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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 →
Moving from BBNC to Almabase: The Assisted Fast Pass Migration
Blackbaud is sunsetting support for Raiser’s Edge NXT’s database view and related functionality in September 2027. Learn how Almabase replaces your current functionality and how our Assisted Fast Pass Migration makes for a smooth switch without disrupting your campaigns or operations.
Anwesha Kiran
September 10, 2026
12 minutes
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!
How to run a successful paddle raise (fund-a-need) at your event
Learn what a paddle raise is, how you can run one successfully, as well as a few tips to make your paddle raise stand out.
Hari Govind
September 4, 2026
12 minutes
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:
- 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.
- 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.
3 Ways to Build a Better Annual Fund Appeal for Higher Ed
Asking for donations to your annual fund can feel repetitive, but your appeal letters shouldn’t be. Learn how to develop better annual fund appeals here.
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Alyssa Jefferies
September 3, 2026
12 minutes
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::
- 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.
- Secondly, look for mutual connections, a shared connection increases reply rates by 27%. If a colleague or another alum is already connected,
- 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!
How to Reach Out to Alumni on LinkedIn and Get Responses
Our article takes you through LinkedIn alumni outreach and how your team or institution can ensure that your alumni don't ignore your messages.
Prajnya Yelamali
September 2, 2026
12 minutes
You’ve got a giving campaign to run.
An event to promote.
A reminder to send.
And of course, the email isn’t going to write itself.
Until now.
🎉 Introducing Emily AI: Your email writing assistant
We’re excited to introduce Emily AI, an intelligent assistant built right into your Almabase Email Center. Emily helps you create professional, context-aware emails using just a few prompts. From idea to first draft, the process takes seconds, not hours.
Just tell Emily what you want to say. She’ll take care of the rest.
Subject line, body, tone, even the inertia that usually holds things up.
Whether you’re inviting alumni to an event, thanking donors, or sending a save-the-date for your reunion, Emily AI helps you get the message out clearly and quickly.
Why do you need Emily AI?
Advancement teams today are juggling faster turnarounds, higher expectations for personalization, and less time to get it all done. The message still matters, but now it has to compete with everything else on your plate.
That’s where prompt-based tools like Emily AI come in.
They don’t replace your voice. They help you get the message out while it still matters.
What you can do with Emily AI
Just type in a prompt like:
“Invite alumni to our 25th-year reunion in a warm, cheerful tone.”
Emily instantly drafts a full email based on your prompt, no blank screen, no second-guessing.
You can:
- Regenerate drafts until you like one
- Refine the language if you need to
- Send it directly via your usual Almabase workflow
Emily lives right inside the Email Communication Center. No switching tabs. No extra tools. No friction.
Solving the real bottleneck in alumni communication
Let’s be honest. Writing the email is often the one thing that gets pushed to the end of the day.
Not because it’s unimportant. But because it takes energy. The blank page. The pressure to sound just right.
And before you know it, that event reminder or donor follow-up is still sitting in drafts.
And yet, it’s one of the most important ways you drive attendance, engagement, and giving.
That’s where Emily AI helps.
- You spend less time thinking about what you should write
- You send more polished, consistent emails
- You focus on the strategy, not the sentence structure
Especially for lean advancement teams juggling multiple priorities, Emily AI is a quiet unlock for speed, quality, and consistency, and it offers more than convenience; it offers momentum.
✨Just the beginning
Emily AI is only the start of what’s coming.
We’re building a set of AI-powered tools to help you do more, with less stress and more control. Think better messaging, faster execution, and more room to focus on building real alumni relationships.
👇 Try Emily AI today
Emily is live for all Almabase users.
➡️ Log in to Almabase
➡️ Head to the Email Center
➡️ Click “Let Emily help” and give her a prompt
Let us know what she writes for you! We’re excited to see the creativity she helps unlock.
Fast, Smart, and Context-Aware Emails for Advancement Teams: Powered by Emily AI
Introducing Emily AI: create thoughtful, context-aware alumni and donor emails in seconds, right inside your Almabase workflow.
Product updates
Beyond the homecomings and reunions, your alumni event calendar needs a whole host of events to round out the year and keep them engaged. These alumni events can either be one-off ideas or recurring occurrences that become a key part of your institution or organization’s brand.
Today, we’re helping you conceptualize those events with some alumni event ideas that you can host as their own thing, or alongside other events. So before we bore you like a nervous host, let’s get straight to the ideas!
✒️ Author’s note: The examples we list throughout this blog are purely appreciative and not a result of any promotion or partnership. If you know some good advancement work that you think deserves more attention, please let us know at marketing@almabase.com!
10 engaging ideas to inspire your upcoming alumni event
1. Family weekends
Let’s start with one of the more time-tested ideas that has evolved significantly: family weekends. Depending on your institution’s event calendar, these can be small one-time picnics, fairs, showcases, etc. or recurring major events that multiple generations of alumni come to appreciate over the years.
Family weekends are largely in-person although virtual or hybrid elements can certainly be introduced especially if you want to have your global alumni feel part of your event.
💡Looking for inspiration for your next family weekend? Check out these upcoming family weekend schedules!
- Syracuse University (link)
- University of Arkansas (link)
- Cornell University (link)
- Washington University in St. Louis (link)
- University of Colorado Boulder (link)
2. Career and skill-focused workshops
A popular notion that’s taken root over the past couple of decades is the fact that learning in your alma mater doesn’t stop after graduation. With job boards, mentorship programs, and placement opportunities, institutions have become springboards for career growth.
Career and skill-focused workshops can take this direction to the next level by providing valuable networking and upskilling opportunities (especially for recent graduates) that many people across industries often have to pay money to access.
3. A themed day of service
Philanthropy is not just about financial donations. Service-based events attract alumni who want to make a tangible difference and live out the institution's mission. Think of a day of service centered around a theme that reflects your institution’s values or a current campaign. Examples include an environmental cleanup at a local park, a literacy drive for local schools, or a build-a-thon for a community housing project.
4. Health and wellness-focused events
With both physical and mental health awareness becoming more widespread, institutions can lean into this by providing health and wellness focused events. These can be something educational (webinars, awareness sessions, etc.) or activity-focused (marathons, healthcare visits, care center volunteering, etc.).
Healthcare or health department alumni associations in particular are well suited for these events but they can extend their reach and invite more participation by collaborating with other departments or associations.
💡 Over time, these events can become recurring series and form support groups
5. An Alumni Pitch Competition
For institutions that want to take their alumni’s career advancement a step further, an alumni venture acceleration event is a great idea to show how much your institution cares about inspiring innovators and creating jobs.
Take for example the Edward L. Kaplan, ‘71, New Venture Challenge (NVC) by the Polsky Center under The University of Chicago (that’s a mouthful 😝). The NVC invests more than $1 million in startups each year through the generosity of donors and investors. As a result, it claims to have graduated more than 600+ startups and created thousands of jobs in the process.
💡You can start small and help small or local alumni initiatives or businesses get their footing. An accelerator program doesn’t necessarily need to have a “shark tank” feel to it.
6. Outdoor movie screenings
A casual, family-friendly, and low barrier of entry event you can consider is to host a movie screening on a suitable field, park, or similar campus area. It's an easy way for alumni to reconnect with the campus in a relaxed setting and is highly suitable for families and recent graduates. The communal experience of watching a film under the stars also makes for great material to promote on your social media channels.
