Discover actionable strategies for sustainable fundraising to secure long-term support for K-12 schools and higher-ed institutions.
Summary
• Diversify your donor base by actively engaging small and medium-sized donors with accessible giving campaigns and flexible options. This helps you build a more resilient fundraising strategy and reduces the risk of over-reliance on a few major gifts, which is a common challenge for many institutions.
• Boost your fundraising campaigns by implementing a strong data strategy, ensuring your CRM acts as a knowledge hub to segment donors, track engagement, and predict behavior. A robust data foundation helps overcome inconsistent donor data challenges and informs smarter outreach.
• Build lasting trust and participation by being transparent about how funds are used, sharing impact reports, and involving alumni in decision-making processes through surveys or open communication. This fosters a deeper connection and encourages continued support for your mission.
• Broaden your definition of giving by actively encouraging non-financial contributions like volunteerism for events or mentorship programs for students. These efforts strengthen your community, cultivate a culture of giving back, and often pave the way for future financial support.
• Enhance donor participation and alumni engagement by offering flexible, evergreen giving options, such as recurring donations and custom amounts. Combine this with open and personalized communication to ensure your donors always feel valued, heard, and appreciated.
The importance of fundraising needs no introduction. However, with social, political, and economic elements proving increasingly tricky to predict, institutions of all sizes need to consider how they can make their fundraising strategy resilient to policy changes or the possibility of economic uncertainty.
Even before the sweeping education policy changes, fundraisers were proving increasingly reliant on large donors. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, the dollars raised increased every quarter throughout 2024, but there were fewer donors at every turn. It goes without saying that an increasing reliance on large donors at a time of declining donor retention runs a huge risk.
In this blog, we’ll guide you through some key points you should look to integrate in order to futureproof your fundraising strategy.
Your large donors are undeniably your biggest champions. However, a future-proof fundraising strategy requires all its donor segments to believe in your cause. You should look to:
Some donors may simply not have felt as connected to your cause as your larger donors. Keeping in mind that every $10 or $50 donation adds up over time, have specific segments and nurture processes for your small and mid-sized donors with a focus on donor retention and long-term community building.
Data is the backbone of modern advancement and fundraising. A well-maintained data system ensures you know who your donors are and how to engage them meaningfully.
Knowing is half the battle, and CRMs should be the knowledge hub to drive your current and future fundraising strategies.
Trust is the foundation of sustainable giving. Being upfront about how funds are used can inspire trust to snowball your donors’ perception of your cause.
Transparency builds credibility, making donors more likely to continue supporting your initiatives.
Corporate entities, especially those associated with your alumni provide great scope for collaborations and can significantly expand your fundraising impact.
There is no guarantee that your emails and events will be noticed by your alumni and donors at the perfect time. Providing a multitude of giving options not only increases the timeframe for donors to contribute but also attracts smaller and irregular donors.
Fundraising goes beyond monetary gifts. Non-financial contributions foster the culture of giving back and are crucial to building your donor community.
These contributions build community goodwill and often pave the way for future financial support.
While your institution would obviously have some common points of contact, you’ll need to go further to inspire donor loyalty. Your institution needs to feel approachable, and your donors need to feel heard. Here are some things to keep in mind:
At the end of the day, fundraising relies on your donors and their willingness to support your cause(s). By focusing on sustainable practices, your institution gains the flexibility to adapt to donor trends and economic shifts, essentially future-proofing your fundraising strategy.
If you’re looking for a long-term partner for your fundraising efforts, do give us a shout and we’d love to answer your questions and show you how we can help!
Sustainable fundraising focuses on creating long-term financial stability for an institution by diversifying revenue sources and fostering regular contributions. It ensures that you maintain consistent supporter engagement while adapting to changing economic and political dynamics.
While building a sustainable fundraising strategy requires effort, it becomes manageable with the right tools and approaches. Leveraging data, fostering trust, and offering flexible giving options can simplify and strengthen your efforts.
