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Latest stories, guides, and benchmarks from the world of alumni relations, fundraising, donor engagement, advancement services, events, and higher-education philanthropy

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 →

Assisted Fast Pass Migration from BBNC to Almabase

Featured

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

Read

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.

A person with a paddle raise or auction paddle — *Photo by* *Anita Jankovic* on Unsplash

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!

Featured

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

Read

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:

The three R’s of nonprofit storytelling: resonance, relevance, and respect

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.

Featured

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.

Alyssa Jefferies

September 3, 2026

12 minutes

Read

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!

Featured

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

Read

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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:

Your institution develops a campaign page that explains your fundraising goal and tells a story about how donations will help you better serve students.
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.
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.
Donations secured through the individual fundraising pages flow into your central campaign, helping you reach your goal.
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:

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.‍
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.
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.
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.
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.‍
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!

Peer-To-Peer Fundraising in Higher Ed: 7 Proven Strategies for 2026

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a powerful way to tap into your institution’s network of alumni and donors. Learn how to get started with these 6 top strategies in 2025.

May 30, 2022

12 minutes

Read

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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Constituent_data_sync_up_on_AB_and_REnxt

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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!

Almabase 🔁 RENXT | Simplified data processes for your educational institution

Almabase's industry-leading integration with Raiser's Edge NXT has saved Advancement teams from leading institutions in the U.S. countless hours and resources. Find out how the integration works, and see how all your data can move between Almabase and RE NXT.

April 29, 2022

12 minutes

Read

Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge NXT is a popular CRM used by numerous institutions across the country. However, when institutions use RE NXT along with an alumni engagement tool like Almabase, things can get messy when you want data to be uniformly synced across both systems. That’s where our industry-leading integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT comes in.

Because let’s face it - nobody likes working with data first thing every morning when it involves a lot of tedious back-and-forth between multiple systems. We believe this integration is crucial in setting your Advancement team up for success, and this blog post will show you how.

If you're interested in the technical nitty-gritty of the integration, we've got a blog post that you might be interested in.

Here are four ways Almabase’s integration with RE NXT can set your team up for success.

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Say goodbye to tedious, third-party solutions

Almabase’s RE NXT integration works from the get-go, and you won’t have to invest additional resources in third-party integrations. While some of these integrations can be super expensive, others that are cost-effective aren’t very reliable. Your team won’t have to rely on multiple tools (one of these being Importacular) to get data flowing between the two systems. Whether you want a simple integration to work right off the bat, or you want something more customizable to be more flexible with your needs, our integration offers it all.

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Automatically capture clean, structured data

Picture this – you have a thriving alumni community that is creating hundreds and thousands of engagement touchpoints on your platform. Imagine if every event registration or profile update had to be MANUALLY synced with RE NXT by your Advancement Services team.

That would be a dystopia we wouldn’t like to think about. With our integration, you get to choose how and when your data flows between Almabase and RE NXT, with zero human intervention. Furthermore, the data you import will automatically rid itself of duplicate entries and junk data. This smooth integration means your Advancement Services team can say goodbye to messy .CSV imports/exports all day long.

Two different systems, one source of truth

At this point, you might wonder whether it’s worth maintaining data on multiple platforms if each of them were to store different data. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. Almabase’s integration with RE NXT ensures that the data you see on both platforms will always be in sync with each other. This means you won’t have to worry about making sure the data is uniform across the systems. The integration also has provisions in place to ensure there are no duplicates or junk data on either of your systems, which can take a massive load off your IT team’s shoulders.

Besides, Almabase is so much more than an online community for your constituents, or a CRM for your team. With powerful alumni-centric engagement tools, Almabase empowers your team to unlock higher participation and donations. That’s why many institutions prefer to use Almabase in tandem with RE NXT.