💡 Movie screenings can also be an additional event on top of other events, say, a family weekend picnic or scavenger hunt.
7. Behind-the-scenes tours
Offer alumni exclusive access to a place not open to the general public. This could be a tour of a cutting-edge university research lab, the athletic team's new training facility, the university's special collections archive, or a local landmark led by a revered alumnus.
8. Cultural alumni outings
Looking outside the institution, you can plan small-scale outgoings for alumni to visit showcases, performances, museums, etc. You can book meals and other activities around the outings themselves so that your participants have time to bond and share their experiences.
💡 Need inspiration on what kinds of outings you can consider? Here are some examples you can look at:
- Wagner College - Moulin Rouge Alumni Outgoing
- Brown University - Private Tour of Stanford’s Cantor Museum
- Columbia College, NY - Asian Columbia Alumni Association’s Annual Lunar New Year Banquet
- USF Chicago Alumni Chapter - Millennium Park Summer Music Series
- Joint Ivy League (and select other university) Alumni - SF Opera’s Performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo
Based on your institution’s cultural heritage or alumni talents, you may be able to create a variety of incredibly personalized events for both general and specific alumni groups.
9. Alumni dinner events
Dinner events can be surprisingly flexible. From small, recurring dinners for local alumni to reunion dinners as part of award ceremonies, you can make them as grand or as budget-friendly as you need them to be. These dinner events are also a great opportunity to build partnerships with local businesses and services. Even better if you can partner with an alumni-affiliated business!
10. Town halls and Q&A sessions
Not all events need to be large parties or massive volunteering opportunities. Sometimes, a simple unfiltered town hall-style meeting between alumni and institution leaders or prominent alumni can help build trust and rapport within your community.
The best part is that these events can just as easily be in-person, virtual, or hybrid, making them one of the more flexible ideas on this list. It can also be a great follow-up to some of the other ideas we’ve presented throughout this list.
💡 These sessions can be repurposed into podcasts and key snippets can be used for other marketing material.
Powering your events with the right tools
Pretty much any major alumni event today is powered by tools that handle minute details such as ticketing, giving, event pages, and more. Almabase offers a zero-code yet advanced set-up environment that streamlines how you plan your events from setting up pages and forms to integrated communications and enhancing guest experiences.
Yet Almabase is just one of many options available for advancement teams today. Depending on your needs and resources available, you may prefer a specialized tool just for events, or an integrated tool for which event management is just one of many modules.
Conclusion
Events remain one of the core pillars of alumni and donor engagement and the ideas and tools behind them have only continued to evolve. It’s certainly heartwarming to see that people and their experiences remain the ultimate goal of events and advancement teams as a whole.
If you’re looking for a partner to level up your upcoming events, request a personalized demo with us and we’d love to help!
10 Engaging Ideas for Your Next Alumni Event
Looking for ideas for you next alumni event? We've got you covered with plenty of creative ideas that we've found from institutions in recent years.
Events
“We put the service in Advancement Services — that’s what drives me every day.”
— Dan Snyder, Director of Advancement Services, Bennington College
Meet Dan, the Director of Advancement Services at Bennington College
We recently caught up with Dan to talk about the unsung heroics of advancement operations, and how his data-first mindset has streamlined systems, empowered teams, and sparked momentum at Bennington.
Daniel Snyder is the Director of Advancement Services at Bennington College with 12 years of expertise in advancement services. As a director, he has implemented Evertrue, Power BI, and Power Automate, enhancing the team's operations. He led the upgrade to RENXT and the integration of GiveCampus. Daniel is an expert in advancement technology. He received the inaugural Microsoft Power Platform Community award for his contributions to the Blackbaud Community, sharing knowledge and providing valuable support.
Automating the boring to unlock the brilliant
Over the last few years, Dan has taken a sharp aim at the tedious — from gift entry to data clean-up — and built smart automations to simplify daily processes. By removing inefficiencies and creating auto-triggered alerts (like thank-you reminders), he’s allowed his team to focus more on what truly matters: relationship-building. The result? Faster answers, less manual work, and a team that spends more time with people than with spreadsheets.
Making data everyone's business
Dan’s proudest ongoing goal is to make data more accessible and actionable across departments. His vision includes empowering non-technical users to engage with reports and insights independently — a push that not only improves internal decision-making, but also strengthens alumni engagement. “It’s been missing,” he says, “but we’ve got great momentum.”
AI as a teammate, not a replacement
While the AI wave has touched every corner of higher ed, Dan’s approach remains practical and people-first. Whether it’s generating formulas in Power Automate or drafting seating charts, he sees AI as a useful companion — but not a silver bullet. “You still need human judgment,” he says. “It’s not going back in the box, but it’s got to be used responsibly.”
What’s next for Dan and Bennington?
Dan’s big bet for the future: a more data-literate team and better-integrated systems that support genuine alumni connection. As Bennington evolves, Dan envisions operations that are nimble, collaborative, and always a few steps ahead of the next reporting request.
Dan’s achievements in the Alumni Relations and Advancement have been immortalized with their very own AB50C Trading Card.
Want to connect with Dan or learn more about how he’s reshaping advancement operations?
#TheOG50: The One with Dan Snyder
We sat down with Daniel Snyder, Director of Advancement Services, Bennington College, for a candid chat on advancement, AI, and the similarities he shares with a former NFL team owner.
#OG50Series
Without accurate data, institutions risk missing out on meaningful connections, successful fundraising efforts, and informed decision-making. However, keeping an alumni database clean and updated can be a monumental task and each error can set your team back hours or even days.
In this blog, we’ll talk about the whys and hows of keeping your alumni data clean and updated, as well as how you can find the right metrics and tools to help your institution.
Why clean alumni data is vital for advancement teams
More effective communication with alumni
Your alumni are more likely to open emails that land in the right inbox and respond to phone calls that greet them with the correct name. Clean data ensures you’re consistently reaching the right people with tailored communication. It also reduces the risk of mistakes like duplicate messages or misaddressed emails, which can erode trust. With accurate data, you can craft more meaningful outreach strategies that reflect the unique journey and engagement level of each alumnus.
Improved fundraising outcomes
Fundraising depends heavily on personalized, relationship-driven outreach. Missing or outdated contact information can lead to missed opportunities in nurturing major donors. Clean data allows you to segment your alumni based on giving history, affiliation, or interests, ensuring your messaging and campaigns resonate with individual supporters.
Stronger community relationships
By reaching alumni with updates about their graduating class or relevant events, your institution builds goodwill and strengthens bonds. Over time, these connections grow your community into a thriving, supportive network. Clean data enables timely invitations to reunions, mentorship opportunities, and regional meetups, keeping alumni connected to both each other and your institution in meaningful ways. It also helps in recognizing milestones and achievements, making alumni feel seen and valued.
Better metrics and reporting
Accurate alumni data leads to more reliable reporting, enabling advancement teams to analyze trends, measure campaign performance, and make informed decisions. Whether it’s evaluating event turnout, tracking email open rates, or measuring fundraising ROI, clean data ensures that the numbers truly reflect alumni behavior and engagement.
Moreover, good data hygiene supports compliance with privacy regulations and internal auditing, protecting your institution from reputational and legal risks. It also boosts collaboration across departments. When development, communications, and alumni relations teams work with the same clean database, efforts are more cohesive and impactful. Ultimately, reliable metrics driven by clean data fuel smarter strategies and stronger outcomes.
