Donors are the foundation of your university, and getting new alumni and supporters to start their donor journeys can be a challenge. Small donations from first-time donors today can eventually by grown into recurring, planned, or even major gifts down the road. Cultivate donors at each step of the giving process to captivate their interest, garner their support, and steward recurring donations. 

While your university has an obvious connection to new alumni donors, you can also connect with other new donors through a variety of channels, such as your networks of current supporters, volunteer opportunities, and community events. To reach potential donors, educate your current base about their donation’s impacts on your university and provide them with shareable content like social media graphics and forwardable email newsletters to help them reach out to their own networks. 

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To help your university connect with alumni and other first time donors, this article will explore three ways you can energize your current supporters and attract new ones. Let’s get started.

Awareness Campaigns 

Awareness campaigns are a great way to reach new audiences. Try creating content that can easily be optimized for multiple platforms to spread awareness about your newest institutional projects. 

Awareness campaigns should share information about what projects your institution is working on, who it helps, what you’re doing to make a difference, and if there are other opportunities for supporters to get involved in addition to donating. Keeping donors in the loop about your ongoing initiatives will make your university more transparent. Plus, many alumni donors will likely be interested in what their former departments, professors, and friends are doing now. 

Spread the word about your ongoing projects on several communication channels. Choose your channels based on your new target audiences. For example, your university’s most recent graduates are Gen Z, who are more likely to be interested in social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, rather than Facebook. 

Take note of how your audience responds to your messages. While each platform you leverage in a multi-channel marketing strategy can help by creating a new touch point, some may have notably higher engagement and conversion rates than others. To start, try sharing your awareness campaigns through these channels: 

• Email newsletters
• Social media 
• Ambassadors 
• Local events 
• Virtual information panels 
• Text
• Direct mail

To leverage your current supporters’ networks, have your school’s ambassadors share your campaign on their social media accounts and within their personal networks. You can also reach out to high profile alumni or nonprofit influencers with large social media followings and ask if they would be willing to share your current initiatives. 

When reaching out to supporters, offer them multiple engagement opportunities. In addition to requesting donations, let them know when you have upcoming events, how they can learn more, and other activities open to supporters.

Recruit Volunteers for Your Organization 

Many of your alumni will be excited at the opportunity to give back to their university. Your alumni volunteers dedicate their time because they believe in your school and want to invest in their alma mater. Inviting new alumni volunteers to your organization can be the first step in stewarding them to eventually become donors. 

Your school should access your volunteer databases and alumni databases to see who has previously helped your organization. Take note of these volunteers and conduct prospect research to see who has the potential to give or even become a major donor. 

As alumni join your volunteer programs, continue stewarding them by regularly messaging them about other opportunities, sharing your university’s latest news, and showing your appreciation. Here are just a few ways you can show your gratitude to your alumni volunteers: 

• Mail a thank-you letter
• Conduct a phone call, especially with prospective major donors
• Create social media spotlights

Your volunteers can become some of your most reliable donors, and vice versa. Use your CRM to create profiles for each supporter and note if they’ve volunteered or donated. Then, send them messages that align with how they’re currently engaging with your university, as well as a few encouraging them to try getting involved in new ways

Events 

To get new donors involved with your university, host events that are open to the public, alumni, and major donors alike. You can charge an entrance fee, but be sure the main event is not donation based when trying to secure new donors. Here are some of the best ways to make your events more inviting and appealing to new donors: 

• Donation kiosks: This can make donating at events less overwhelming for individuals who prefer to donate discreetly. 
• Information tables: Have volunteers talk about their experiences with potential donors to humanize your volunteer and donation process.
• Emphasize scalable impact: Explain how every little donation counts, and highlight tangible ways that different amounts can impact your university. 

If interested individuals are unsure about donating, encourage them to sign up for your newsletter or volunteer opportunities to stay engaged with your organization. This way you can collect their data and connect with them later to begin the stewarding process. 

Your university needs new donors to continue funding your programs. To connect with alumni and community members who might be interested in giving, host a variety of opportunities to give them as many chances as possible to make that first step on their donor journeys. From there, you can begin stewarding monthly gifts and even uncover prospective major donors. 

Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made his first donation of $5 to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, at the age of 23. Since then, he has donated close to $1.8 billion to support research, teaching, and financial aid at the university.

What if one of your young alumni is the next Michael Bloomberg? You see them every day in the hallways, on campus, and at events. They’re your future donors and advocates! And yet, we all know that engaging young alumni can be challenging. It takes time, energy, and resources to build lasting relationships with these future donors.

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But exactly HOW do you engage with your young alumni, you ask? To answer this question, we spoke to Dr. Glenn Kosse in a recent LinkedIn live session. Dr. Glenn recently published his dissertation on “The Relationship Between Young Alumni Participation and Giving”, and he shared some expert insights on what it takes to get your young alumni engaged.

But first, who is a young alum?

The average age of a young alum is between 22-32 years. However, this can vary depending on the type of institution. For example, a young alum from a business school would typically be older than a young alum from, let’s say, a university.

However, what remains constant is that most institutions classify those who’ve graduated in the last decade as their young alumni. In other words, they’re usually Graduates Of the Last Decade (or GOLD for short).

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Why invest your time and resources into young alumni engagement?

Between 2001 to 2014, alumni participation went down from 14% to 8.3%. Here’s what’s more alarming – although there has been a rise in the total gifts received, there has been a steady decline in the number of new donors.

With institutions struggling to build a fresh pipeline of new donors, this trend will only continue if we do not put the time, effort, and resources to meaningfully engage the young alumni.