Start by identifying companies that share your institution’s values. Reach out with a concise and clear proposal that highlights mutual benefits. Focus on co-branded initiatives and emphasize the positive publicity their business can gain through the partnership.
Sustainable fundraising reduces reliance on unpredictable sources of income, enables long-term planning, and fosters stronger donor relationships. It ensures financial stability, even in uncertain times, and allows institutions to focus more on their mission.
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2024 was an interesting year for fundraising professionals. Persistent and emerging challenges in the nonprofit landscape coincided with some. While some issues carried over from previous years, new dynamics reshaped the way organizations navigated their work.
Last year was a year of highs and lows for fundraising and advancement professionals. From staffing struggles to shifts in donor behaviors, the year brought challenges that tested the resilience of nonprofits across sectors. However, these hurdles also paved the way for innovation, collaboration, and strategic rethinking, setting the stage for what 2025 might bring.
The donor landscape in 2024 presented an interesting problem. While overall donations increased, the donor pool continued to shrink. According to the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), there was a 2% increase in total donations but a 4.5% decline in the number of individual donors. This trend posed a significant challenge for nonprofits reliant on a broad donor base for smaller, recurring contributions.
Staffing shortages and high turnover rates continued to be among the most pressing concerns for nonprofits in 2024. According to a study by NonProfit PRO, nearly 70% of nonprofits reported struggling with staffing challenges, citing underfunding and burnout as primary drivers.
This crisis was compounded by the competitive job market, which made it difficult for nonprofits to attract and retain talent. High turnover negatively impacted team morale and operational efficiency, forcing many organizations to stretch already limited resources to achieve their goals.
The rise of AI and other tech tools has been both a blessing and a challenge for nonprofits. While AI offers powerful capabilities—from predicting donor behavior to automating administrative tasks—it also requires significant investment in training and implementation. Many teams struggled to fully integrate these tools due to lacking technical expertise or financial resources.
The use of AI also brings forward some ethical concerns that increasingly became relevant throughout the year. There exists the risk of over-automating donor communication, which could lead to a loss of the personal touch that is central to alumni engagement. For smaller organizations, the hype around AI could also lead to investments in tools that did not align with their needs, diverting funds from more pressing priorities.
Despite the challenges, nonprofits showcased remarkable resilience. Many embraced hybrid fundraising models, combining virtual and in-person events to engage a broader audience. Charity Digital reported that organizations leveraging digital tools for storytelling and donor engagement saw significant returns on investment.
Additionally, DonorBox emphasized how nonprofits that invested in robust donor communication tools experienced improved retention rates, especially during year-end campaigns.
As we move into 2025, nonprofits more than ever need to build on the lessons of 2024 by focusing on sustainable growth and strategic innovation.
Resilience emerged as a defining characteristic in 2024, and nonprofits should ideally look to build upon it by adopting sustainable strategies and scalable practices, to better navigate uncertainty and a world that’s throwing a lot of innovations at us without leaving us much time or resources to consider our approach to each of them. With all that being said, we’d like to explore some broad focus areas that teams and institutions alike should watch out for in 2025:
The excitement surrounding AI and other technologies in 2024 often led to unrealistic expectations for nonprofits. A research paper published by Lauri Goldkind, Joy Ming, and Alex Fink critically assessed AI’s role in human services, questioning whether it offered genuine value or was simply a trend driven by hype. The study concluded that while AI holds transformative potential, it requires proper alignment with an organization's size, mission, and resource constraints to be effective.
Throughout 2025, Nonprofits should be shifting focus toward scalable and budget-conscious technology solutions. For example, a hypothetical smaller team that only needs a CRM and basic analytics could leverage low-cost digital tools and achieve better outcomes if these tools are customized to their specific workflows and objectives, as opposed to trying to cover all their bases and wasting both resources and time spent on upskilling.