10 tactics to keep your alumni data updated and accurate
1. Establish a comprehensive data governance policy
Before launching any major data clean-up or automation effort, it’s essential to set clear rules around how your alumni data is collected, stored, updated, and shared. A well-defined data governance policy helps ensure consistency, accountability, and long-term accuracy across teams. It reduces redundancy, prevents conflicting records, and lays the groundwork for smarter segmentation and outreach.
Your policy should include key components such as:
- Data ownership: Who is responsible for updating different types of data?
- Standardized formats: Define how names, addresses, phone numbers, and class years should be entered (e.g., “New York” vs. “NY”).
- Update protocols: Outline how often data should be reviewed and what sources are considered trustworthy (e.g., LinkedIn, event forms).
- Permissions and access control: Ensure the right team members have access to update or view sensitive information.
2. Implement automated data validation processes
Manual data entry comes with a high margin of error beyond the obvious timesink. Introducing automated validation systems at key data touchpoints such as alumni portals, event forms, giving pages significantly improves data accuracy and frees up staff time. These systems help flag inconsistencies, correct formatting, and prevent the submission of incomplete or incorrect records. Consider these implementations to get you started:
- Real-time validation for fields like email and phone numbers, alerting users to incorrect inputs instantly.
- Drop-down menus and controlled vocabularies for commonly used fields (e.g., graduation year, state/country).
- Address verification tools to ensure standardized mailing data is aligned with postal regulations.
- De-duplication tools that alert your team when a record may already exist in your database.
In addition, schedule quarterly automated scans to identify bounced emails, outdated phone numbers, or unresponsive alumni. These small, consistent steps go a long way in maintaining a healthy database over time.
3. Leverage social media platforms and professional sites for updates
Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook often hold up-to-date contact, career, and location details about your alumni, especially those who don’t regularly engage through traditional channels. Advancement teams can use these platforms not only to stay informed but also to actively update CRM records.
- Monitor career changes on LinkedIn, especially for key segments like young alumni or past donors.
- Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator or similar tools to track job title and employer changes at scale.
- Invite alumni to confirm or update their data via targeted social media posts or campaigns—many institutions have had success linking alumni portal updates directly from LinkedIn.
Social platforms are also great for re-engagement, once updated, these alumni are more likely to respond to tailored outreach that aligns with their professional trajectory.
4. Conduct regular data cleaning campaigns
With time and personnel changes, even the best database can get messy over time. A structured, periodic data cleaning campaign helps ensure that your alumni records remain accurate and actionable. These campaigns are also a great opportunity to re-engage lapsed contacts and confirm their current details.
- Conduct a Data Audit: Before you start cleaning, you need to understand the current state of your data. A thorough audit will help you identify the most significant problem areas.
- Prioritize Your Cleanup Efforts: Based on your data audit and organizational goals, prioritize which data fields and segments are most critical to clean first. For instance, updating email addresses and mailing addresses might be a top priority before a major fundraising appeal.
- Develop a Realistic Timeline and Budget: Data cleanup takes time and resources. Create a detailed timeline with specific milestones and allocate a budget for any necessary tools, services, or temporary staff.
- Partner with departments like Career Services to update employment data during specific times of the year.
These campaigns don’t have to be large-scale efforts. Quarterly “micro-cleaning” drives with specific goals can be just as effective.
5. Create self-service opportunities
Giving alumni the ability to update their own information is one of the most effective and scalable ways to maintain data accuracy. A user-friendly alumni portal or community platform empowers graduates to make real-time updates to their contact info, employment, location, and preferences, with no staff intervention needed.
To encourage adoption:
- Make the portal easily accessible via your website and social channels.
- Include a quick “Update Your Info” CTA in newsletters, giving receipts, and event confirmations.
- Allow updates via mobile-friendly forms to reduce friction.
6. Use surveys and feedback forms strategically
Surveys and feedback forms can serve as subtle tools for updating records. Whether it’s a post-event survey or a newsletter poll, embedding contact fields allows you to refresh key details without sending a separate "update your info" request.
- Always include optional fields for contact information, job title, and location—even in event or satisfaction surveys.
- Use dropdowns and autocomplete fields to ensure data is standardized.
- Analyze survey responses to identify alumni who may have changed cities, jobs, or industries, and update your CRM accordingly.
7. Incentivize data updates
Most alumni won’t update their details unless there’s a clear reason to do so. Offering small, thoughtful incentives can encourage them to take that extra step. Whether it’s access to exclusive content or a chance to win merchandise, a well-timed reward can significantly increase participation in data update drives. They could be:
- Entry into a giveaway (event passes, alumni swag, bookstore coupons).
- Recognition in the alumni newsletter for those who update their profiles.
- Early access to event registrations, mentorship opportunities, or career resources.
Keep the ask simple and quick one-click updates with pre-filled data fields work best. The goal is to reduce friction while increasing motivation.
8. Implement continuous monitoring and reporting
Cleaning alumni data is an ongoing process that needs regular oversight. Implementing a system for continuous monitoring ensures that data integrity doesn’t degrade over time. With the right tracking in place, you’ll quickly spot patterns like high email bounce rates or duplicate entries before they become major issues.
- Set up monthly or quarterly dashboards to track data quality metrics (e.g., % of emails verified, bounce rate, duplicate records).
- Monitor engagement trends to detect stale records or alumni who have stopped interacting.
- Use alerts or workflows to flag records missing key fields (e.g., employer name or phone number).
This kind of proactive monitoring gives your team confidence that your CRM is a trusted source for outreach, segmentation, and reporting.
9. Partner with other departments in your institution
Your alumni data doesn’t live in a vacuum. Departments like Career Services, Admissions, and Academic Advising often have access to updated alumni insights, especially for recent graduates. By forming strategic partnerships across campus, advancement teams can tap into valuable data sources and reduce duplication of effort.
- Sync regularly with Career Services to receive updates on job placements or employer changes.
- Coordinate with Academic Departments to capture alumni milestones, such as guest lectures, awards, or mentorship roles.
- Work with Admissions or Enrollment to verify legacy status or family connections.
Encouraging a shared culture of data stewardship across departments not only improves accuracy but also creates more unified, consistent engagement for your alumni.
10. Create a hybrid approach: automated+manual
The most effective alumni data strategies combine automation for scale with manual review for nuance. This hybrid approach ensures that while the bulk of data stays accurate through tools and systems, critical segments, like major donors or engaged volunteers receive a level of care only a human can provide.
- Automate routine checks like email validation, bounce tracking, and address formatting.
- Manually review high-value segments before major campaigns or events to ensure personal details are accurate.
- Assign data stewardship roles across your team to own updates in specific categories (e.g., employment, giving history, regional engagement).
This balanced model allows your team to scale without compromising on data integrity, so your next campaign is powered by both smart tools and strategic insight.
How keeping alumni data clean affects ROI
When your contact records are accurate, your messages reach the right people at the right time, with the right ask. That reduces wasted outreach and improves response rates, which means more value from every campaign, dollar, and hour spent. Even when things aren’t going well, having cleaned and updated data allows you to quickly go back to the drawing board with the right information to guide your new approaches.