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Our integration, your rules

When it comes to integrations, we don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. Every institution will have unique guidelines in place to handle data. That’s why our integration allows you to create custom workflows to dictate when, and how, data flows between Almabase and RE NXT. The customization is limitless and can be tweaked to fit your needs. If you’re feeling particularly experimental, you can tinker around with APIs to build your workflow, or you can use Microsoft Power Automate for that tailor-made fit that works best with your processes.

So there you have it – an overview of how Almabase’s best-in-class integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT can set your Advancement team up for success. While we tried to cover the most obvious advantages of the integration for your team, there’s still a lot we couldn’t fit into a blog post.

If you have any specific queries about the integration, or you want to see it in action, you can always get in touch with one of our Alumni Success Specialists. We have a feeling you’re going to like what you see!

How Almabase’s integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT can set your Advancement team up for success

From improving the efficiency of your team to optimizing your workflows and processes, find out how the integration can set your team up for success.

April 29, 2022

12 minutes

Read

"Alumni Engagement Metrics"

This is a common catchphrase that everyone in our industry has come across, in some shape or form. But how many of us are actually leveraging the power of engagement metrics to drive alumni participation and improve programming? Measuring data can be tricky, and there’s no universal playbook around to help advancement teams create and implement suitable frameworks in their institution.

That’s why my teammate Sushmitha and I put together a little webinar, to give advancement professionals the foothold they need to track engagement like a pro. We were fortunate to be joined by Adam Dunigan of Franklin College. Adam has had over a decade of experience working with various alumni engagement metrics, and we had a blast imbibing all the nuggets of wisdom that he had to share.

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Here’s a snippet of the insights Adam shared during the webinar.

How Franklin College is tracking Alumni Engagement

Initially, the Advancement team at Franklin College was largely focused on tracking attendance at events. As their alumni programs became more diverse, the team recognized the need to track metrics beyond event participation rate. That’s why the College built a solid framework to measure alumni engagement that enabled them to track metrics in a more comprehensive manner.

Aided by Adam’s rich history in data management and working with databases, the team at Franklin College slowly scaled their framework, from tracking metrics using spreadsheets, to creating complex data models by tinkering around with APIs and Microsoft Power BI. Today, Franklin College also has an automated process of tracking their data, and they also have powerful custom dashboards that offer them up-to-date data at a glance.

| Key Takeaway – Don't worry about the tools you have - your main focus should lie on what metrics you can track. While starting off, even spreadsheets are a great way to track your data.

Alumni_engagement_metrics — *A look at how Franklin College tracks some of their Alumni Engagement Metrics*

How Franklin College tracks qualitative data

An age-old problem with most engagement frameworks is this – tracking quantitative data will eventually become rinse-and-repeat, but how do you track qualitative data? For instance, what your constituents feel about your programming isn’t something you can quantify using numbers alone.

One way Franklin College tackled this challenge is by using surveys. Whether they are short surveys after every event, or they are more comprehensive surveys sent out every couple of years, they are a great channel to understand what your alumni really want out of your programming. CASE AEM surveys also enable the team to compare their programming with other institutions, and allows them to gain new ideas from their peers.

| Key Takeaway – Survey a great tool to leverage if you want to understand what your alumni think of your programming.

What to do if your institution is just starting out with engagement metrics

Even though everyone knows the importance of engagement metrics, only a small percentage of institutions actually leverage them to track alumni engagement. If your institution is just starting out with engagement metrics, Adam’s advice would be to start tracking whatever you can, and work your way towards a robust framework that aligns with your objectives.

Adam also recommends upskilling yourself whenever you can, either through a plethora of resources available online, or by learning through your peers, as well as experts in the field. This is precisely how Adam became a data expert himself – he started off by working with spreadsheets, but eventually got to a point where he mastered various tools like Microsoft Power BI.

| Key Takeaway – Take advantage of all the resources at your disposal to get better with engagement metrics.
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About Adam

Adam Dunigan has been working with his alma mater for over 12 years now, and he’s spent a good deal of that time with data. He has worn multiple hats working with Franklin College, and his area of expertise revolves around database design and management, data analytics, and working with advancement services. He is a self-taught data enthusiast, who has a penchant for finding new ways to collect and utilize data to make programming more alumni-centric.