The staffing crisis doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon with 68% of organizations reporting difficulties with recruitment and retention in 2024. Common challenges include toxic work cultures, burnout, uncompetitive salaries, and insufficient training opportunities. Increased investment in professional development, equitable pay structures, and supportive workplace cultures have been big talking points for a while but now they need to become key priorities. Policies aimed at reducing burnout, such as flexible work schedules and mental health support should be a good starting point.
Additionally, peer mentoring and community-building efforts are gaining traction. Nonprofits can leverage mentorship programs and peer support networks to foster a sense of community within their teams, leading to improved job satisfaction and retention.
At the heart of every nonprofit is its people—the staff, donors, and volunteers whose collective efforts drive change. By fostering positive internal cultures and focusing on impactful strategies, nonprofits can inspire trust and loyalty, ensuring their mission thrives in the years to come.
Nonprofits have responded to the recent donor market shifts by focusing on deepening relationships with existing donors. Strategies such as targeted communication and personalized outreach have since become standard practice. 2025 should be a good year for teams to consolidate knowledge of their tools and long-term goals so that they continue fostering donor loyalty seamlessly. A key area of focus will be on small and medium-sized donors and how teams can turn them into loyal donors moving forward.
With federal budget cuts for nonprofits and institutions seeming likely on the horizon, advancement and nonprofit teams especially in the US will need to explore sustainable alternatives to reach their goals.
That’ll just about do it for now but with 2025 seeming a difficult year to predict, there should certainly be a lot more to talk about in the coming months.
Key focus areas for fundraising in 2025
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The best peer-to-peer fundraising platforms help educational institutions and nonprofits boost donor engagement through personalized giving pages, social fundraising, and CRM integration. These tools streamline campaigns with built-in analytics, gamification, and mobile optimization. While some options are completely free, others cater to large-scale fundraisers that require advanced data synchronization and scalability.
The right tools can make all the difference in modern fundraising. In this blog, we’ll highlight some of the best options on the market and explore what you can expect out of them.
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Peer-to-peer fundraising, or P2P fundraising, is a type of crowdfunding in which your organization encourages its supporters to fundraise for your cause. Typically, these supporters will create an individual fundraising page and share it with their friends, family members, and social media followers to raise money.
A peer-to-peer fundraising site is the software that allows your supporters to create a donation page, share it with their personal network, and collect donations to support your mission.
Typically, most fundraising tools today include features such as:
When shopping for a peer-to-peer fundraising tool, you’ll need to weigh the cost of the tool against the value it provides. However, it can be difficult to know the true cost of using the platform, depending on the software’s pricing structure. Get familiar with these common structures:
To compare tools with different pricing structures, calculate what each platform will cost you, on average, for a certain period of time.
Whether you’re a K-12 school ,higher ed institution, or a nonprofit, in no particular order, here are some peer-to-peer fundraising platforms that you should consider:
(Prices are based on publicly available data at the time of writing and are subject to change over time)
Almabase runs on a philosophy of integrating into your CRM and existing workflows, which remains true for their peer-to-peer fundraising features. Almabase boasts native sync with most higher-ed CRMs due to their TrueSync integration, combined with superior customer support and a willingness to integrate your ideas into their long-term vision. Almabase offers customizable pages and leaderboards powered with inbuilt text and email communication features built to drive donor engagement through organic and personalized communication.
Almabase’s pricing depends entirely on your needs. Learn how Almabase empowers your p2p strategy, Schedule a personalized demo and get a quote.
GoFundMe Pro (formerly Classy) is a peer-to-peer fundraising platform optimized for maximum nonprofit impact. It provides ready-to-use templates for scalable, high-impact campaigns and equips supporters with intuitive tools to advocate for the cause.
GoFundMe Pro offers features like campaign templating, embedded videos and livestreams, progress thermometers, team structures, and mobile-optimized pages. The platform also supports recurring gift options and flexible payment processing, and has a mobile- and user-friendly interface.
GoFundMe Pro offers a standard “Essentials” plan and a “Partner” custom plan.