If you take a quick look at all your major donors, you might notice that their first gift was probably a few dollars when they were just out of college. Young alumni engagement is a long-term game where you sow the seeds while they’re young, nurture them consistently, and reap the benefits down the line.

💡A young alum donor is 5.6 times more likely to give in the future than a young alum non-donor.

Factors that impact young alumni giving

Student Experience

The student experience has a strong influence on future alumni giving. Positive experiences like developing deep relationships with faculty and staff, receiving financial aid/scholarships, and having a holistic learning experience can play a vital role. After all, those who strongly identify with their institution are more likely to give back in the future.

Alumni Experience

Being an alum means you're part of something bigger than yourself – you belong to a community that can help shape your future. Those with enriching alumni experiences are more likely to give back to their alma mater. That’s why it’s necessary for your institution to create alumni-centric programs that cater to your alumni’s needs at various stages in their lives.

Here are a few low-effort, high-impact ideas to elevate alumni experience:

• Mentorship/networking opportunities for recent graduates
• Child-care facilities for middle-aged alumni
• Happy hours or virtual reunions for your older alumni

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Alumni Motivation

Motivation to give can also stem from a personal affinity for a cause or mission. Whether this originates from past or present experiences, people develop connections with the institution and become inspired to lend support.

Demographic factors

Demographic characteristics such as age, proximity, income, and gifts to other organizations are predictors of giving as well.

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💡Ideas to engage with young alumni

A comprehensive mentorship program

Bellarmine University pioneered a young alumni mentorship program in collaboration with the career services department to connect students with alumni based on their career paths and shared interests.

🔥95% of the participants said they felt a deeper sense of connection to their alumni association and 99% of them said that they would recommend it to their friends

Career workshops

Focus on interactive and skill-enhancement workshops - Resume reviews; Workshops on Office etiquette, Soft Skills, and Professional Skills.

Networking events

‍Every institution has an alumni base that they can boast of. So, why not leverage it to create opportunities for both the alumni and students?

Lifelong learning initiatives

Learning needn’t end after graduation. Help your alumni pursue personal interests, passions, or professional ambitions by creating a repository of courses that help with upskilling. You could also host webinars and create content repositories that provide value to your alumni.

Affinity groups

‍For institutions with different segments of alumni (based on interests, purposes, life experiences, and social identity), affinity groups help create a safe space for alumni where they can communicate freely and collaborate on ideas.

Social events

‍If there’s one thing alumni around the world will always love, it’s to get together for a social event and reminisce the good old days. Why not leverage this and create fun events that will help your alumni connect with each other? From cocktail parties and sporting events, to live game screenings and happy hours – the possibilities are endless!

A young alum who attended an event gave 2x more compared to those who didn’t attend.

Glenn’s closing thoughts on Young Alumni Engagement

So that wraps up our take on why young alumni engagement is the need of the hour. We thought we'd leave you with Glenn's thoughts on young alumni engagement and its impact on giving and participation.

“We have found that young alumni look for engagement that goes beyond social events. While social activities are important, initiatives that provides career advice, mentorship, and potential career opportunities can help leverage the alumni association’s role with new graduates, and create a positive association with engagement and giving.

”Studies show that those who get engaged and give at a young age are more likely to give and remain engaged throughout their career. Engaging alums with current students keeps the mission and the outcomes of the university on top of their minds and reinforces engagement.”

‍About the speaker

Glenn F. Kosse, Ph.D. is Vice President of H2R Consulting LLC and focuses his expertise on fundraising development, non-profit management, and strategic planning. Prior to joining H2R, he enjoyed a 35-year career in development and non-profit leadership experience with Bellarmine University, University of Louisville, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in increasing levels of leadership.

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Source: Glenn Kosse's dissertation

Your university’s brand is one of its greatest marketing assets and a key part of your alumni marketing strategy. For many alumni, the university they attend is a core part of their identity, and it’s common for alumni to remember their school’s colors, mascot, and theme song decades after graduation.

As such, universities looking to engage their alumni should leverage their brand to form a sense of community. When alumni then feel a sense of kinship with their former university, they’re more likely to donate, volunteer, and otherwise support you.

To help your university make strategic use of its brand, this guide will explore digital outreach strategies for higher education institutions.

1. Expand your brand beyond your logo and color palette.

Consider Nike’s branding. Beyond the memorable “swoop” logo, Nike’s brand is exemplified in its written messaging with the tagline “Just Do It” and its visual assets, which often depict the stories of everyday people pursuing greatness in their personal fitness journeys. Nike’s audience isn’t just professional athletes but the everyday athletes who aspire to something greater. The company built its brand on empowering and encouraging individuals to do just that with the aid of its products.

Nike is one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and it’s far from the only company to recognize that branding extends beyond logos and well-coordinated color palettes.

If your organization hasn’t refreshed its branding strategy in some time, it’s worthwhile to revisit your university’s current positioning and how you can further refine, expand, and elevate your brand. Address the following aspects of your brand:

• Visual Elements: This includes your logos, photo and video assets, color palette, and typography. Visuals are your strongest asset for evoking your audience’s emotions. When curating your visual brand, consider how you want alumni to feel when they receive your communications or visit your website. Nostalgic? Proud? Hopeful? Motivated?
• Messaging: What key phrases or topics do you want to be associated with your university’s brand? What is your brand personality when greeting alumni—formal and businesslike, or nostalgic and lighthearted?
• Channels: Consider how you will adapt your brand for various communication channels and platforms. These are minute differences that still pack the full power of your brand, such as using different abbreviated logos on social media posts.

When crafting any external outreach materials, consider how you will infuse your brand into them. This applies to everything from personalized emails that might include your logo in the heading to events with branded banners and posters.