If you want to learn more about how Adam helped set up a robust framework to track alumni engagement at Franklin College, tune in to the first episode of Advancement Spotlight, which is on our YouTube channel! ‍

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How Franklin College is Measuring Alumni Engagement Like a PRO

In a recent chat with Adam Dunigan from Franklin College, we witnessed how their team tracks alumni engagement, and their zero-to-one journey with engagement metrics. Here are some actionable insights for any advancement team to navigate through engagement metrics in 2022 and beyond.

April 19, 2022

12 minutes

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As a higher education fundraising professional or alumni volunteer coordinator, you know how important your alumni are to the success of your fundraising and volunteer efforts. Your alumni support your institution by contributing donations as well as volunteering to support your charitable events. They deserve recognition for the hard work they put in to support your institution.

Showing appreciation to alumni volunteers helps boost their engagement in your programs and initiatives, making them feel like their efforts are valued. If you’re looking for guidance when deciding how to show gratitude to your alumni volunteers, these five ideas can help get you started:

Send a thoughtful, personalized thank-you note.
Host an appreciation event.
Provide additional ways to get involved.
Offer them a nostalgic gift.
Ask for their feedback.

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These ideas just scrape the surface of the volunteer appreciation strategies you might choose to adopt. But they offer a great starting point if you’re creating your volunteer appreciation approach from scratch.

1. Send a thoughtful, personalized thank-you note

Your volunteers donate many hours of their time and skills to support your institution, and in return, you can send them a personalized thank-you note as a form of appreciation. You can send a letter straight from your volunteer coordinator or even handwritten cards from current students. As a volunteer, nothing feels better than words of gratitude coming from those they served or the program leaders.

Your volunteer management system can help you keep track of volunteers’ personal information to reference in your communications with them. Use your software platform to keep track of volunteers’ preferred names, volunteer history, graduation year, and donation history. You can use all of these details to personalize your thank-you messages. You can also personalize your thank-you note by highlighting one of their major accomplishments and how much of an impact it brought to your institution!

For instance, perhaps a certain volunteer won a state championship as a student-athlete while attending your institution. In your volunteer appreciation letter, you can include a shout-out to that amazing accomplishment while thanking the alum for their continued support and involvement.

2. Host an appreciation event

Consider planning an appreciation event as a fun way to get together and show appreciation to your alumni. This can be a great opportunity to allow all your alumni volunteers to connect and get to know one another outside of their volunteer hours! Invite them to events such as:

A virtual or in-person happy hour - Gather your volunteers together to enjoy their favorite beverage and play some fun interactive games. This is a great way to help your alumni get to know one another.
An end-of-year appreciation gala - You can host an appreciation gala with food and entertainment and hand out awards to your most engaged or active alumni volunteers.
A fun activity - Plan a team lunch or dinner or even something interactive like bowling for everyone to have fun and celebrate their accomplishments.

These ideas help create a good experience for your volunteers, encouraging them to stay involved with your future volunteering or fundraising opportunities.

3. Provide additional ways to get involved

You don’t want your volunteers to miss out on any new upcoming opportunities! Keep your alumni involved by highlighting upcoming events and opportunities on your calendar. These opportunities might include:

Networking events: These opportunities connect volunteers with fellow alumni and allow them to make personal and professional connections. This also helps your volunteers gain career knowledge from those who are more experienced.
Mentorship programs: This is a great way for your volunteers to connect with students in the same field and talk about their interests, experiences, and gain other insights that may help them succeed in their classes or career path.
Career development events: Consider planning job fairs or resume workshops that help your alumni grow their current skill set and learn how to market themselves effectively.
Fundraising opportunities: These might include direct donations or peer-to-peer fundraisers where alumni solicit donations from their family members and friends. Alumni are effective peer-to-peer fundraisers because they can speak directly to how they were positively impacted by your university.