Bloomerang Fundraising (formerly Qgiv) is a fundraising platform offering tools for donation management, event planning, and donor engagement. It provides features like customizable donation forms, peer-to-peer fundraising, and text-to-give options
Bloomerang Fundraising starts at $40 per month if purchased as part of a bundle with Bloomerang CRM.
Zeffy is a 100% free fundraising platform for nonprofits, offering peer-to-peer fundraising, crowdfunding, donation pages, and recurring giving options. This tool generates revenue through optional tips that donors can provide in addition to their donation. It allows fundraisers to join as individuals or teams and create their own fundraising pages. The platform is also known for being simple, intuitive, and customizable
Zeffy has no fees and instead runs on optional tips from donors.
Donorbox is a fundraising platform that allows nonprofits to launch peer-to-peer fundraisers in a few steps. It provides customizable donation forms and supports recurring donations via various payment methods.
Donorbox also offers features for managing donors, sending personalized emails, and recording donor communications. The platform provides resources like onboarding emails, courses, and templates to support nonprofits in their fundraising efforts.
For peer-to-peer fundraisers, Donorbox charges a flat 1.75% platform fee for a main campaign and 2.95% for a supporter’s campaign.
Bonfire specializes in fundraising through custom merchandise sales. Nonprofits, schools, and even individuals can design their own custom merch and sell it via Bonfire’s free online stores.
Bonfire supports peer-to-peer campaigns (which it refers to as “giving campaigns”) by allowing your supporters to create and share t-shirt fundraisers on behalf of your organization—then, all of the money they raise is sent directly to your nonprofit.
Bonfire is completely free to use, and your nonprofit keeps 100% of the profits. There’s an 8% processing fee on additional donations, but if you verify your nonprofit status with Bonfire, that fee is reduced to 3.5%
Givebutter provides tools to launch peer-to-peer campaigns, complete with donation forms, fundraising pages, event management, a built-in CRM, and marketing tools to analyze your progress and streamline workflows. Their fundraiser teams offer a great choice for organizations looking to gamify their peer-to-peer fundraisers as well.
Givebutter offers a popular “free forever” plan, as well as a paid option starting at $29/month. If your organization opts out of having donors cover fees, Givebutter charges 1% for donation forms, 3% for pages, and 5% for events and auctions, as well as a payment processing charge of 2.9% + ¢0.30 per transaction.
GiveCampus is a fundraising platform for educational institutions, providing solutions for online giving, giving days, crowdfunding, P2P fundraising, and more. It blends peer-to-peer outreach, social media, and gamification to engage more donors and increase fundraising. The platform allows schools to execute giving days, year-end appeals, and crowdfunding campaigns.
GiveCampus also offers features like matches and challenges to inspire donors and make them feel like their contributions are making a difference
GiveCampus has three platform plans: Essentials, Professional, and Enterprise. Additionally, pricing will vary depending on the modules you require.
As a Blackbaud product, JustGiving is a great choice if you are used to the Blackbaud CRM environment. Compared to other platforms on this list, JustGiving is relatively simple both in its presentation and its scope. This makes it an easy choice for teams just starting out or looking for something simple for a one-off event. However, there may be better choices for teams that want a more comprehensive solution that spans multiple fundraisers and year-long campaigns.
JustGiving charges platform fees and a standard payment processing fee based on your geographical location and payment platform. Crowdfunding pages are free to set up. While UK charities do not need to pay a platform fee, they do have a subscription model.
Gravyty leverages predictive AI technology to provide frontline fundraisers with personalized insights into donor behavior. This innovative approach helps organizations enhance their outreach efforts by automating email drafts tailored to individual donors while integrating seamlessly with existing CRM systems. Gravyty's focus on personalization empowers fundraisers to build stronger relationships with donors.
While some information is available online, interested organizations will need to contact Gravyty for a custom quote.