For direct communication with individual supporters, such as email outreach, strive to create a personalized but branded experience. This means referencing specific details about that alumni’s engagement history while speaking to them with your university’s branded voice, whether it’s warm and friendly or formal and inspirational.

2. Conduct research to understand how your brand will perform.

Once you’ve refined your brand, research how it performs with your alumni audience by:

• Sharing surveys. Send out a preview of your organization’s updated branding to a sample of your university’s alumni audience. Attach a survey that asks respondents about their opinions on the changes, staying open to a diverse range of perspectives and responses.
• Conducting focus groups. Ask a few of your university’s most active alumni to participate in focus groups where they’re shown your brand and invited to share their opinions. Consider segmenting groups by different demographics, such as having a group full of recent graduates and a group of older alumni.
• Reviewing existing data. Review granular data from your previous alumni outreach campaigns, including those shared on your website, social networks, and via email. Which campaigns had the most positive responses? Which campaigns were largely unsuccessful? What made those campaigns unique, and how can they inform branding updates?

By conducting this research, you can understand what your alumni respond well to, whether it’s phrasing changes (such as leveraging a positive, upbeat tone) or content updates (such as highlighting workplace giving in fundraising appeals). With this knowledge, you can continue to develop and refine your branding strategy.

3. Highlight what makes your university and alumni unique.

When refreshing your branding for alumni outreach, highlight what makes your university and alumni unique.

Your alumni don’t feel a connection to your university simply because they attended it. It’s because of the experience they had while at your institution—the small, specific details that made up their time at your school and how they can help foster similar experiences for generations to come.

Consider how you can highlight that connection in your marketing materials, such as adding “throwback” images and stories from a memorable football season, hosting campaigns tied to the memory of beloved instructors, or even launching forward-thinking campaigns, such as one that highlights successful alumni and their careers after attending your institution.

To keep consistent records of your university’s marketing efforts, brand identity, and history, ensure you have software with cloud storage and extensive integration capabilities. For instance, universities that use tools like Salesforce Education Cloud can continually update and customize their technology as their school grows and evolves.

4. Tap into shared nostalgia.

Avoid considering your brand in isolation, and instead, think of what it means to your alumni specifically. Most alumni have or will develop a sense of nostalgia for your university, and you can tap into that feeling in your outreach strategy.

Associate your university’s brand with past positive experiences by:

• Sharing old campus photographs. Tell stories about past events accompanied by old photographs. Ensure your university keeps an archive of old promotional photos, and if it currently doesn’t, now is the time to start one. This not only helps with outreach but also preserves your university’s history.
• Incorporating past branding into new outreach materials. Give alumni a blast from the past by playing with old branding. For instance, on your university’s founding anniversary, you might create fundraising materials that showcase how your logo has evolved over the years.
• Connecting alumni with each other, not just your organization. Alumni are more likely to continue supporting your school if they are part of your greater alumni community. Encourage graduates to develop local alumni societies, offer excursions for former students and their friends and family, and host events that invite alumni back to campus.

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling, and the right branding strategy can leverage it to earn tangible support. When contacting alumni from specific graduating classes, reference campus events they’re likely to remember to transport them back to their time as students.

5. Connect your alumni brand to the future.

One of your university’s main marketing objectives is garnering support for future generations of students. Share this goal with your alumni to motivate them to help fund positive experiences similar to the ones they had.

For instance, you might invoke specific clubs or departments alumni were a part of, encouraging them to keep those organizations going far into the future. Use language like “Help secure the debate club’s future,” “Make an impact that lasts,” and “Keep our community going now and for years to come.”

As part of your marketing, you might even have current students get involved. Ask them to share their stories that explain how alumni contributions fund their current experiences. Then, have them sign messages with their name and future graduation year to emphasize your university’s commitment toward the future.

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Conclusion

Branding is one of your university’s strongest assets for inspiring support. Refine your brand identity by gathering alumni feedback, then create messages that invoke alumni’s past to encourage them to fund the future.

After over a decade of front-line fundraising for worthy causes, I'm starting a new chapter as VP, Community at Almabase and Host of the Donor Participation Project

My first real job in this industry began almost exactly ten years ago, when I networked my way into the alumni office of my alma mater, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville as an administrative assistant with an MBA and a Ph.D. The passion for the backend of fundraising has remained with me ever since. How do things get done in fundraising offices? What processes help—or hinder—our success? Will looking at things differently help? Or are we “building on the shoulders of giants” and shouldn’t change what isn’t broken?

However, my passion for the space started much before that.

Armed with a stack of resumes, the Internet, and a place to stay in NYC, I ran my first direct response campaign to find myself an internship. As I think of the outcome now, the results were life-changing and yet the ROI at the time didn’t feel so great: maybe an early fundraising lesson?

I landed two internships at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and a similarly prestigious boutique consulting firm: AEA. Lincoln Center’s CEO at the time was known for his fundraising prowess. Reynold Levy would tell his employees that the only reason he would ever interrupt their meetings was if a trustee was calling. As I progressed into more strategic roles, planned successful fundraising campaigns, and managed talented teams these early lessons stayed with me.

Fast-forward ten years, and here I am with Almabase and as the founder of the fastest-growing professional organization in philanthropy (joindpp.org).

To those who aren’t familiar with Almabase or what we do – we are a team of 40-something innovators on a mission that’s very dear to me: making quality education accessible to everyone.

This is what brought me to this organization. Their heart is in helping nonprofits, mainly in higher education, improve in the area of biggest opportunity in our industry. How do you make it easy to run highly engaged communities? How do you connect engagement to giving behaviors? What do annual giving, alumni affairs, and communication professionals need to do a better job? Yes, they have an incredibly user-friendly software but their true superpower is in caring about the right things.