Be sure to highlight these opportunities on your alumni website so volunteers can view them at any time.

4. Offer them a nostalgic gift

Think of a thank-you gift that will remind your volunteers of their time spent attending your university. For example, you can offer merchandise that’s branded to your university, such as a t-shirt, coffee mug, or framed wall art. These can be branded with your university’s colors and logo. You can also offer tickets to a university sporting event, such as a basketball or soccer game.

Make things exciting by asking your alumni to participate in t-shirt designing contests and send out a poll to decide on the winning design! This is a fun way to get your volunteers engaged, and whenever they wear their t-shirts, they will be reminded of their fun experience.

These volunteer gifts will surely make your volunteers feel special and will strengthen their bonds with your institution. Remember to get creative and make your gift stand out from any other generic gift.

5. Ask for their feedback

One of the most important aspects of volunteer engagement is making volunteers feel like their opinions are valued. Ask what they enjoyed most and least about the volunteer opportunity and any suggestions they have to improve the volunteer experience in the future.

Volunteer surveys are one of the best ways to determine how effective your volunteer program was and whether or not your volunteers were satisfied with their experience. Ensure you ask the right questions to receive the best feedback possible. This includes questions about whether they felt the volunteer experience truly made a difference or whether they would recommend your program to fellow alumni.

Remember to leave a section at the end of your survey to allow your alumni to leave any additional comments to help you understand what to improve for next time.

Since your volunteers are dedicated and passionate about volunteering with you, ensuring they have a positive experience is crucial! This shows your volunteers that you care about their experience and also helps you enhance your future volunteers’ experience.

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Now that you’ve learned several ways to show appreciation to alumni volunteers, it’s time to start planning accordingly and put your ideas into action! Showing gratitude to your volunteers comes with many benefits, helping you increase your university’s volunteer program retention. Remember to personalize your appreciation gifts to make them special and stand out, and choose your gifts according to the preferences of your volunteers. Good luck!

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5 Ways to Show Appreciation to Alumni Volunteers

Your alumni volunteers put in plenty of work to help your programs thrive. Here are five ways to show your appreciation for their hard work and dedication.

March 31, 2022

12 minutes

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We’re already deep into the first quarter of 2024, and this year promises to be nothing short of exciting for Alumni Relations and Advancement. From transitioning towards a hybrid event model to placing emphasis on alumni and their needs, educational institutions across the country have slowly started rethinking events, and the way they engage with their alumni.

We’ve seen so many outstanding engagement ideas ever since the pandemic began in 2020, and so many teams have implemented out-of-the-box events that successfully engaged with alumni around the world. That’s when we realized we should compile some of these ideas that your alumni will LOVE.

Here are 12 alumni-centric engagement ideas for higher educational institutions that will inspire you in 2024.

Marietta College’s unique social media campaign to raise $192,000

Marietta College is a private liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio. They managed to raise over $190,000 for their Giving Day in 2020, from over 1,200 donors!

They achieved this magnificent feat through their #Luv4MC campaign on social media. The hashtag encouraged the College’s alumni community to come forward and show their support by sharing their most cherished stories and pictures of their alma mater.

We were inspired by the efforts of Kathryn Gloor (Senior Director of Annual Giving at Marietta College) and their amazing team, for rallying so much support to make their Giving Day immensely successful.

How Willamette University engaged with its alumni through a virtual content repository

Willamette University is a private university in Salem, Oregon. The University’s Advancement team managed to successfully engage with their alumni through a virtual content repository, called the WU Stream Initiative.

The initiative was based on the idea of providing an array of content to every alumni member in their community to choose from. This included virtual lectures, videos, podcasts, and an archive of content that serves the likes of every alum, no matter where they are and what they prefer.

A huge shoutout to Tyler Reich and their team for implementing such an incredible alumni-centric idea to engage with the University’s community.