Any modern advancement team wants to deliver personalized experiences that drive support and loyalty. On the other hand, outdated or duplicate records often lead to:
- Higher email bounce rates and lower deliverability
- Missed opportunities with major gift prospects
- Wasted budget on printed materials or outreach to the wrong addresses
- Inflated CRM numbers that don’t reflect true engagement
Measuring Success: How to Know If Your Data Cleaning Strategy is Working
To measure the effectiveness of your data-cleaning efforts, track metrics such as:
- Email Deliverability Rates: Monitor bounce rates and ensure more emails land where they belong.
- Alumni Engagement Levels: Higher event attendance, survey participation, or response rates indicate improved relationships.
- Donor Conversion Rates: Compare how well your team secures donations before and after implementing data-cleaning strategies.
- Reduced Data Errors: Over time, your database should feature fewer duplicates and outdated contacts.
- Increased Segmentation Accuracy: If you're able to target more niche groups effectively, that's a strong sign your data is becoming more actionable.
- Improved CRM Usage Across Teams: When your data is reliable, your CRM becomes a go-to tool rather than a source of confusion. An uptick in regular logins, list generation, and data queries often signals that users trust the system more.
- Faster Campaign Turnaround Times: If your team spends less time scrubbing lists or chasing down missing info before launching a campaign or report, that’s measurable ROI.
Regularly reviewing these metrics will help identify what’s working and where adjustments are needed.
Tools that make alumni data management easier
Data management is only as easy as your tools allow you to be. Your institution might already have their own in-built tools but if you’re on the lookout for tools to make your life easier, here are some options to consider:
CRMs
We’ve talked about CRMs aplenty in this blog and there’s a good reason for it. Pretty much every modern advancement team is data-driven which naturally means that a robust CRM is a must. Your CRM acts as your main source of truth for storing and organizing your data.
There are several great options out there such as Blackbaud CRM, Raiser’s Edge NXT, and Salesforce Education Cloud which are purpose built for the educational sector. However, depending on your institution’s priorities, you will want to look at the mentioned choices or any other CRMs very closely before deciding on something as a CRM is usually a long-term deal and frequent CRM switches mean lost time and a potential for data errors due to the tedious nature of data migrations.
Integrated alumni-centric platforms
Many platforms that focus on alumni engagement, fundraising, or event management either come with in-built tools to ease data management or are built to work well with specific CRMs and data infrastructures. For example, Almabase has a native two-way sync with Raiser’s Edge NXT and also works well with Blackbaud CRM.
Look for platforms that integrate well with your CRM and you might just save countless hours with the elimination of manual or repetitive tasks.
Specialized tools for data management
While many CRMs come with their own tools to help you take your data management a step further, some teams prefer to have specialized tools for specific tasks. For data management, it usually comes down to these categories:
- Data flow automation and integration tools
- Data cleaning and enrichment tools
- Business intelligence and data visualization
- Master data management (for larger institutions)
That is not to say you necessarily need a tool for each of the above. Depending on your institution’s goals, you will want to consider several options out there and the final choice should ultimately come down to what your staff prefer, your budget, and your team’s goals.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, data isn’t just about rows and fields; it’s about relationships. And when you manage your data well, you’re not just fixing errors, you’re strengthening connections, unlocking insights, and creating more meaningful experiences for your alumni community.
If you’re looking for a partner to help you get the best out of your data, do feel free to give us a shout!
10 Ways to Keep Your Alumni Data Clean & Updated
Learn 10 effective strategies to manage and update your alumni database. Keep data accurate, improve engagement, and drive fundraising success.
Alumni Engagement
Sharada Koti
June 30, 2025
12 minutes
Understanding how your donors move from first awareness to lifelong advocacy has become a key part of advancement strategies. This usually takes the shape of a donor journey map and while it can vary from institution to institution, there are some essential components that make them fairly similar.
In this blog, we'll walk you through everything you need to know about creating a donor journey map that actually drives results for your institution whether you're new to donor journey mapping or looking to refine your existing approach.
What is a Donor Journey Map?
At its core, a donor journey map documents the entire donor experience: their initial awareness of your mission, their first gift, ongoing engagement activities, and ideally, their evolution into major donors or planned giving prospects. It captures both the obvious touchpoints (like donation pages and thank-you emails) and the subtle ones (like how long it takes to load your website or whether your phone calls go to voicemail).
The map is an attempt to understand and visualize the emotions, motivations, and potential friction points that influence whether someone becomes a one-time giver or a devoted champion of your cause.
Why Mapping Your Donor Journey Matters
1. Higher retention and lifetime value
When you understand exactly where donors typically disengage, you can proactively address those pain points. Maybe first-time donors aren't hearing from you for three months after their initial gift, or maybe your major donor prospects are getting generic communications that don't reflect their giving capacity. A journey map helps you spot these gaps before they cost you supporters.
2. Better personalization and segmentation
Instead of sending the same appeal to everyone, you can tailor your approach based on where someone sits in their journey. A donor who just made their first $25 gift needs different messaging than someone who's been giving $1,000 annually for five years. Journey mapping helps you create these meaningful segments and craft communications that actually resonate.
3. Unified donor engagement across teams
One of the biggest challenges in advancement work is keeping everyone aligned. When your annual giving team, major gifts officers, and program staff all understand the donor journey, they can coordinate their efforts instead of accidentally competing for the same donor's attention.
4. Insightful reporting and pipeline planning
Journey mapping transforms your data from a collection of transactions into a story about donor behavior. You'll start seeing patterns like how donors who attend events are 40% more likely to make major gifts within two years, or how donors who receive impact updates are twice as likely to upgrade their giving.
Typical Stages of the Donor Journey
Every donor follows a somewhat predictable path from stranger to supporter, though the timeline and specific touchpoints can vary dramatically. Think of it like building trust with a new neighbor—you start with friendly waves, maybe progress to borrowing a cup of sugar, then eventually you're comfortable asking them to water your plants while you're on vacation. Each interaction builds on the last, and you ideally want to
- Awareness: The donor first learns about your organization, often through digital channels, events, or word-of-mouth.
- Consideration: The donor evaluates your mission and impact, deciding whether your cause aligns with their values.
- Decision/Conversion: The donor makes their first gift, responding to an appeal or campaign.
- Engagement/Retention: The donor receives acknowledgment, impact updates, and continued communication, building trust and loyalty.
- Advocacy/Loyalty: The donor becomes a champion, sharing your mission with others, increasing their giving, or including your organization in their long-term plans.
How to Map the Donor Journey (Step‑by‑Step)
1. Define your campaign goal
Before you start mapping touchpoints, get crystal clear on what you're trying to achieve. Vague goals like "increase donations" won't give you actionable insights. Instead, focus on specific, measurable objectives that align with your institution.
Your goal determines everything else in your mapping process—which touchpoints matter most, what success looks like, and how you'll measure progress. A journey designed to acquire first-time donors will look completely different from one focused on major gift cultivation.
2. Segment your audience and create personas
Not all donors are created equal, and treating them as one homogeneous group is a recipe for mediocre results. Break your audience into meaningful segments based on factors that actually influence their giving behavior—past donation history, engagement patterns, demographics, and connection to your cause.
The more specific your personas, the more targeted your journey mapping becomes. This is where your CRM data comes in to identify patterns such as which donors attend events, who opens every email, who gives in response to specific appeals. You can then build personas around these behavioral insights.
💡Use your database to segment alumni into groups based on giving history, demographics, and engagement. See the full segmentation approach here.
3. Document your donor’s journey
For each stage of your donor journey, map out every single interaction a donor might have with your institution like donation forms as well as the subtle touchpoints that shape their experience.