Bonterra’s peer-to-peer fundraising product (formerly DonorDrive) offers smart and customizable P2P fundraising solutions that empower supporters to create personalized experiences at scale. Its features include an intuitive event builder, personalized coaching for fundraisers, gamification elements like leaderboards, social media integrations, and seamless CRM integration, which enhances supporter engagement significantly
Bonterra offers three tiers—Essentials, Pro, and Enterprise—with pricing based on customer needs.
With so many unique platforms out there, choosing the right one can be a little overwhelming. However, there are several key factors to consider when selecting the right peer-to-peer fundraising software for your team:
Each platform will offer peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities, but you should dig a little deeper to find the right fit for your needs. For example, if you are a small team looking to organize a quick fundraiser, you may end up paying for features you don’t need. On the other hand, if you are looking for a long-term solution, a platform without built-in analytics would be a dealbreaker. Look for features that boost, rather than hamper, your fundraising efforts, and aim for a high return on investment.
Many teams want a tool that scales up alongside them as they engage more donors and alumni, but there is often a point where their needs outgrow the platform. To avoid this, consider both your short-term and long-term goals to determine if the platform’s upgraded pricing tiers will meet your team’s requirements later on. This way, you can simply upgrade to a plan with more advanced features or storage rather than migrating to a completely new platform.
Your staff, fundraisers, and donors should all have positive, smooth experiences when engaging with your fundraising pages. For example, if you want to sell custom merch, both the designing process and purchasing process should be easy and intuitive for supporters. From payment processing to reporting workflows to page load times, there are many aspects you should ask about or test out during a free trial or demo to see if a platform is the right one for you.
Some solutions come with a relatively low learning curve but offer limited functionality. Some, on the other hand, can be the driving force behind all your fundraising strategies but may require in-depth technical and/or coding experience. Try to find a balance between the training time required and potential functionality to ensure high adoption.
Pricing is a key consideration for any tool, but it’s also important to consider the nuances that may arise down the line. Always consider the rates associated with upfront costs, renewals, transaction fees, upgraded plans, and other relevant expenses. Additionally, switching to a new platform inevitably leads to more expenses through database transfers and staff upskilling. Consult with your database managers and other staff members before making a decision.
In the event that something goes wrong, you need to be able to reach the platform provider to resolve the issue. Keep factors like response times on live chat or email support channels in mind. For the long term, you also want to support platforms that onboard customer feedback and have detailed roadmaps for upcoming features.
Both your staff and donors need to be assured that sensitive data like payment information will be kept safe and secure. Always look out for a platform’s data encryption measures, as well as its compliance and authentication processes, to see if it inspires confidence from your donors.
Third-party review sites like G2 and Capterra offer insight into what customers think about specific tools. Keep in mind that these reviews are subjective, but they can be a great indication of how a platform is perceived overall, highlighting positive and negative software trends.
There is no single “best” fundraising website, but you can find the one that is best for your organization. Choose a platform that aligns with your goals, budget, audience, and campaign type.
Yes, a reputable fundraising platform should be able to integrate with your CRM to ensure donor data flows automatically into your central database. This eliminates data silos and the need for manual data transfers.
GoFundMe is a popular tool for personal crowdfunding, but it may lack the tools you need to run a full-fledged campaign. The platforms referenced in this guide offer the specialized tools mission-driven organizations need for branding, tracking donor data, and communications.
Crowdfunding is a centralized process led by your organization using a single donation page. On the other hand, peer-to-peer campaigns decentralize fundraising, empowering many supporters to help you raise money. Peer-to-peer campaigns empower supporters to help you raise money, meaning there are many people fundraising for your cause. Make sure your platform has the tools to support a peer-to-peer campaign.
Look for platforms that include gamification features, such as fundraising thermometers, badges, and leaderboards. These tools spark friendly competition among fundraisers and help them visualize their progress to maintain momentum and engagement.
We hope we’ve given you the tools you need to choose or at least consider some of the best peer-to-peer fundraising solutions out there, as well as the questions you need to ask yourself before adopting one. Whether you’re a higher ed institution optimizing your peer-to-peer fundraisers or a K-12 school just looking to get started, we hope you pick out the right solution and can make a great positive change.
