Universities depend heavily on social campaigning to generate revenue. To enhance your fundraising approach, consider these crucial marketing strategies.
As part of the higher education sector, your university likely depends on social campaigns like peer-to-peer fundraising and crowdfunding to fund its projects and initiatives. While these campaigns have the potential for a wide reach, they require effective promotion to maximize alumni support.
How can you retain alumni support long after they receive their diplomas? Let’s explore the top marketing practices your university should employ when planning your outreach strategy.
Your alumni may be eager to support your university, but many are unaware of the opportunities available to help them maximize their contributions—namely, matching gifts.
Matching gifts are a type of corporate social responsibility initiative wherein businesses match donations made by their employees. Double the Donation defines corporate social responsibility as “a company’s efforts to improve society” in a multitude of ways, from directly donating to supporting employee giving. Matching gifts combine both of these efforts and represent a major revenue opportunity for universities.
Identify match-eligible alumni by looking into your existing donor base. Specifically, take a look at your alumni and major donors who represent your largest match opportunities. Then, secure matching gifts from alumni by promoting the opportunity to match-eligible individuals through:
As you solicit matched gifts, maintain an open line of communication with major employers who offer matches. Periodically review their policies and ask them to notify you if any changes are made to their matching gift program. Both universities and donors should stay on top of employers’ match guidelines to avoid missing out on matching gift revenue.
Communication is the foundation of a successful fundraising campaign. While some approaches are more effective than others, the best results come from incorporating multiple channels—especially for larger donor bases.
There are two types of marketing your university can leverage, and each type has a plethora of channels you can use to spread the word about your campaigns:
Remember, communication is a two-way street. You won’t just want to send messages to alumni, but to stay in touch with them over time. Ensure that alumni and any volunteer fundraisers feel free to voice their feedback or concerns.
Effective communication is about more than just an open line of communication—it’s about powerful storytelling, too. Stories encourage alumni to form stronger connections with your university’s mission, students, and impact.
As part of your marketing approach, implement the following storytelling strategies into your content:
Storytelling and powerful imagery compel users to share content with their networks, so it’s crucial that you make your storytelling components shareable. For example, you might place a “Share” button next to the content on your alumni website that makes it easy for viewers to repost an article or video to their social media channels.
In all your digital marketing materials, make it easy for viewers to take action by directing them to your donation page. Make the most of clear calls to action, prominent buttons, and QR codes across all the channels you use. To ensure shareability, use an effective social campaigning platform and the right social media platforms.
Additionally, when alumni land on your fundraising page, they should be able to take action easily. Check to ensure your donation form can be quickly completed and doesn’t require any unnecessary steps. With a compelling marketing strategy and simple form, your university can seamlessly convert alumni into dedicated supporters.
Now that you know the best marketing practices, share this information with your fundraising team, and plan your best campaign yet! Then, as donations start to roll in, be sure to show your appreciation for donors’ support and continue to engage them by offering additional involvement opportunities. The more active your donors are in your university’s activities, the more likely they’ll be to continue their support.
Adam Weinger is the President of Double the Donation, the leading provider of tools to nonprofits to help them raise more money from corporate matching gift and volunteer grant programs.
Double the Donation's robust solution, 360MatchPro, provides nonprofits with automated tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro integrates directly into donation forms, CRMs, social fundraising software, and other nonprofit technology solutions to capture employment information and follow up appropriately with donors about matching gifts.
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Online fundraising can be a deceptively tricky subject. While the term simply refers to the process of raising money online, making the most of this strategy requires a dynamic approach on the part of your school.
When it comes to engaging with alumni, in particular, it’s doubly important to have a robust online fundraising strategy in place.
For this reason, your team should take a look at how you fundraiser online right now and decide whether or not you’re getting all you can out of this strategy.In this article, we’ll help you begin this process by discussing:
1. How your alumni engagement strategy can benefit from online fundraising
2. Online fundraising trends you should be using
3. Ways to boost alumni giving through online fundraising
4. Fundraising software tools that can improve your alumni engagement.
Ready to master online fundraising and improve your alumni engagement tactics? Let’s dive in!
Making the most of your online fundraising capabilities should be your first priority when perfecting how you engage with alumni!