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How I Discovered Almabase and their Mission

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When Kalyan flew in to meet at my neighborhood coffee store, he had an interesting idea to run by me: powerful communities are poised to rule the non-profit sector, but the problem right now is in setting up these communities.

That’s where I came into the picture. With my experience building thriving communities like the Donor Participation Project, I could see where Kalyan was headed with this vision, and naturally, I wanted in.

However, having an interesting problem to work on is only half the reason I chose to join Almabase. The other half, the one that resonates with me on a personal level, is about their values.

• Firstly, Almabase’s mission speaks to me deeply. They’re on a mission to democratize quality education, and make it affordable and accessible to everyone. As an outsider, I had my own set of challenges getting a foothold in the industry, so I appreciate what Almabase is trying to do here.

With student debt being a growing challenge, it's only natural for alumni to be the bridge that makes education accessible to all.

• Secondly, I think they have a fantastic product that empowers advancement teams of all sizes. Here’s what I told Kalyan over our coffee:

"If I were to create a platform to support our community-building and fundraising work, it would be Almabase."

• Finally, it’s the culture, stupid. They say culture eats strategy for breakfast. In this case, because of the time change with Bangalore it is more likely supper, but the principle holds. The Almabase team is full of incredibly hard-working and passionate individuals. It is hard to imagine such a group not succeeding at whatever they set their minds to do. All of this is evident by the amazing things they’ve done so far.

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How Communities can Shape the Future of Alumni Relations and Advancement

Almabase is making a huge bet on communities being one of the central drivers of success for nonprofits in the next few years, and I’m thrilled to get a front-row seat on the ride.

Almabase lives and swears by alumni-centricity – the idea of building value-driven relationships with your alumni network. Incidentally, creating and sharing value is what makes a community strong and purposeful for all its members. Clearly, there are common threads between the two.

The way I see it, if institutions want to get better at alumni centricity, they need to leverage the power of strong alumni networks. That’s how I come into the picture – I’ve had my fair share of experience building communities that work. That’s why I’ll be working with Almabase’s vast network of institutions in helping them shape these communities.  

It’s a big bet, but powerful alumni communities lead to higher donations raised with lower costs, which can empower the next generation of students with quality education. Everyone’s a winner, and I’m thrilled to see how this shapes up.

So there you have it – the not-so-brief recap of the events over these last few weeks. What are your predictions for the future of this space?

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About Louis

Louis Diez is an expert in annual fund development, digital fundraising, and engagement strategies. He's the founder and host of the Donor Participation Project and VP, Community at Almabase.

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Your university likely often brainstorms new fundraising ideas to engage alumni, from Giving Tuesdays to tele-a-thons. However, one of the most effective ways to earn alumni support is to demonstrate your appreciation before pitching for a donation. 

According to NPO Info’s charitable giving statistics report, alumni are an important donor group for higher education institutions, contributing approximately 26% of all gifts to colleges and universities.

Theoretically, your university should see a regular increase in alumni giving year after year as each class graduates and enters the workforce. 

However, universities will only be able to set themselves up for this growing support if they take the proper steps to retain their alumni donors. To help your university improve your alumni donor appreciation strategy and increase fundraising, this article will explore how to:

1. Send personalized messages. 
2. Send custom merchandise. 
3. Host alumni events. 

When reaching out to current and potential alumni donors, keep in mind that just because an alumni isn’t able to give now, doesn’t mean they won’t be able to in the future. Keeping these relationships strong long-term can be well worth the effort.

1. Send personalized messages

Each of your alumni had a unique experience at your university, making life-long connections with professors, faculty, and fellow students. Show them that they are still an important part of this community by reaching out to them with personalized messages.

Basic personalization includes doing small things like addressing your alumni by name. But you can go a step further and create messages that will truly capture their attention by:

• Creating segmented messaging lists: While there are some emails you may want to send to all of your alumni, such as a monthly newsletter, you can create more personalized messaging experiences for alumni through segmentation strategies. For example, try dividing your alumni donors based on graduation year, donation history, and even major. 

• Getting your current students and other alumni involved: Messages from universities often feel more personal when they come from another student rather than a faculty member. Consider employing some of your current students to share their stories and send messages to alumni. Or, consider reaching out to current alumni volunteers too and have them get in touch with their peers to fundraise for your university and connect with their old classmates at the same time. 

• Sharing their impact: Your alumni want to know that your university continues to improve and give current students an even better experience than when they attended. When reaching out to alumni about donating, share stories about how the campus has improved. 

Personalized messages strengthen your donation requests and show your alumni that your university acknowledges and appreciates their support. Additionally, be sure to reach out to alumni volunteers to thank them for their efforts. This will help secure their support long-term, and may even lead to future donations as volunteers can often turn into donors. 

2. Send custom merchandise

Chances are that you or someone (or many people) you know still have school spirit for their alma mater, even decades later. You can help your alumni continue to represent their school years after graduation with custom merchandise with your university’s name and logo. 

Of course, your university likely already has an on-campus store where visiting alumni can pick up merchandise. However, you can give them more options by creating an online storefront or even sending merchandise in the mail as a thank-you for donating. 

When it comes to creating custom merchandise, you can stick to old classic designs or mix things up to create apparel that plays with your university’s branding in a unique way to make items that are stylish and maybe a bit out of the box, but still unquestionably represent your university. For example, try playing with the color and even the overall style of items to create something eye-catching. 

You can also create merchandise lines exclusively for alumni who donate or volunteer. This can make alumni feel not just appreciated, but that they are members of an exclusive group powering their school’s success.