Think about what to document and analyze about each stage:
- Awareness - Social media posts, word-of-mouth referrals, news coverage, website visits, search results, volunteer recruitment
- Consideration - Event invitations, case studies, impact stories, peer testimonials, informational webinars, facility tours
- First Gift - Email appeals, donation pages, phone calls, direct mail, peer-to-peer asks, thank-you sequences
- Stewardship & Upgrade - Personalized updates, impact reports, exclusive events, board interactions, volunteer opportunities, legacy giving information
The goal is to understand the flow between them. How does someone move from reading your newsletter to attending an event? What happens after they make their first gift that either encourages or discourages their next one?
💡Learn more about how you can build a strong donor pipeline.
4. Identify gaps & points of friction
At each touchpoint, put yourself in your donor's shoes and honestly assess their emotional experience and any barriers they encounter. These could be anything from:
- Technical issues: slow-loading pages, broken links, confusing navigation, mobile-unfriendly forms
- Communication gaps: long delays between gift and acknowledgment, generic thank-you messages, unclear next steps
- Process barriers: overly complicated donation forms, too many required fields, unclear giving options
A donor who's ready to give but encounters a broken donation form might never come back. Someone who feels ignored after their first gift is unlikely to become a recurring donor.
5. Personalize & automate communications
Use your CRM's automation capabilities to deliver the right message to the right person at exactly the right moment in their journey.
Craft tailored messaging for each segment:
A recent graduate getting their first job needs different messaging than a successful entrepreneur considering a major gift. Use your donor personas to create communication tracks that speak directly to each group's motivations, concerns, and preferred communication style.
Set up behavior-based triggers:
The most effective donor communications respond to what people actually do, not just when your calendar says to send something. Set up automated sequences that trigger when someone:
- Downloads a resource from your websiteAttends their first event
- Makes their first gift
- Hasn't engaged with emails in 90 days
- Visits your donation page but doesn't complete a gift
6. A/B test & refine regularly
Your donor journey map is a living strategy that needs constant optimization. The most successful advancement teams treat their donor communications like a laboratory, constantly testing what works and doubling down on winner approaches.
Focus on one variable at a time and test with large enough sample sizes to draw real conclusions. Document what you learn so you can build on successful experiments and avoid repeating failed ones.
7. Execute thoughtful stewardship
The moments immediately after someone makes their first gift are crucial for the entire donor relationship. This is when donors are most receptive to deeper engagement, but it's also when many institutions drop the ball with generic acknowledgments and radio silence.
Send personalized thank-you messages that go beyond basic receipts. Donors also want to know their money is making a difference so you’ll want to send them timely updates on how their support is making a difference. Finally, invite them to upcoming events, suggest volunteer opportunities, or offer ways to learn more about programs they might care about.
💡Our guide “Donors to Supporters” covers these stewardship essentials: check it out here.
Tools That Help Map and Optimize the Journey
Successful donor journey mapping doesn’t just rely on great strategy—it also depends on the right tools. Whether you’re a large advancement team or a lean development office, having a strong tech stack is critical to visualizing, managing, and enhancing each step of your donor’s experience.
1. A modern-day CRM
A modern CRM is the foundation of any competent advancement strategy. It serves as the central hub for all donor information, allowing you to track giving patterns, manage relationships, and segment your audience with precision.
CRMs like Raiser’s Edge NXT (RE NXT) offer intuitive dashboards, smart segmentation tools, and donor engagement scoring—empowering teams to track pipeline stages, automate follow-ups, and prioritize prospects.
2. A constituent engagement platform
While CRMs track data, constituent engagement platforms activate their potential. These tools allow institutions to create branded event pages, giving campaigns, digital communities, and automated communications—all while syncing back seamlessly to the CRM.
Platforms like Almabase enable educational institutions and nonprofits to run hyper-personalized outreach across thousands of supporters with features for event management, fundraising, giving day campaigns, email automation, and alumni networking.
3. Reporting and analytics tools
Most modern CRMs and engagement platforms (like RE NXT and Salesforce) come with built-in reporting and analytics capabilities. These allow teams to visualize where donors are in the journey, track conversion rates between stages, and identify bottlenecks.
However, if your current systems lack robust reporting, it’s worth investing in specialized analytics tools. Solutions like Tableau, Google Data Studio, or even Excel-based dashboards can help you surface trends, evaluate performance across channels, and make data-informed decisions.
4. Automation tools
Automated workflows can ensure timely donor touchpoints, free up staff time, and improve consistency across campaigns. Whether it’s a welcome email series for new donors or reminders for lapsed supporters, automation ensures no supporter is left behind.
Donor Journey Map Template
Use this free and customizable template to visualize and build your own donor journey map, tailored to every stage of supporter engagement.
Link: 📌Almabase📌_Donor Journey Mapping Template
Conclusion
Mapping your donor journey isn't just a tactical exercise—it’s a mindset shift. It means seeing your donors not as transactions, but as people building a relationship with your mission over time. When you truly understand each stage of that journey, you can meet donors where they are, deepen their connection, and guide them naturally toward greater involvement and giving.
The best advancement teams don’t just guess what their donors want—they map it, test it, personalize it, and continuously improve it. With the right tools and a thoughtful approach, your donor journey map can become a powerful engine for building trust, increasing retention, and creating lifelong advocates for your cause.
FAQs
1. What is a donor journey map?
A donor journey map is a visual guide that tracks every interaction a donor has with your organization—from first awareness to becoming a loyal advocate. It captures their experiences, emotions, and decision points so you can improve engagement and giving outcomes.
2. What are the stages of a donor journey?
While it may vary from institution to institution, the donor journey usually consists of awareness, consideration, conversion, retention, and loyalty
3. How do I personalize a donor journey?
To personalize your donor journey, you’ll want to make use of detailed segments to create personas that you can then combine with well-timed campaigns and automation tools.
4. What tools help automate the donor journey?
You’ll need a robust CRM first and foremost. You’ll then want to pair it with tools that extend your team’s capabilities and these can be a number of specialized tools for different purposes, or all-in-one platforms depending on your needs.
How to Map Your Donor Journey & Why It Matters for Advancement Success
Optimize your donor journey. Discover how to map donor experiences for better engagement, retention, and significant fundraising impact at your institution.
Alumni Engagement
Anwesha Kiran
June 28, 2025
12 minutes
When you're picking a university for grad school or even undergrad, the alumni network might not be the first thing you think about, but it probably should be. The largest alumni associations can make a big difference- whether it’s for career growth, networking, or lifelong community. It’s not just about where you study, but who you stay connected with long after graduation.
A strong and large alumni base means career support, connections, and a community that lasts long after graduation. So, how big are these networks really? And which schools top the list? Whether you're applying to schools or just curious, here’s a quick look at the top 10 largest alumni associations in the US right now.
What is an Alumni Association?
An alumni association is a network of a school’s former students who stay connected through events, mentorship programs, career support, and fundraising. Most colleges run official alumni associations that help keep the community active and engaged.
Why does it matter?
Being part of a strong alumni network means you’re never really starting from scratch. Whether you're job hunting, looking for a mentor, moving to a new city, or just wanting to reconnect, there's always someone to reach out to. Plus, schools with large, active alumni bases often offer more resources, better opportunities, and a stronger sense of belonging, even years after graduation.