As a school, your institution's fundraising needs and limitations likely look very different from other nonprofit organizations. For one thing, your core donor base (your alumni) are often spread far and wide across the country.
This means that to connect with alumni supporters, you’ll have to go the extra mile to meet them where they are.
The best way to do this? By fundraising online, your team can easily reach geographically-diverse alumni. This starts with accepting donations online, but also allows your school to regularly interact with your supporters via email, social media and more!
When your school makes the effort to interact with supporters online, you avoid the trap of remaining “out of sight and out of mind” to these individuals.
Through frequent online interaction, alumni are more likely to donate on a regular basis, as well as more likely to encourage their friends and family to give to your institution.
In addition to strengthening ties between your school and your alumni, online fundraising has several other key benefits:
1. Low overhead cost: After your initial investment in online fundraising software, online fundraising proves to more than make up for its upfront cost. Since everything is virtual, your team can allocate less personnel to manage your online fundraising efforts, as well as save money on physical marketing materials.
2. Simple setup: Once you pick the right software, your team can easily set up your online fundraising tools with little stress. Many services offer consultation during the implementation process, or you might lean on your fundraising consultant during this time for their expertise.
3. Increased donor knowledge: Another reason why online fundraising tools are so effective is because they can provide unmatched insight into your supporters. With every interaction your school has with alumni online, you will collect important data that can inform your engagement tactics moving forward.
The bottom line: By investing time and energy into perfecting your school’s online fundraising strategy, you’ll have an easier time reaching alumni donors while saving money and effort. Even better, when you do connect with these donors, your interactions will be more streamlined and more informative than traditional methods allow.
With the right strategy, your school can benefit from powerful new trends in online fundraising that simply can’t be matched by traditional fundraising methods.
In this section, we’ll highlight tactics that make the most of online fundraising’s dynamic potential by going further than simply accepting donations.
First, we’ll go over social fundraising techniques like crowdfunding and peer-to-peer campaigns, and then we’ll show you how online fundraising can be paired with on-site events to help your school make the donation more accessible to your alumni supporters.
1. Crowdfunding. With the right crowdfunding software, your school can grow your donor base while raising money. Look for tools that allow you to easily brand donation pages, share campaigns across social media and email, and ones with team crowdfunding capabilities.
2. Peer-to-peer: Tapping into your alumni’s social network, donors can help your school reach more eyes online. By associating campaigns with your alumni fundraisers, potential supporters are more inclined to give since they’ll more closely associate your school with their friend, family member, or colleague.
1. Kiosks and card swipers: By investing in an on-site donation kiosk or card swiper, your team can accept donations from those who prefer to pay with a credit or debit card. Gifts are then transferred online to your bank account, so you never have to worry about depositing checks or keeping track of cash donations. You might use a kiosk or card swiper at events like walkathons, talent shows, charity auctions etc.
2. Live event streaming: Another dynamic way to raise money for your cause is to stream fundraising events online. Alumni who can’t make it will be able to participate in the festivities from their computer or mobile device, and because of your online donation tools, giving will be as easy as the click of a button.
The bottom line: As part of your fundraising strategy, your school shouldn’t discount tactics that marry the best parts of in-person fundraising methods with the functionality and ease-of-use that online fundraising provides.
Looking to optimize your online giving channels to boost alumni donations?
What’s so unique about online fundraising is that your team can truly customize the giving experience to make donation as seamless as possible for your alumni donors.
Check out some of these online fundraising best practices to maximize your alumni’s donor potential:
1. Offer simple donation forms: You don’t want to lose out on potential alumni gifts because your online donation form was too lengthy, confusing, or required too much effort to complete. Be sure to make your online donation forms as streamlined as possible and don’t require givers to register for an account to make a donation.
2. Encourage recurring giving: The quickest way to make sure you’re able to get the most out of your fundraising efforts? Prompt alumni to opt-into recurring giving when they make a donation. Give them the freedom to set the gift amount and the donation schedule so that they’re able to tailor the process to their preferences.
3. Match alumni gifts: With the right software, your school can increase your fundraising potential by receiving matched gifts from alumni who work for corporations that have a matching gift program in place. One convenient way to do this is to direct alumni to a matching gift database tool on your school’s website or to implement an automated matching gift software to streamline the process for your school’s team.