3. Host alumni events

Although with time, your alumni will move on with new friends, coworkers, and raising families, many of them will likely enjoy reconnecting with old college friends and professors, revisiting campus, and reliving the time spent at their alma mater. Alumni events provide the opportunity for them to do just that and are an impactful way to show that their alma mater still considers them to be a valuable member. 

You can gather your alumni together to show your appreciation and garner support with events like:

• Galas and mixers: Chances are that most of your alumni will primarily want to attend events not to participate in any specific activity but to socialize with old classmates and professors. Formal galas give them the opportunity to meet up with one another. You can also host a more informal mixer to create an environment where alumni who may not have met before can break the ice and get to know each other. 

• Talks and presentations: One of your university’s greatest assets is your academic excellence and network of experts and professionals at the top of their fields. While many of your alumni may work in different industries than their major, many will still likely be interested in the same subjects they studied and be interested in attending a talk or presentation about new research in their fields of interest. 

• Virtual events: While some of your alumni may have stayed close to campus, others likely moved far across or even outside the country. You can maintain these connections by hosting a variety of virtual and hybrid events throughout the year. 

To host an alumni event, use your alumni management tools to identify alumni you would like to invite, create personalized invitations, and track how your event turned out. After each event, follow up with alumni to thank them for attending and create a communication stream to strengthen your relationship and encourage them to make a contribution in the future. 

Your alumni will have a connection to your school forever, and you can transform those feelings into lasting support with the right appreciation strategies. Show donors that their contributions matter by reaching out to them with custom messages, providing them with custom merchandise, and bringing them back to your university with numerous events. Good luck!

Many educational institutions rely on well-run Giving Days as a significant component of their annual fundraising strategies. After all, these fundraising campaigns can be an excellent opportunity for all sorts of donors⁠—including current students, families, alumni, and community members⁠—to support your ongoing efforts.

With so much riding on an annual Giving Day, however, it’s important that you go into your campaign with a detailed fundraising plan and some tips for success in your pocket. This will enable you to maximize revenue while better engaging with your donors.

And luckily, if you’re looking for new ways to elevate your upcoming Giving Day, this is the guide for you! We’ll walk through these tried-and-true best practices:

1. Provide multiple ways to give to the campaign.
2. Empower supporters with peer-to-peer fundraising.
3. Inform and remind donors about matching gift opportunities.
4. Target alumni supporters in your fundraising appeals.
5. Promote your Giving Day fundraiser online.
6. Motivate donors with gamification strategies.
7. Follow up with Giving Day donors post-campaign.
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Ready to get started? Let’s dive in with our first Giving Day fundraising tip.

1. Provide multiple ways to give to the campaign.

One of the best things you can do to increase participation in your Giving Day is to diversify the ways in which donors can give. At the very least, this should include:

• Online donation forms
• Text-to-give
• Direct mail

You might even want to consider non-traditional support methods such as event contributions, volunteer hours, in-kind gifts, gifts of securities, cryptocurrency donations, and more.

Everyone has their unique preferences when it comes to donating charitably. The bottom line is that the more ways an individual can participate in your Giving Day campaign, the higher response rates you’re likely to see.

2. Empower supporters with peer-to-peer fundraising.

Peer-to-peer giving is a top fundraising strategy for all sorts of organizations⁠—higher education included. And it can be a particularly great way to elevate an institution’s Giving Day.

After all, peer-to-peer fundraising empowers individual supporters or groups to raise money on behalf of your institution. These volunteer fundraisers are then able to solicit donations for the campaign from their own family members, friends, colleagues, and other community members.

Thus, it offers a powerful opportunity to get in touch with new first-time donors and raise awareness for your cause.

3. Inform and remind donors about matching gift opportunities.

Corporate matching gifts offer one of the simplest and most effective ways to elevate your institution’s Giving Day results⁠—all without asking donors to give more. In fact, by combining matching gifts with your school’s fundraising efforts, you can easily double financial contributions, see significantly elevated donation impact, and better engage with your donors.

More than likely, a solid portion of existing and prospective donors to your cause work for companies with employee matching gift programs. Unfortunately, many of these individuals have likely never been made aware of the opportunity. When you integrate matching gifts into your Giving Day strategy, however, you can inform donors about matching gifts, collect employment information to identify match-eligible gifts, follow up post-donation to guide supporters through the process, and see more matches driven to completion.

4. Target alumni supporters in your fundraising appeals.

For many school fundraisers, the institution’s alumni are some of the most prominent supporters. As your next Giving Day approaches, taking the time to target this segment of your donor base can be a great way to go⁠—keeping in mind that the more you know about your alumni supporters, the better you can adjust your fundraising efforts in their favor.

For example, did an individual graduate with a degree in biology? Consider sending a donation appeal to support the expansion of your institution’s science lab and research department. Did they participate in your school of interior design? Request a donation for a program supply fund for students in need!

The better the alumni donor can relate to the fundraising appeal, the more likely they are to contribute to your Giving Day.

5. Promote your Giving Day fundraiser online.

More and more institutions are beginning to understand the vast power and potential of online fundraising⁠—and promoting their fundraising efforts online. In today’s day and age, it’s one of the most effective ways to spread the word about an upcoming campaign and solicit donations from supporters. And that’s exactly why it’s such a crucial strategy for upcoming Giving Days!

But how exactly can you leverage the influence of the internet to best promote your Giving Day fundraiser? We recommend:

• Creating a hub of Giving Day information on your website
• Sharing Giving Day fundraising materials on social media
• Encouraging supporters to interact with and share your online content

Your institution’s website is likely one of your most valuable marketing assets. But the vitality of the internet doesn’t just stop there⁠—increasing online presence can involve social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. From these platforms, you can share Giving Day materials (including an overview of ways to get involved) and incorporate links back to additional content on your main website.