The 10 Largest Alumni Associations in the US
Big alumni numbers aren’t just bragging rights—they translate to real-world impact. These schools have built powerhouse alumni associations that do way more than host reunions—they create opportunities, connections, and lifelong communities. Let’s take a look at the universities that are crushing it when it comes to alumni size, reach, and engagement in 2025.
✒️ Note: Numbers and ranking are based on information publicly available at the time of writing and updating this blog. These numbers are subject to change as institutions conduct their censuses at different times.
1. Indiana University (~805,000 living alumni)
With it's recent alumni numbers update, Indiana University now boasts over 805,000 living alumni, making it the current largest alumni network in the country. The IU Alumni Association is incredibly active, supporting more than 160 chapters and providing alumni with resources like virtual events, travel programs, scholarships, and lifelong learning tools. The “My IU” platform also helps grads stay connected with their peers and their alma mater. Whether you’re in the Midwest or abroad, there’s likely a fellow Hoosier nearby and a community waiting to welcome you.
2. Penn State University (~802,556 living alumni)
Penn State boasts a massive alumni presence of over 802,000 living grads and is one of the world’s largest dues-paying alumni association. This network spans 275+ affiliate groups and 100+ chapters worldwide, creating a robust system of volunteer leadership and peer support. From pep rallies and virtual speaker series to the LionLink mentorship platform, Penn Staters stay connected early and often engaged through programs throughout the year. Penn state manages to strike a beautiful balance between maintaining nostalgia while providing career-enhancing and community-building offerings for it's former students.
3. University of Michigan (~697,287 living alumni)
With nearly 700,000 living alumni, Michigan’s network spans the globe through 100+ local clubs and affinity groups. The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan (AAUM) offers everything from career services and mentorship to leadership programming and alumni-exclusive experiences. They’re also known for keeping Wolverine pride alive through annual events, reunions, and professional development opportunities. No matter where you are, this is a network that shows up—whether it’s for jobs, community, or maize-and-blue spirit.
4. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (~670,000 living alumni)
The UCLA Alumni Association serves a dynamic and influential community of over 670,000 "Bruins" worldwide, making it one of the largest and most active in the United States. With it's mission: "To enrich the lives of alumni and involve them in UCLA’s future." the UCLA Alumni Association plays a crucial role in supporting both current students and its half-million-plus members through scholarships, mentorship programs, and career services.
5. Ohio State University (~600,000 living alumni)
Ohio State’s alumni network includes more than 600,000 living graduates, and it’s one of the most energized communities in the country. The OSU Alumni Association hosts local chapter events, alumni awards, mentorship programs, and even special career services for both new grads and seasoned professionals. Buckeye pride runs deep, and you’ll find passionate alums everywhere—from Fortune 500 companies to community service projects.
6. University of Texas at Austin (~600,000 living alumni)
The Texas Exes alumni association represents 600,000+ UT Austin graduates and is one of the most dynamic in the country. With over 150 chapters worldwide, the Longhorn network offers local meetups, career resources, scholarship support, and member-exclusive experiences. From game watch parties to global networking events, Texas Exes keep that burnt orange pride going strong.
7. Purdue University (~600,000 living alumni)
The Purdue Alumni Association is a massive and engaged community, with over 600,000 living alumni worldwide. This extensive network is a testament to the loyalty and pride of Boilermakers, who remain connected to the university and to each other long after graduation. The association, now a part of the Purdue for Life Foundation, provides a wide array of programs and services to support its graduates throughout their careers and personal lives.
8. Texas A&M University (~593,000 living alumni)
Texas A&M may surprise some with its 593,000+ living alumni, but the Aggie network is one of the strongest and most unified in the US. The Association of Former Students operates hundreds of local clubs, coordinates international events, and even runs the legendary “Aggie Ring” program. The Aggie Network isn’t just large—it’s built on traditions, loyalty, and a fierce commitment to helping each other succeed.
9. UC Berkeley (~580,000 living alumni)
Berkeley’s alumni community crosses the half-million mark with 580,000+ living alumni who are spread out across all corners of the globe. The Cal Alumni Association runs regional clubs, career resources, virtual events, and externship programs that connect students and alums alike. Especially strong in tech, policy, and academia, the Berkeley network is diverse and deeply influential.
10. Michigan State University (~550,000 living alumni)
MSU’s alumni base includes 550,000+ living graduates, and the Spartan Alumni Association helps keep them connected through events, volunteer programs, and professional development opportunities. Whether it’s through mentorship, career panels, or alumni awards, MSU’s network is active, supportive, and proud to lift each other up- on campus and beyond.
What Advancement Teams Can Actually Learn from These Alumni Giants
The biggest alumni associations aren’t just running reunions—they’re running strategy. The biggest alumni associations aren’t just large; they’re intentional. They segment audiences smartly, invest in community-building, and don’t shy away from tech. Here's what they actually do differently:
- Localized chapters with real power – Penn State and Texas Exes give regional groups autonomy and budgets to run events, fund scholarships, and build mini-communities.
- Tradition-driven engagement – Texas A&M’s Aggie Ring and Muster aren’t events—they’re identity. Long-term loyalty starts with shared rituals.
- Career-first support – Michigan and Ohio State lead with job boards, alumni-only postings, mentorship, and even externships for students. This is what grads actually care about.
- Digital-first experience – IU and Stanford invest in sleek alumni portals, segmented comms, and professional affinity groups. Think less newsletter blast, more curated experience.
- Student-alumni bridges – Berkeley’s externships and Texas chapters funding local student scholarships create early emotional hooks, long before alumni ever donate.
- Smart volunteer scaling – Michigan State uses plug-and-play event kits to help alumni run the show without burning out HQ.
The takeaway? Tradition + tech + trust = real alumni engagement.
If you’re part of an advancement team, take notes: these schools are great at building long-term engagement, creating moments that matter, and making alumni feel like they still belong, years after graduation.
How Platforms Like Almabase Help Scale Alumni Engagement
You don’t necessarily need 800,000 alumni to build a powerful network—you just need the right tools. That’s where platforms like Almabase come in. Almabase helps advancement teams:
- Create digital-first alumni experiences (event pages, class notes, virtual reunions)
- Segment communication based on interests, location, class year, and more.
- Drive engagement with personalized outreach and analytics that actually make sense.
- Automate everyday workflows so you can focus on building relationships, not chasing spreadsheets.
Whether you're a small college or a large public university, tools like Almabase (and integrations with RE NXT) make it easier to scale what matters: human connection.
How to Build and Strengthen Your Own Alumni Network
- Building a strong alumni network doesn’t require a massive base—it requires a thoughtful, intentional strategy. The most successful alumni teams do three things well: they segment, they empower chapters, and they leverage digital tools to make it all scale.
- Start with segmentation – Not all alumni want the same thing. Group them by geography, graduation year, profession, or even engagement level. For example, many top universities run targeted campaigns just for recent grads, first-time donors, or industry-specific groups. This helps you meet alumni where they are, not where your org is.
- Activate chapters with purpose – Give regional or interest-based chapters more than a logo. Equip them with toolkits, autonomy, and mini-budgets. Indiana University and Penn State, for example, empower hundreds of local chapters to run mentorship programs, give scholarships, and even host speaker series that feel community-led, not HQ-dictated.
The Role of Modern Platforms in Scaling Alumni Engagement
It’s not just about having a database but about how you utilize that database. Platforms like RE NXT and Almabase help advancement teams build real-time event pages, automate reminders, personalize communication, and track what’s working. They help advancement teams do more with less. They don’t just store alumni data—they help you act on it. So that instead of chasing tasks, your team can focus on what matters- building relationships at scale.