The bottom line: Offering online donation channels to your alumni donors will boost giving, but only if your school is able to make the most of these dynamic giving tools.
One of the most important parts of perfecting your school’s online fundraising strategy is picking the right online fundraising software to help you get the job done.
With all the options out there, it can be tricky to know what software to invest in and what kind of functionality you’ll need to stay on top of your online fundraising game.
Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of all the tools you need to look out for when picking your software!
Donation pages are the bread and butter of your online fundraising efforts. To make sure you reach the maximum number of alumni donors, your team should be sure to invest in online fundraising software that provides you with dynamic tools to customize your pages.
Invest in a software solution that allows you to:
1. Brand pages to your school with colors, logos, pictures, video, etc.
2. Integrate donation pages with social media to make them easily shareable
3. Customize donation pages with suggested giving amounts, recurring giving opt-ins, and more.
Having a successful communications strategy in place is the first step to boosting your alumni fundraising online. If your team isn’t able to get the word out to your supporters, your online fundraising efforts will falter.
When choosing which online fundraising software to invest in, keep an eye out for a solution that enables :
1. Automated constituent email that can be customized to your different alumni donor segments
2. Engagement tracking and analytics to help you learn all you can about what strategies work for your supporters
3. Social share buttons that enable your donors to easily broadcast to their social networks once they give
The vast majority of your alumni use their mobile devices as their primary way to access the internet. Don’t miss out on all of these potential alumni donors!
As part of your online fundraising strategy, your school should be sure to have functional mobile giving tools in place. These can include:
1. Donation pages that are optimized for mobile devices
2. Embedded donation pages across your various social media platforms
3. Text giving tools that allow donors to give simply by sending you a customizable keyword.
The bottom line: When choosing online fundraising software, your team should select a platform that offers dynamic tools to meet your alumni engagement needs at every level.
When it comes to alumni engagement, having a next-level online fundraising strategy in place is crucial With these tips in mind, there’s nothing stopping your school from making connections with alumni and raising more than ever before!
Online Fundraising: What You Need to Know to Engage Alumni
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Here are two main reasons why Online Giving is the best place to invest your time and talent.
1. It is the hottest form of giving right now – Online giving in Education sector has risen by a staggering 12.3 % and 15 % in last two years.
2. It has seen the largest adoption rates by the Millennials
62% of donors worldwide prefer to give online
Our experience with over hundred partner schools across the world had taught a few things about various friction points on Giving Pages. Some common examples include:
1. excessive steps or clicks in the giving process
2. multiple or conflicting calls-to-action, non-essential buttons, menus, or navigational elements.
Simple math tells us that:
1. Even under the assumption of a very conservative conversion rate of 1 % for every 1,000 visitors, you will have 10 donors.
2. For the same 1,000 visits to your online donation form, if 3% of them convert into donors, you’ll have 30 donors. That’s a 200% improvement! And depending on your average gift amount, this could equate to a significant increase for your organisation.
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7- Effective Online Giving Practices
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Having observed 100+ Giving Days, we have enough data to conclude that Giving Days can provide a major boost to your fundraising efforts.
A Giving Day is a powerful online fundraising campaign conducted for 24 hours with the purpose of raising money and finding new donors. On every calendar, there are special days, or holidays, dedicated for different purposes or activities. For example, most calendars automatically include holidays like Independence Day, Mother’s Day, and Halloween. A giving day could be one such special day marked on your school’s event calendar, dedicated to fundraising and known to your constituents as a special day for your school.
If you’re asking yourself why a designated day should be any different from any other day of the year, read on. While your constituents can donate throughout the year, asking them to participate in a 24-hour event exclusive to a cause helps create a sense of urgency. Giving Days also help create healthy competition and a sense of community as your constituents get an opportunity to contribute towards a common goal.
A well planned Giving Day can entirely transform your fundraising approach by helping you acquire new donors, enrich the giving experience, and instill a culture of giving in your constituents.
Need more information on how to plan for a Giving Day? Click on the image below to get a free copy of our Planning a Giving Day Handbook today!
Why are Giving Days so important?
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