6. Motivate donors with gamification strategies.

Gamification, or the act of applying elements typically associated with gameplay (such as winning and losing, point-scoring, and more), can be one of the most effective ways to elevate fundraising participation among donors and prospects.

Here are a few of our favorite ideas:

• Goals and goal-tracking ⁠— Set specific, tangible, and realistic goals (for example, the number of donations or total fundraising revenue collected).
• Leaderboards ⁠— Publicly recognize recent and high-level donors with an online leaderboard that updates in real time.
• Incentives and rewards ⁠— Motivate donors (and volunteer fundraisers if you go the peer-to-peer route) by offering incentives to give and collect donations. This can be as simple as a digital “badge” gifted to those who have given or collected the most dollars.

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The idea of fundraising gamification leverages a sense of healthy, friendly competition in order to drive engagement. Plus, it can be a particularly smart strategy when it comes to time-based campaigns⁠—like Giving Days⁠—that already depend heavily on urgency as a motivating factor for giving.

7. Follow up with Giving Day donors post-campaign.

Ideally, the donor journey doesn’t end once an individual submits their donation. This is especially true when it comes to significant campaigns⁠—such as your institution’s Giving Day.

Instead, it’s important to follow up with your supporters after they give. This can include:

• Thanksgiving Day contributors for their support (e.g., “Thank for your generous donation of $1,000 to our school’s annual Giving Day.”)
• Sharing success stories and fundraising totals (e.g., “We raised more than $516,982 in a 24-hour period, due largely to donors like you! With this funding, we’re able to expand our research and improve upon student programming.”)
• Reminding donors about matching gift potential (e.g., “Did you know that your gift is likely eligible for a corporate match through your employer, the Home Depot? Click here to submit your online donation match request.”)

Strategic follow-ups such as these will enable your team to further engage with its supporters. When done effectively, it will even leave a positive lasting impression of your cause, encouraging donors to give again in the future.

Giving Days have huge potential to raise a ton of support for educational institutions and other types of nonprofit causes. By simplifying the giving process, increasing your reach with peer-to-peer efforts, highlighting matching gift opportunities, strategically targeting alumni donors, utilizing online promotional tools, and gamifying your campaign to engage supporters, you’ll be all set to see elevated Giving Day success.

Then, remember to follow up with campaign participants afterward to show your appreciation, communicate impact, and keep your institution at the forefront of their minds. You won’t regret it!

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a powerful social giving tool that many educational institutions have employed to increase donations while expanding their donor base. Through these campaigns, schools of all sizes empower their donors to raise money on their behalf.

Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns have become a mainstay of fundraising for higher education causes and charities because they tap into the power of your donors’ social connections. Plus, they’re extremely flexible and easily adapted to today’s virtual and hybrid fundraising landscapes.

Schools are especially well-positioned to benefit from peer-to-peer fundraising since they have large communities of alumni, current students, and family networks who have emotional connections to their mission and the overall institution. These supporters are also likely to share your campaign online, and the social proof of their support encourages their wider social networks to get involved, too.

This guide will cover six key strategies that higher ed institutions need to succeed with peer-to-peer fundraising. But first, let’s review how these campaigns work.

How does peer-to-peer fundraising work?

There are a few core steps to executing peer-to-peer fundraisers. Every campaign will follow this general structure:

1. Your institution develops a campaign page that explains your fundraising goal and tells a story about how donations will help you better serve students.
2. Your team recruits supporters (current students, parents, and alumni) to create their own fundraising pages and fill them in with personalized stories about what your institution means to them.
3. Supporters then share their pages with friends and family online to ask for donations, and you provide them with tools and encouragement to make fundraising social, mobile, and fun.
4. Donations secured through the individual fundraising pages flow into your central campaign, helping you reach your goal.
5. Your campaign draws to a close. Celebrate your success and blast out the good news to your wider community and online network!

Within this easy-to-launch campaign process, there are plenty of other steps, tools, and strategies that you’ll need to succeed. Although your supporters are doing the actual fundraising, these campaigns aren’t hands-off. Use these six strategies to help you reach (and exceed) your campaign goals:

1. Use dedicated peer-to-peer fundraising software

Providing an easy giving experience is one of the most important things you can do to drive supporter engagement and increase donations. The fundraising software you use directly impacts the donors’ experiences with your campaign.

Peer-to-peer fundraising software should allow you to:

• Create a central campaign page
• Create templated giving pages for donors to easily launch and customize
• Manage and track your campaign in real-time
• Include gamification and amplification elements like matching gifts, leaderboards, badges, and targeted achievements.

By leveraging dedicated tools designed specifically for peer-to-peer fundraising, launching and managing your campaign and individual giving pages can be easy. Using peer-to-peer fundraising software that offers robust features, mobile-optimized giving pages, offline donation tracking, real-time reporting, and CRM integrations allows you to easily launch new campaigns and meet and exceed your annual fundraising goals.

2. Recruit ambassadors to promote your campaign

Before launching your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, you’ll need to create a core campaign page. The next obvious step would be to spread the word online, allowing anyone to get involved to help you fundraise. While this approach definitely works, we also recommend taking a more strategic approach by actively recruiting ambassadors for peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns.

