting mark on your institution without requiring an immediate, large-scale donation.

Even if most donors aren’t ready to commit to a legacy gift right now, just including information about planned giving in your appeal can get them thinking about it. Include links in emails and QR codes in direct mail letters so supporters can easily learn more on your university’s website or request a meeting with your major gifts officer. Note each donor who shows interest in the program so you can cultivate the relationship over time.

3. Leverage Donor Data for Highly Personalized Appeals

The best fundraising strategies reflect the unique relationship each supporter has with your university. Highly personalized appeals show each donor that you value them as an individual and respect their unique contributions.

Use your donor and alumni data to tailor your asks as much as possible. Go beyond addressing recipients by their preferred names—reference their specific past involvement, giving history, and personal connections to the university. Acknowledging that an alumnus was on the debate team or that a donor consistently supports the engineering department validates their identity and gives them clear, specific reasons to give again.

Segment your donor lists in several ways to maximize relevancy, and regularly audit your donor database to ensure all contact information and engagement records are accurate before sending appeals.

If you aren’t sure how to best segment your audience, hone in on the highest-value potential donors, or match supporters with the right requests, consider professional donor analytics services. Experienced fundraising consultants who specialize in data analysis can help you optimize your strategy for this year’s annual fund appeal and well into the future.

An effective annual fund approach relies on deep personalization, authentic narratives, and a variety of flexible giving options tailored to your audience. Upgrading the underlying strategy of your communications with these tips will help you build stronger relationships with alumni and secure the financial future of your core programs.

LinkedIn continues to stay relevant for alumni outreach in 2026 as it is one of the most comprehensive self-updating directories from an advancement standpoint. Over 50% of LinkedIn’s user base holds a higher-education degree, and ~53% of US college graduates are active on the platform.

That means your alumni not only present but also likely engaging with a variety of content. But as far as reaching out to them goes, being present on LinkedIn and being reachable are two different things, and the wrong outreach strategy can disinterest or even alienate alumni.

In this blog, we’ll go through whether LinkedIn is worth your time for alumni outreach and how you can get your alumni’s attention effectively.

Is LinkedIn outreach worth the investment?

Let’s start with understanding why LinkedIn is different from the other channels

LinkedIn InMail gets a 10–25% response rate while cold email, by comparison, sits at 1–5%. The platform’s natural context is also a big factor here because when an alum receives an InMail from their alma mater, it’s in a different environment to when they’re sorting through personal emails and family messages. They log on to LinkedIn with a certain mindset, which makes them more open to professional conversations.

LinkedIn also gives outreach teams more context about who they’re reaching before they begin the process such as:

• Where an alum works currently
• What they’ve recently posted
• What groups and communities they’re in
• Who the common connections are

That’s a lot of helpful material to tailor the first message that will hopefully be the start of a donor’s journey. Combine all of this with the social media nature of the platform and you get a channel that has a lot of potential if you approach it right.

LinkedIn Alumni Outreach Strategies

Now that we’ve established that LinkedIn is at least worth a look, let’s set your team up for success so that your messages don’t go ignored.

1. Build an Active Presence Before You Send a Message

Advancement teams (and most teams in any field, to be fair) tend to treat LinkedIn outreach the same way they’d treat a cold email campaign. They find the person, write the message, hit send, and hope for the best.

But LinkedIn is, at it’s core,  a social network. Your alumni notice who’s following you, who’s commenting on your posts, and whether your institution has a solid presence on the platform. If your university’s LinkedIn page hasn’t posted in months and the last post was a stock photo of a campus building, it hurts your cause already.

Before you start an outreach campaign, make sure you tick all these boxes::

1. First, make sure your institution’s LinkedIn page is active. Posting once per weekday helps you reach 60% of your followers in a month. You should be aiming for consistent presence over viral content.
2. Secondly, look for mutual connections, a shared connection increases reply rates by 27%. If a colleague or another alum is already connected,
3. Thirdly, follow the alum you plan to message and leave a genuine comment on something they’ve posted. If possible, build and nurture your online relationship with them. You should be looking to gain a follow-back. This can be crucial since alumni who already follow your institution are 81% more likely to respond to your InMail.

2. Build a Segmented List

Use your CRM along with LinkedIn's alumni search tool to understand who you will be sending your messages to. Many alumni engagement tools also allow you to better find, segment, and automate outreach to the right people.

The segmentation itself will be crucial as personalization is a big part of making your message stand out (as we will explain later), so take your time and make sure all your segments and alumni information is updated, synced, and ready to go.