- Smart segmentation lets you target by class year, region, or interest—no more one-size-fits-all emails.
- Event tools manage invites, RSVPs, and reminders—all in one place.
- Real-time tracking shows who’s engaging and who’s slipping away.
- Self-service features let alumni update info, sign up for events, and stay connected—without you chasing them.
Conclusion
Strong alumni networks aren’t built overnight, but they’re also not just reserved for the Ivy League or massive public schools. What truly makes the difference is how intentionally institutions show up for their alumni, through relevant programs, trusted traditions, and smart use of technology.
If you’re looking to strengthen your own network, start with segmentation, make it easy for alumni to engage, use platforms that work with your team you can build a network that’s not just big but deeply connected.
Curious to see how schools are making this work in real life?
Check out these case studies: University of Texas at El Paso & Nicholls State University
or
Book a personalized demo to see how we could fit into your team’s workflow!
Top 10 Largest Alumni Associations in the US (as of 2025)
Discover the 10 largest alumni associations in the US and why they matter for students and graduates. Learn how top universities build powerful networks.
Alumni Engagement
Sharada Koti
June 27, 2025
12 minutes
Running a Giving Day can feel like juggling a dozen things at once. There’s planning, promotion, tech, student engagement, internal buy-in, and of course, raising money. All of it leads up to 24 or 48 hours of high-energy impact.
But when done right, it’s about more than just the dollars. A great Giving Day builds momentum, sparks school spirit, and turns passive supporters into passionate advocates.
In this panel discussion, we heard from three of our partner institutions: the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM), and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE).
Whether you're a one-person team or part of a larger shop, there's something in here for everyone.
Here’s what we learned:
UNCSA: Pickles, Participation & Personalisation
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is small and mighty, and its Giving Day strategy proves it. With just 1,300 students, they shifted from a "one day, one fund" approach to a fully donor-centric model offering more than 40 giving areas.
✅ Wins:
• $166K raised before the Giving Day began via match challenges
• 100% participation from campus leadership and boards
• A shift from a single fund to 40+ donor-choice funds led to a massive jump in support
🎨 Creative strategies:
• Pickle Socks: Designed by students. Unlocked with a $100 gift. Voted on via Instagram. Now a beloved campus tradition.
• Pickle Prowl: Giant stuffed pickles hidden around campus with clues. Winners directed $500 challenge funds to areas they cared about.
“We had students during the day calling their parents. Say you've got to make a gift to this fund because I've got to have a pair of these socks.” – Shannon Wright, UNCSA
➡️ View UNCSA’s Giving Day page
MSUM: Smart Segmentation + Internal Buy-In = Big Wins
Minnesota State University Moorhead focused not just on campaigns, but culture. With 65,000 alumni and a Giving Day history that had some ups and downs, they honed in on three big ideas:
✅ Wins:
• $40,000 in repeat gifts from automated thank-you videos
• Faculty-crafted emails brought in personal stories and donations
• Real-time check presentations every 30 minutes on Facebook Live
💡How they pulled it off:
• Automated thank-you videos were recorded by deans, coaches, or students and sent within hours of a gift
• They even partnered with a local radio station to broadcast Giving Day stories and updates live over lunch
• Students wrote thank-you cards in exchange for bonus dollars toward their favorite fund
We can publicize things on Facebook and on all the different social channels and we can do all the TikToks and all the radio stuff, but it's the one-on-one ask… that’s really the big piece. – Steve Sjoberg, MSUM
SIUE: Going Big with Major Gifts and Student Org Fundraising
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville didn’t just beat their goal — they crushed it. Their “One Day, One SIUE” campaign brought in $2.87M, including major gifts and first-time donors.
✅ Wins:
• Over 1,000 new donors and 7 new scholarship endowments
• 22 student orgs raised $11,000 in just 2 weeks
• Major gifts were locked in early, creating match momentum
💡How they pulled it off:
• Branded theme: They partnered with a major donor from Worldwide Technology Raceway and built the day around a race theme — complete with an IndyCar on campus and themed giveaways
• Student org fundraising: Groups competed for $250 bonuses and recognition at check presentations during the big quad event
• Smooth backend: Almabase helped eliminate split gift issues and synced seamlessly with Blackbaud NXT, cutting processing time from 3–4 weeks to just 3 days
The best way we thought we could get students involved was by letting them take action themselves. Once they had ownership, everything changed — they raised over $11,000 in just two weeks.” – Brandon Sweeney, SIUE
Wrapping Up
Each of these institutions proved there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for Giving Day success. From pickle socks to race cars, from handwritten thank-you notes to automated stewardship workflows — what matters most is building a campaign that feels authentic to your community.
Curious to hear the full conversation? 🎥 Watch the complete panel discussion here and get inspired by the strategies, stories, and small tweaks that made a big difference.
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What Makes a Great Giving Day? Lessons from Three Institutions That Crushed Their Goals
Discover how UNCSA, MSUM, and SIUE ran high-impact Giving Days using creative campaigns, student involvement, and smart tech. Get ideas you can apply right away.
Fundraising
For the most forward-thinking institutions, graduation is just the beginning of a lifelong partnership. A thriving alumni program is more than just a fundraising channel, it's a vibrant ecosystem that provides continuous value to its members, fosters a powerful sense of community, and, in turn, strengthens the university's reputation and future.
But what separates a standard alumni association from a truly exemplary one? We’re exploring just that as we look at seven great institutions and their alumni programs to uncover the winning strategies that keep their graduates engaged, supportive, and proud to be part of their alma mater's continuing story.
What Makes a Great Alumni Program?
With alumni expecting more out of a typical alumni program, the standard for institutions has certainly risen. Today, these alumni programs are not just about maintaining connections but in building a thriving and engaged community. Here’s what sets the most successful programs apart:
- Clear Objectives: Whether the goal is to increase donations, improve event attendance, or boost alumni engagement online, a clearly defined purpose guides all initiatives.
- Personalization: Recognizing the diverse needs and preferences of alumni fosters meaningful connections by offering tailored content and events.
- Consistent Communication: Regular updates, newsletters, and recognition of alumni accomplishments keep former students informed and engaged.
- Unique Experiences: From networking opportunities to exclusive events, top programs incentivize alumni by offering experiences they couldn’t get elsewhere.
- Data-Driven Strategies: The best programs use analytics to measure engagement and refine their efforts for maximum impact.
- Digital Presence: Seamless, user-friendly online platforms that connect alumni with each other and their school are now a must.
- Value Addition: Offering career support, mentoring opportunities, and access to continuing education shows alumni that their relationship with the institution will continue to be mutually beneficial.
When a program embodies these characteristics, it not only strengthens alumni relationships but also fosters a culture of giving back, whether that’s through donations, volunteering, mentorships, or more.
7 exemplary alumni programs and what makes them great
1. Penn State University
The Penn State Alumni Association boasts the largest dues-paying alumni network in the US, and it leverages this incredible scale to create a powerful sense of community and support with hundreds of alumni chapters and affiliate groups worldwide hosting a constant stream of events, from football tailgates to professional development workshops.
What makes it unique:
The sheer size of the network provides an incredible breadth of connections in nearly every industry and geographic location. It is also a great brand to constantly attract alumni enrollment. Beyond just the size of their alumni network, Penn State has done a great job in creating opportunities for alumni to connect both with the institution as well as each other wherever they are.