If you’ve had successful peer-to-peer fundraisers before, learn how you can build a peer-to-peer fundraising community to help you keep providing meaningful experiences
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11 great peer-to-peer fundraising platforms for Institutions and Nonprofits 2026
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Alumni are among your institution's most valuable assets. They provide mentorship, career opportunities, financial support, and serve as natural, authentic brand ambassadors for your school. This, of course, depends on the extent to which they feel connected to their alma mater once they’ve graduated. But nurturing relationships is a complex undertaking, and especially so at scale. Keeping alumni engaged across multiple touchpoints like events, communications, giving, and career networking remains a persistent (as well as rewarding) challenge for advancement teams. The right alumni management software solves this by bringing engagement activity, fundraising, and community into a single system.
Choosing the right alumni management system cuts through the fragmentation that typically forces teams to stitch together multiple disconnected tools, and makes it easier to track which initiatives drive outcomes.
With so many options available, this blog compares the ten best platforms that could help you get there, based on your specific requirements.
Almabase brings alumni engagement and fundraising into the same workflow, connecting the activities between constituents and institutions. The platform builds interactions such as alumni events, email campaigns, or giving days into a shared engagement history rather than treating them as standalone features, giving your team a complete picture of constituents’ journeys.
Almabase’s engagement tools connect with your CRM seamlessly. Its TrueSync integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT supports two-way, real-time data sync, so information can move between Almabase and RE NXT without the recurring exports, imports, and manual updates that can come with managing separate systems.
The platform also brings alumni-facing programs such as directories, mentorship, job boards, events, and email campaigns into the same environment. This means fewer disconnected tools and less work trying to piece together engagement data afterward for institutions running several of these programs at the same time.
That makes it relevant for teams of all sizes running all types of events: reunions, regional events, giving days, donor events, and ongoing alumni communications.
All of these features make Almabase particularly suited to advancement teams that want engagement activity and fundraising data to work together. It's also a natural fit for institutions already working in Raiser’s Edge NXT and looking to connect their alumni-facing activities more closely to their advancement database.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on institution size, requirements and alumni count.
EverTrue is a fundraising intelligence and donor engagement platform built to help advancement teams find better prospects, understand their constituents, and give fundraisers more context for their outreach. EverTrue sits alongside your CRM and enriches constituent records with engagement, career, social, and wealth information.
EverTrue brings a lot of external intelligence into constituent records. TrueView profiles can combine your existing CRM data with career changes, social media activity, donor interests, wealth indicators, and other signals, giving fundraisers a more current picture of the people they're trying to engage. The platform also supports prospect discovery, segmentation, mapping, and alerts to help teams identify people who may be worth a closer look.
It's a good fit when you already have a CRM you want to keep and need additional intelligence to help fundraisers identify prospects, prioritize portfolios, plan visits, and personalize outreach. However, it's less suited to institutions looking for a single platform to run their broader alumni engagement program.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on the EverTrue products and capabilities an institution selects. Estimates place the starting quote at about $5000 a year.
360Alumni brings together an alumni directory, networking, events, fundraising, mentoring, job boards, and email marketing in a single branded environment. Its focus is less on advancement operations and more on giving alumni a place to find each other, build connections, and participate in their alumni community.
360Alumni stands out as being a more alumni-facing platform. It puts its interactive alumni directory and map at the center and makes it easy for users to search for other alumni by a range of metrics: location, profession, interests, and other criteria.
360Alumni is well suited for schools where an alumni directory, career networking, mentoring, and geographically based connections are all important parts of the engagement strategy.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on record count, with an initial setup cost and annual subscription. 360Alumni also charges a 3% credit-card processing fee plus a plan-dependent service charge on event ticket sales, donations, and membership payments.
Graduway is built around the idea of an alumni community as an active digital space, giving alumni a place to connect with each other as well as stay connected to their institution.