3. Get the Subject Line Right

LinkedIn InMail by default gives you a 200-character subject line limit. When an alum receives your InMail as a notification, they see roughly 25 to 40 characters before the preview cuts off.

For this reason, short, specific, and personalized subject lines can work really well. For example: “A quick question from [University]” or “Connecting with [Name] re: mentorship”.

What won’t work on the other hand, is anything that sounds like a mass email campaign. Something like “Exciting news from the alumni office!” might feel generic or may confuse recipients.

4. Keep the Message Short and Simple

LinkedIn’s own data shows that InMails under 400 characters get higher response rates. Many institutions sometimes write messages much longer than this and have their messages scrolled past.

For your first message, your alums only need enough to understand what you’re asking and if it's worth their time. If you have more context to give and more reasons to say why this outreach matters, that can follow later.

Write a ~300-character message that asks one clear question. The message can address the basics such as who you are, why you’re reaching out, and your one specific question.

5. Personalize Beyond the Name

Alumni can tell if a message was written for them or if someone just replaced a mail merge field, so you’ll want to go further than just swapping people’s first names. Here’s a few things that might help with personalization:

• Spend a couple of minutes on the alum’s profile; personalized InMails increase acceptance rates by about 40%, according to LinkedIn data. Mention a recent post they made, a project they were publicly credited for, a career transition they just went through, or a shared connection.
• Find a good natural connection between what you discover about them and what you’re reaching out about. If you’re inviting them to a career mentorship panel and they’ve been posting about early-career development, mention that. If you’re reaching out around their 10-year graduation anniversary, you definitely want to acknowledge it.
• Avoid mentioning generic and obvious things like “I see you graduated from [University].” Good personalization shows you’ve paid attention to their life after graduation and you have a brief window that you want to make the most out of, especially for less-engaged alumni.

6. Templates for Common Outreach Scenarios

Here are some templates that you could borrow and build on to personalize your next outreach message on LinkedIn:

General reconnect: ‍

"Hi [Name], congrats on the move to [Company]. I'm on the alumni relations team at [University]. We're putting together a small group of alumni at your career stage to get some honest input on our programs. Would a 15-minute call work?"

Mentorship opportunity: ‍

"Hi [Name], I work in alumni relations at [University]. Saw your recent post on [topic] and thought you'd be a great fit for our mentorship program. We're matching alumni with students in [field]. Would you have 30 minutes to hear more?"

Upcoming event: ‍

"Hi [Name], I'm with alumni relations at [University]. We're hosting a small dinner for [City] alumni on [date] and wanted to make sure you were on the list. Can I send you the details?"

Giving day: ‍

"Hi [Name], [University]'s giving day is [date]. This year all gifts are going toward [initiative]. Wanted to reach out personally before things kick off. Can I send you a bit more context on what it supports?"

What each of these has in common is one clear ask and customization that shows the sender did their homework before reaching out.

7. Time Your Outreach Well

LinkedIn data shows that Friday and Saturday see 4% and 8% fewer than average responses, respectively. Your alumni may want to relax and disconnect from the professional world on the weekends, so Monday through Thursday is a good window. However, depending on your event calendar, and past alumni engagement data, this can vary a bit so do double check!

Going back to the mentioned window, Sprout Social's analysis of nearly 2 billion engagements across major social platforms points to Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., as LinkedIn's peak activity window. That's when professionals are most actively checking and responding on the platform, so it's your best shot at being seen before your message gets buried.

8. What to Do When Alumni Reply

Your next message after an alum replies sets the tone for the entire conversation that follows and the subsequent relationship. So here’s a few things to keep in mind:

• Reply quickly, ideally within a few hours of seeing their response.
• Thank them by name and reference something specific from their reply.
• Remember that this is a conversation on a social platform.

The goal should be to establish that your team and, by extension, your institution has a real interest in keeping in touch with them after graduation. For this reason, you’ll want to:

• Find out what they’re working on.
• Ask follow-up questions.
• Make it clear that there is no immediate ask attached.

💡This doubles as an opportunity to get updated information in case their profile information hasn’t been updated in a while.

Alumni who are connected to their institution are 23 times more likely to donate than those who aren’t. That connection, however, has to be built through consistent, genuine interaction over time. So, when it’s time to make an ask, it’s coming from the context of the conversation.

Build a LinkedIn Alumni Community (and not just another contact list)

At the end of the day, one-on-one outreach can only take you so far. Advancement and alumni relations teams that are able to keep alumni engaged are also building environments where alumni feel like they want to stay engaged.