2. Princeton University
The Princeton Alumni Association is renowned for its ability to cultivate an exceptionally strong and loyal alumni network. The cornerstone of this engagement is the annual "Reunions," a massive, multi-day event that draws tens of thousands of alumni back to campus for parades, performances, and class-specific gatherings. This tradition, combined with a deep-seated culture of mentorship and giving back, creates a powerful sense of belonging that extends far beyond graduation. The university's commitment to lifelong learning and career support further solidifies the enduring bond between alumni and their alma mater.
What makes it unique:
Princeton’s annual reunions provide a great example of the power of events for any alumni network. The annual event has evolved into an annual event with its own culture and reputation, with key occurrences such as the P-rade, fireworks display, and more culminating into a massive 4-day event that regularly brings over 25,000 attendees each year.
3. Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is renowned for one of the most fervent and loyal alumni bases, often referred to as the "Aggie Network." The Association of Former Students (the official alumni organization) fosters an incredibly strong sense of tradition, camaraderie, and lifelong connection. Their program is built around unique Aggie traditions like Muster, the 12th Man, and their deep-seated military heritage, which instill a profound sense of identity and shared purpose among graduates. This leads to exceptional levels of engagement, including robust regional clubs, a powerful and active professional network, and an unwavering commitment to supporting the university and fellow Aggies throughout their lives.
What makes it unique:
Texas A&M's alumni program refers to its alumni as “former students” which immediately paints a picture of lifelong connection with the institution. This eases the transition into the "Aggie Network" as a lifelong family, offering robust professional connections and an ingrained culture of mutual support that is unique in its intensity and reach.
4. The Dalton School
The Dalton School, a highly respected independent school in New York City, has a dynamic alumni program that reflects its progressive educational philosophy. What makes it great is its focus on leveraging alumni expertise and providing networking opportunities. Dalton regularly invites alumni back to speak, conduct workshops, and offer internships across diverse fields. The program emphasizes professional networking and continued learning, connecting alumni with each other and with the school's evolving educational initiatives.
What makes it unique:
Dalton's program distinguishes itself by actively integrating alumni into the current educational experience, providing real-world perspectives and opportunities for students through a strong emphasis on mentorship and professional development.
5. University of Michigan
The University of Michigan Alumni Association is celebrated for its highly engaged and passionate alumni base, often referred to as the "Leaders and Best." Their program excels in fostering a deep sense of tradition and pride, particularly through their robust athletic programs which serve as a major rallying point for alumni worldwide. Beyond sports, Michigan offers extensive professional networking opportunities, mentorship programs, and a strong focus on giving back to the university and current students. Their active regional clubs and a commitment to lifelong learning through various educational initiatives further strengthen the alumni bond.
What makes it unique:
The University of Michigan effectively harnesses the power of its passionate fan base and strong athletic traditions to create a highly unified and engaged alumni network. This shared sense of identity, coupled with diverse professional and social programming, ensures a consistently high level of alumni participation and support.
6. Stanford University
Stanford University's alumni program is characterized by its strong emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship, and lifelong learning. The Stanford Alumni Association offers a wealth of resources, including career services, online courses, and networking events tailored to various industries and interests. Their vibrant regional chapters worldwide provide platforms for professional development and social connection. What truly sets Stanford apart is its ability to harness the entrepreneurial spirit of its alumni, fostering a culture of mentorship and investment within the network, often leading to groundbreaking collaborations and ventures.
What makes it unique:
Stanford makes the most of its strong brand and reputation for innovation to create an alumni network deeply intertwined with the tech and startup ecosystems. Their programs often focus on facilitating mentorship, venture capital connections, and entrepreneurial initiatives among alumni, making it a hub for professional growth and innovation.
7. Rye Country Day School
Rye Country Day School, a prominent independent school, excels at building a strong and supportive alumni network. Their program is notable for its emphasis on **community service and giving back**. Alumni are actively encouraged to participate in service initiatives, both locally and globally, reflecting the school's values. They also have strong mentorship programs that connect current students with alumni for career guidance and real-world insights, fostering a pay-it-forward culture.
What makes it unique:
Rye Country Day's alumni program is distinguished by its strong **service-oriented focus**, inspiring graduates to make a positive impact and engage with the school's mission beyond fundraising.
Key Elements That Make Alumni Programs Successful
1. Mutual Value Exchange
The most effective alumni programs create clear value propositions for both the institution and its graduates. This reciprocal relationship might include professional development opportunities, networking events, continued learning, or special access to campus resources.
2. Digital-First Approach
Successful modern programs embrace digital platforms to expand reach and accessibility. From alumni directories and job boards to virtual events and webinars, technology enables connections regardless of geographic location or schedule constraints.
3. Personalization and Segmentation
One-size-fits-all approaches rarely succeed nowadays in alumni engagement. Leading programs segment their alumni populations based on graduation year, interests, career fields, and engagement history to deliver relevant communications and opportunities.
4. Strong Storytelling
Alumni want to feel connected to their institution's ongoing story. Effective programs highlight alumni achievements, institutional developments, and student successes through compelling narratives across multiple channels.
5. Career Support and Lifelong Learning
The most valued alumni programs provide ongoing professional development through job boards, mentorship opportunities, continuing education, and career resources that evolve with alumni through different life stages.
How you can level up your alumni program
Want to create a program that rivals the examples above? Here are actionable steps to take your alumni engagement to the next level:
- Assess your current engagement levels: Any decent alumni program nowadays is largely data-driven. You’ll want to go through data analysis and alumni feedback to find out where you stand, what you’re missing, and what you can improve on.
- Identify gaps and opportunities: Every institution has problems specific to their institution's alumni population. Identify these gaps and create well-defined goals to solve them.
- Develop targeted strategies: Segmentation is crucial for any modern alumni-centric program. You’ll want different alumni segments to better personalize and even automate your program(s).
- Implement solutions that fit: The shiniest tool might not always be the best fit. Consider what your alumni want, your available budget, and your team’s preferences to find the right tools and platforms. You might want different tools for different purposes or a single integrated platform to centralize everything.
- Create meaningful content: Your content and communication must resonate with your alumni’s unique interests and needs. The right story coupled with well-timed and personalized asks can make a huge difference for your events and fundraisers.
- Measure outcomes beyond donation metrics: Use analytics tools to monitor event participation, platform activity, donation trends, etc. Try to fit in as many relevant metrics as you can to better understand your alumni. Combined with a healthy alumni feedback cycle, you can make truly informed decisions to refine your approach.
- Continue to reiterate: Alumni programs are a marathon and you’ll have to (or perhaps need to) tweak things along the way every so often. Your staff, tools, and strategies might look completely different by the time your alumni program truly matures.
Conclusion
The most successful alumni programs recognize that engagement is a journey, not a transaction. Your alumni program doesn’t have to look exactly like the examples we’ve given, but you can take inspiration from them to build or reinvent an alumni program that truly makes your alumni want to connect with your institution.
If you’re looking for a long-term partner to help you set-up or reinvent your alumni programs, give us a call and we’d be more than happy to help!
What Makes a Great Alumni Program? 7 Examples from Leading Institutions
Curious about what makes a great alumni program? Check out insights and examples from 7 top institutions, plus get practical tips to boost alumni engagement!
Alumni Engagement
See how leading institutions put these ideas into action