What sets Gravyty apart is alumni-to-alumni engagement. Alumni can connect with peers, participate in mentoring programs, join communities, and build professional relationships through the platform.
Graduway is particularly suited to institutions where community building, networking, and mentoring are central to the alumni engagement strategy. It's especially relevant for institutions with geographically dispersed alumni or large professional networks, where mentoring, career connections, affinity groups, and peer networking offer a major push to stay engaged throughout the year.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on the institution's requirements and alumni community size.
HiveBrite is a community platform designed for organizations that want more control over how their online communities look, work, and evolve. For higher education, it can bring alumni networking, groups, events, mentoring, career opportunities, and other engagement programs into a branded community environment.
HiveBrite offers a good level of customization: institutions can shape member journeys, create different community spaces and permissions, customize the platform's design, and tailor experiences for different audiences.
The platform also supports events, groups, discussions, mentoring, career networking, and other community activities. Its multilingual capabilities and support for international communities make it relevant for institutions managing alumni networks across multiple countries and regions.
HiveBrite is particularly suited to larger institutions that want to build a highly tailored alumni community and have the resources to support implementation and ongoing administration.
Pricing: HiveBrite offers tiered and custom pricing starting at $895/month depending on the size and requirements of the community.
PeopleGrove is an alumni engagement platform built around helping institutions create stronger connections between students and alumni.
PeopleGrove particularly excels at structured program management. Teams can set up mentoring programs, match participants based on skills, interests, and goals, establish milestones, and track participation and outcomes. Rather than simply giving alumni a directory and letting them find one another, the platform gives institutions tools to actively shape how those connections happen.
The platform also enriches profiles with professional information from LinkedIn, helping you maintain more current information about where alumni work and what they do without relying entirely on manual profile updates. This information is useful when building targeted programs or helping users find relevant connections.
Pricing: Custom pricing offered based on the institution's requirements.
Encoura Encompass is a constituent engagement platform for higher education that brings website management, email marketing, event management, online giving, membership, and other alumni-facing functions into one system.
One of Encompass's biggest strengths is its breadth of constituent-facing functionality. Instead of using separate systems for an alumni website, communications, events, giving, and membership management, institutions can manage these activities through one connected platform. This breadth is particularly useful for institutions already working within the Anthology ecosystem.
For institutions evaluating it, the recent ownership transition is an important part of the conversation: Encoura acquired the service in 2026, so teams should evaluate the current product roadmap, support model, and integration plans alongside the platform's existing functionality.
Pricing: Estimate currently place pricing starting at $7,500 per year, but the platform does not publicly disclose its prices.
ToucanTech is an alumni and community platform that brings together an alumni database, website and portal, email marketing, events, fundraising, memberships, and career networking. Built specifically for schools and educational institutions, it aims to give teams a broad set of alumni engagement tools without requiring extensive technical configuration.
ToucanTech champions ease of use as one of its core principles. Users frequently highlight its intuitive interface and customer support. The platform also keeps common alumni activities connected. Event registrations, donations, communications, memberships, and constituent information can be managed within the same system, giving teams one place to work from rather than stitching together several point solutions.
It's a useful option for teams replacing a legacy alumni system, building a program with a relatively small staff, or looking to consolidate several alumni-facing tools into one platform.
Pricing: ToucanTech's core plan has a flat rate of $8,000 per year.
WildApricot is a membership management platform used by associations, nonprofits, and community organizations.
The platform sets itself apart with its straightforward pricing and setup. Unlike many enterprise alumni platforms that require a sales conversation before you can estimate costs, WildApricot publishes its plans based on the number of contacts you manage. It also offers a 60-day free trial, making it easier for smaller organizations to test the platform before committing.
The platform is also designed to be managed without extensive technical expertise. Teams can build a member-facing website, maintain a directory, create events, collect payments, and send communications from the same system.
WildApricot is a good fit for small alumni associations and organizations with simpler membership and event needs, such as maintaining a member directory, managing memberships, organizing events, sending communications, and collecting payments.