If we are sticking to the platform at hand, LinkedIn Groups are a great way to do this. You can organize alumni groups around:

• Your institution
• Graduation cohorts
• Academic departments
• Regional chapters
• Donor groups
• Matching gift opportunities

…and much much more

AdvancementForm looked at what the institutions running active alumni groups have in common. Here are the main takeaways:

• Stay active every day: Keith Hannon of Cornell University shared that two-thirds of alumni relations professionals running thriving LinkedIn communities log in daily. That includes posting, answering questions, responding to comments, and engaging with what other members are sharing.
• Give alumni the spotlight: Spotlighting a graduate's career achievement or resharing something they wrote brings their audience into your content. Even the simple act of tagging alumni where needed will ensure that their network is notified as well. 
• Share career resources such as job postings, industry reads/insights, career advice for alumni at different stages and make sure they are updated frequently. This is the content that consistently performs well as it provides a clear reason to engage.
• Mix up your content formats: Posts with images get a 98% higher comment rate than those without, and posts with YouTube videos (that play directly in the feed) get a 75% higher share rate. Varying your formats will keep the feed from feeling like a broadcast channel.
• Ask alumni to help current students: Academic Impressions flags this as an especially meaningful way to engage alumni because it gives them an opportunity to give back give back, even without a financial element. Posting something like "What do you wish someone told you in your first year in [industry]?" gets replies from alumni who would otherwise never comment on, say, an event announcement.
• Run polls: Lebanon Valley College asked their alumni "What career field are you currently in or looking to enter?" and it sparked a lively, ongoing discussion among their alumni.  Polls can be a great icebreaker and contextualizing them to recent events, career stages, or other segmented needs is even better!
• Add in the nostalgia angle: Questions and posts about campus memories or institutional history give alumni interactive content that serves as a break on their feed from the usual LinkedIn content while also reminding them of why they feel connected to their school.

Finally, if you're thinking about content ratios, keep it weighted toward value-first content, career resources, alumni recognition, and conversation, with campaigns and event promotion playing a supporting role, not leading the feed.

Measure Your Progress and Know Your Blind Spots

You need to know whether your efforts are paying off. So, if you’re running structured outreach campaign on LinkedIn, here are the metrics which will help you track what's working:

• Connection acceptance rate:  You generally want to aim for ~20% or above. If you're below that, check whether you're warming up contacts before sending requests and whether your institution's page looks active and credible.
• InMail response rate: With personalized, well-targeted outreach, this should sit between 10–25%. Single-digit numbers are an indication to look at your message length, your subject line preview, and how specific your personalization is.
• Conversation-to-action rate: This tracks what percentage of replies converts into whatever your goal is, whether that’s an event registration, a scheduled call, or a gift.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) tracks alumni engagement across four modes: philanthropic, volunteer, experiential, and communications.

LinkedIn activity can feed into your experiential and communications metrics. If you’re not tracking LinkedIn engagement as part of your overall alumni engagement scorecard, you should consider starting now.

A few common blind spots that can be avoided include: 

• Reaching out only when there's an ask: If alumni only hear from you around giving day or annual fund season, the outreach feels transactional. Only 27% of alumni who donate give to their alma mater. The most common reason others don't give is because they don't feel connected enough to make it a priority.
• Writing LinkedIn messages like emails: Avoid long messages, formal language, attached PDFs when LinkedIn is conversational. Keep messages short, and the tone conversational.Save the documents for follow-up conversations.
• Ignoring alumni who engage with your posts: When an alum comments on something your institution shared, respond to them, thank them by name, and if appropriate, send a connection request with a brief personal note referencing what they said.
• Not knowing what comes next when someone replies: Replying to a message without a clear next step might waste the opening you had spent time and effort on. Know what you’re trying to accomplish before you send the first message so that when someone replies, you’re ready to take the conversation forward.

Final Thoughts

We hope we’ve been able to give you and your team plenty of things to keep in mind. While LinkedIn outreach may seem like a simple game of numbers at first glance, any outreach campaigns involving social media rarely tend to be so predictable and you definitely want to keep that in mind.

To wrap things up, keep personalization (and segmentation by extension) at the heart of your strategy, have a consistent presence on LinkedIn just as you probably do with Facebook or Instagram, and make sure you are thinking about how to take the conversation forward many weeks ahead of time so that alumni feel appreciated after reacting to your outreach.

If you are looking for an alumni engagement platform to help you plan, execute, and measure your alumni  outreach and engagement strategy, Almabase is built just for that so feel free to book a personalized demo with us!