Fundraising ambassadors are your most passionate and well-connected supporters. Rather than hope they’ll join your campaign, personally reach out to them in advance! Ambassadors can help your campaign by:

• Fundraising on your behalf online
• Representing your institution in the community
• Promoting about any associated campaign events
• Hosting small events of their own

This strategy is particularly effective for peer-to-peer campaigns leading up to an annual gala or other large-scale events. Just be sure to provide your ambassadors (and all of your volunteer fundraisers) with the resources they need to succeed.

3. Offer fundraising training and support

When you prepare to launch a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, it’s important to offer training opportunities to your supporters. Most supporters might not have a ton of experience as fundraisers, so getting them set up on the platform and providing them with resources will boost results and engagement. This is particularly important for ambassadors, who you may work with to set specific fundraising and event sign-up goals.

To make fundraising easy for these supporters, be sure to provide the following resources:

1. Training: Providing your supporters with technical training in your peer-to-peer fundraising software will give them the tools and confidence they need to succeed. Make sure you have access to your software’s tools and resources so you can pass along fundraising knowledge to your supporters.‍
2. Marketing toolkit: A toolkit with your mission, logo, branded images, social graphics, and impact statements can help your supporters craft their personal stories while still staying on brand.
3. Mission and impact: Tie supporters to your cause and help them understand why this campaign matters. Social donors are heavily motivated by mission and impact, so they’ll want to know what kind of difference their support will make.
4. Templates. Social media and email templates are an excellent way to give your supporters the materials they need to quickly get the word out. This makes it easy for them to share the campaign and ask for donations while still adding their own personal touch.
5. Ongoing support: Regularly check in and monitor the progress of your ambassadors and supporters. Offer words of encouragement where needed and recognize high-performing fundraisers for their achievements.‍
6. Customizable pages: Give your supporters the ability to customize their individual campaign pages so they can demonstrate their connection to your cause. Allow them to upload photos, for example, and create their own content to tell their story.

In order to reach your institution’s fundraising goal, your supporters must communicate to their networks in the way you need them to while offering them a way to put their own personal touches on the campaign. Training and support are also essential for making your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign a positive experience for your fundraisers. This will help ensure that the campaign pulls double-duty—raising donations and boosting alumni relations.

4. Promote your campaign through multiple channels

While your students may be online constantly, it’s a good practice to diversify your fundraising campaign’s promotional strategies to create maximum reach and appeal to a wide range of donors.

Donor and alumni networks consist of different generations, so you and your volunteer fundraisers will need to meet all of them where they are.

According to the OneCause guide to peer-to-peer fundraising, this means using a mix of traditional and modern marketing methods, including:

• Social media
• Email
• Direct mail
• Digital ads
• Phone calls

The various approaches you and your fundraisers use should be tailored to your donor audience to maximize impact. If you’re trying to reach a broad range of alumni and donors, you should use outlets that will help you reach a variety of age and location demographics. But if your fundraising campaign is mainly geared toward younger alumni, focusing on email and social media (and forgoing expensive direct mail) can be a smarter way to focus your efforts.

It’s helpful at this stage to review the performance of your previous fundraising campaigns. What marketing tactics worked best to engage particular donor segments? Use these insights to guide your new promotional strategy, and encourage your volunteer to rely on those outlets as well.

5. Plan events alongside your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign

Peer-to-peer fundraisers work well with events, and you have tons of flexible options. Organizations often host a range of kickoff events, mid-campaign gatherings, and grand finale events like walkathons or galas for their fundraising campaigns. The rise of virtual fundraising events has opened up even more opportunities to efficiently plan and host a variety of events.

Take some time early in the planning process to brainstorm a few options based on the scale of your campaign. As you’re brainstorming, keep these top of mind:

• Recognition: Events are a great way to recognize your fundraisers and tie in your gamification strategies. Highlight some of your top donors at your event to show them how much you appreciate their effort.
• Merchandise: Set up a table at your event to sell items that promote your institution’s cause. You can even offer free event merch to your top peer-to-peer fundraising campaign participants.
• Social elements: Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns pair well with active and community-based events such as 5K races, obstacle courses, walkathons, and others. Don’t be afraid to get creative to pivot these events to virtual fundraisers, as well!
• DIY-style events: Consider asking volunteers to launch their own casual fundraising events like car washes and garage sales to generate more revenue for your campaign. These activities deepen your connection to the community and attract an even wider base of donors.

Pairing your peer-to-peer fundraiser with an event or two can be an impactful way to bring your campaign full circle. Using peer-to-peer fundraising software that’s part of a broader suite of fundraising tools, including registration and virtual event features, makes it easy to diversify all of your future campaigns with a variety of events and donor engagement options.

6. Use gamification strategies to boost your results

Who isn’t motivated by a little friendly competition? Donors love to be recognized for their contributions, and your institution can benefit from leveraging gamification tools throughout your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.

Classic gamification tools include:

• Fundraising thermometers on your main campaign page and individual giving pages.
• Leaderboards to highlight your top volunteer fundraisers in real-time.
• Event text messaging to stir up excitement and interest.
• Countdown clocks to create a sense of urgency to donate.

Gamification and goal-setting are especially important if you’ve recruited fundraising ambassadors for your campaign. Give them plenty of support and specific goals to reach. This will help them better motivate their audiences to give. During your grand finale event, honor your fundraising ambassadors, have them complete fun challenges, and reward your top fundraiser.

And don’t forget that gamification and add-on strategies can help to boost your donations in more direct ways, too. Try implementing a matching donation challenge during which a corporate partner matches all incoming donations. Or challenge your fundraisers to see who can secure the most employer-matched gifts overall through any corporate philanthropy programs that donors may be eligible for—more on that in the next section.

Meanwhile, appended employer information can help you identify more opportunities among your alumni and guide your matching gift strategy during the campaign.