It may become less suitable as an institution's needs expand into larger and more specialized alumni engagement or advancement workflows.
Pricing: Plans are based on contact volume, starting at $63/month for 100 contacts and increasing with database size. WildApricot also offers a 60-day free trial.
GiveCampus is built around fundraising, alumni engagement, events, volunteer management, and frontline fundraising. As an engagement layer that sits on top of your CRM, it brings together constituent, gift, event, volunteer, and frontline fundraising data.
This is particularly useful for advancement teams that want events and alumni engagement to feed directly into fundraising workflows. GiveCampus also supports email and text outreach, volunteer management, and fundraising campaigns within the same ecosystem.
It's a strong fit for institutions running a lot of giving campaigns, reunions, alumni events, volunteer programs, and donor outreach from the same advancement operation.
It's less of a traditional alumni-community platform built primarily around directories, mentoring, or social networking.
Pricing: Custom pricing offered based on the institution and products selected.
There’s no single alumni management platform that will be the right fit for every institution. Think on the question of what you need the platform to do, and you’ll be able to approach the decision with much clarity.
If fundraising and advancement are at the center of your alumni strategy, look for a platform that can connect engagement activity with your CRM and give your advancement team useful donor context. Almabase and GiveCampus are worth a closer look here, while EverTrue makes more sense for teams that need deeper prospect and donor intelligence.
If your priority is building an active alumni community, Graduway and HiveBrite take a more community-first approach, with tools for networking, groups, mentoring, and member interaction.
For institutions where alumni-to-student connections, mentoring, and career engagement are a major part of the strategy, PeopleGrove is built around those programs rather than treating them as an add-on. And if you're looking for something simpler to get up and running, ToucanTech offers a broader set of alumni tools, but with less emphasis on extensive customization.
Before you start booking demos, definitely get clear on what your institution actually needs from an alumni management platform and what you can realistically expect from your budget, team, and existing tech stack. That’s exactly what we cover in our Alumni Management Software Buying Guide. It walks through the key features to evaluate, questions to ask vendors, implementation considerations, and how to compare platforms against your institution’s specific needs.
If you’re unsure what to prioritize, flipping through the guide before comparing vendors might help!
Choosing alumni management software is a big decision, especially when your team will be relying on it for everything from everyday alumni communications to major events and fundraising campaigns. Take the time to see how each platform handles your actual workflows, what implementation involves, and how well it works with the systems you already use.
Almabase is worth exploring if bringing alumni engagement and fundraising closer together is a priority. It brings events, communications, giving, and alumni data into one platform, with CRM integrations to reduce manual work for your team. 🤗
You can read more about what makes Almabase a good alumni management software and how it supports different alumni programs.
Ultimately, the goal is to find the platform your team can comfortably use, your alumni will want to engage with, and your institution can continue to rely on as its programs grow.
Request a demo today to see how Almabase can help your institution nurture deeper relationships with your alumni. 💜
An institution can get by with spreadsheets and basic CRM functions, but a dedicated alumni management software makes a huge difference when you need to map engagement, personalize communications, giving, and complex events. So while not always necessary, it becomes almost essential as an institution scales its alumni management efforts.
There’s no single best option for every institution. The right platform depends on your goals, existing technology, budget, and whether you need deeper capabilities or customizations. Ultimately it’s about finding the right fit for your requirements.
Pricing varies widely depending on the platform, number of alumni, and features you need. Some platforms offer tiered pricing, while others use custom pricing based on the institution’s requirements.
Free tools can work for institutions with smaller alumni programs or straightforward needs, but they often come with limits on features, users, data, or customization. If your programs are growing, paid software may offer more room to scale.
You might find the terms being used interchangeably, but an alumni platform usually focuses on the alumni-facing experience, while alumni management software could also include the operational side, including data management, events, communications, and fundraising.
The Best Alumni Management Software in 2026
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Almabase
April 20, 2026
12 minutes
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