7. Leverage corporate giving programs & supporter connections

Peer-to-peer fundraising isn’t just about tapping into your alumni and student networks—it’s also about unlocking the extended networks they’re connected to. One powerful and often overlooked strategy is to leverage corporate giving programs, such as matching gifts and volunteer programs, to amplify peer-led efforts.

After all, many companies offer matching gift programs, where they’ll match donations their employees make to eligible nonprofits. This can double—or even triple—the impact of every peer-to-peer gift. Encourage your fundraisers to check if their employers (or their donors’ employers) offer these programs. Better yet, embed a matching gift search tool into your campaign pages or emails so supporters can find their company’s guidelines in seconds.

In addition to matching gifts, corporate volunteer grants are another valuable opportunity. Many companies reward volunteer hours with financial donations. If your peer-to-peer participants are also volunteering (for example, by hosting events, organizing campaigns, or participating in service projects), their employers may provide funding in recognition of that time.

To make the most of these opportunities, consider using an employer appends tool to identify where your supporters work. These resources can fill in employment information gaps in your donor database, helping you target the right individuals with corporate giving messaging.

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Wrapping it up

Peer-to-peer fundraising has proven to be one of the most flexible and effective ways to reach donors in recent years. For higher ed institutions with a large alumni community, launching a campaign that capitalizes on all those connections is a win-win: more donations to support your work and strengthened donor relationships.

Study up on these tips and other expert peer-to-peer fundraising best practices, equip your team with the right tools, and be prepared to help your volunteer fundraisers promote your campaign. You’ll be reaching your goals in no time!

It can be terribly hard to keep data sane and organized, and even more so when your team’s working with different platforms to store constituent data.

Moving things across several platforms can be a daunting task, but we’ve got you covered. If your institution uses Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT to store constituent data, Almabase’s state-of-the-art integration with RE NXT makes data management a breeze. The integration works right out of the box, and with a push of a button, you can have your data flow seamlessly between Almabase and RE NXT.

Read how Northwestern Health Sciences University leverages Almabase & Raiser's Edge integration for their engagement and fundraising needs.

Here’s everything you need to know about Almabase’s integration with RE NXT.

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Almabase <> Raiser’s Edge NXT Integration Overview

We started working on this integration with a simple goal – to ensure that your team won’t have to spend resources (and their time) on an expensive third-party solution. That’s why our integration works right out of the box, without the need to set it up manually. With the integration, Almabase and RE NXT can sync multiple data points with the push of a button. What’s more, the data that flows between the platforms is going to be clean and structured, without the hindrance of duplicates. This means that there will be zero compromise on the quality of your data when it flows between systems, which is a huge plus for your IT team.  

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We’ve approached our integration to sync data based on three distinct fields, which are:

• Constituent data
• Event data
• Gift data
  

Each of these fields relates to an engagement touchpoint that a constituent might create through different channels. For instance, imagine an alum makes a gift to one of your campaigns, or another registers to and participates in your next event. All of these data-points will be captured and relayed back to RE NXT through the integration.

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👥How Constituent data stays in sync on Almabase and RE NXT

With Almabase, your alumni have the option to sign up using social sync (either through LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google). By using social sync to sign up, the platform automatically pulls the latest information of your constituent. This information will be fed back to RE NXT, where their records will be updated. Here’s a look at the data that gets collected and updated:

• Full name
• Email ID
• Phone number
• Address
• Profile picture

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However, that’s not all. Any time a constituent updates their information while registering for, or participating in an event, the updated information automatically flows back to their record on RE NXT. All of this magic happens behind the scenes, without you or a team member having to lift a finger. This can be a huge time-saver for Advancement Services professionals.

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🎟️How event data flows between Almabase and RE NXT

Every time you create an event page on Almabase, the integration syncs key data points of this event (event name, date, description, ticketing details, and so on) with RE NXT. This means that all events created on Almabase will also be reflected in your RE NXT database.

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Once an event page is live and open for registrations, you can go to the corresponding event page on RE NXT to view detailed participant information. Here are a few key details that get recorded on RE NXT as soon as your constituent completes their registration:

• Participant information
• Ticketing information
• Payments made for registration
• Accompanying guests
• Associated gifts made for the event

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You can always create custom workflows to dictate how the data should flow back to RE NXT, and which fields they should correspond to. You also have a whole host of options when it comes to printing receipts. All of these features take the stress out of events for your event managers!

💰How Gift data flows between Almabase and RE NXT

Every time a constituent pledges a gift to your giving campaign on Almabase, the data associated with each gift will be reflected on our versatile gift dashboard. Payments made on Almabase can be split into gift amount and services/tickets to accommodate any downstream processes as well. From the dashboard, you have the option of creating a batch of gifts, using a broad set of data filters. Once you’ve created a batch, you can run a workflow to import all the gifts corresponding to that batch into RE NXT. Here are some of the data points that get synced:

• Gift amount
• Fund(s) supported
• Payment method
• Acknowledgement letters
• Tributes and honor messages

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Creating a batch of gifts on Almabase is simple, as you have plenty of filters at your disposal. Once gift data flows to your RE NXT database, you can view all your gifts, and even make edits to gift details wherever needed. This can help professionals working with Annual Fund and Major Gifts to plan more effective campaigns and raise more funds.

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So there you have it – an overview of Almabase’s best-in-class integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT. While we tried to cover most of how the integration works, there’s still a lot we couldn’t fit into this blog post, for obvious reasons.

If you want to learn more about how the integration can help set your Advancement Team up for success, we have a blog post just for that.

Get in touch with one of our Alumni Success specialists if you want to see the integration in action - we have a feeling you’re going to like what you see!