Wesleyan College’s Informative “Lunch & Learn” series

Wesleyan College is a private, liberal arts women's college in Macon, Georgia. The College managed to keep their alumnae engaged and entertained through their unique “Lunch & Learn” series.

The College’s Office of Alumnae Affairs wanted to do something memorable to engage with their constituents during the pandemic. The series features one-hour Zoom sessions where the President or Provost and a faculty or staff member engage in meaningful discussions about relevant topics like diversity and inclusion on campus, and athletics during the new normal.

We love how Cathy Coxey Snow (Director of Alumnae Affairs at Wesleyan College since 1993) and their team have been creating meaningful engagement opportunities for the College’s alumnae during the pandemic.

Madonna University’s heartfelt messaging campaign to raise more funds

Madonna University is a private Catholic university in Livonia, Michigan. Ahead of the University’s St. Felix Day of Giving, the Alumni Office created a touching communication plan to encourage participation and raise more funds.

The pandemic forced the Office to rethink their strategies for the campaign, and they decided to keep the messaging behind the appeal simple and from the heart. By focusing on the immediate needs of current students, and the impact each gift would make on their education. The heartfelt communication clearly left a mark on the University’s alumni, as the campaign was a huge success.

A huge shoutout to Katie Dougherty and their team for putting together such an inspiring campaign in such a short timeframe.

The Evergreen State College’s campaign to raise awareness on issues that mattered

The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts and sciences college in Olympia, Washington. Their Return To Evergreen event featured an array of events that helped engage with their alumni, while also creating discussions and raising awareness on important societal issues.

The campaign included a few breakout sessions like Art in a Time of Resistance and Change, which served as a beacon to bring racial, cultural, and social justice to the forefront. Topics like wealth disparity, immigration, racism, climate change, and gun violence were a vital part of the conversations.

We love how Correan Barker (Associate Director of Events, Alumni & Donor Relations) and their team put together an event that managed to keep the College’s alumni engaged.

University Of The Ozarks’ jam-packed Virtual Homecoming

University of the Ozarks is a private university in Clarksville, Arkansas. Their Virtual Homecoming 2020 merged three distinct events – alumni weekend, family weekend, and homecoming, into one iconic week of virtual events.

The University’s Virtual Homecoming contained a plethora of fun-filled activities for alumni around the world to partake in, such as Virtual Campus Tours, Spirits Wars Launch, Virtual Bingo, and Ozarks Reunion. The new format enabled the University to engage with its large international alumni community, thereby making the event more accessible. Winners of certain events were also awarded with Ozarks gears and merchandise.

Putting together one virtual event can be a lot of work, so imagine putting together an entire week of virtual events for alumni! A huge shoutout to Justin McCormick (Associate Director of Alumni Relations) and their team for pulling it off.

How Whitman College used a Virtual Repository to engage with Alumni

Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. Amidst the pandemic, the Alumni Relations Staff wanted to engage with alumni meaningfully, which was how the idea for “Virtual Whitman” was born.

Essentially, “Virtual Whitman” is an online resource repository built with the intent of staying connected with each other during the pandemic. This initiative enabled the College’s alumni to have easy access to relevant resources such as recordings of past virtual events, historical archives about the college and the city, and kid-friendly science experiments for alumni to try out at home.

We love how Jennifer Dilworth Northam (Director Of Alumni Relations) and their team put together such an amazing initiative.

Wartburg College’s immensely successful crowdfunding campaign for new infrastructure

Wartburg College is a private Lutheran liberal arts college in Waverly, Iowa. The College’s Alumni and Parent Programs Office turned to their alumni to raise funds for various ongoing infrastructural projects, which turned out to be a huge success.

Wartburg College’s “Fund the Fortress” campaign was essentially an affinity-based campaign to raise funds for projects that alumni cared for. Some of the projects involved raising funds for exercise science equipment, and for a living classroom in honor of a late faculty member. The campaign turned out to be very successful, owing to how targeted and specific the asks were.

A huge shoutout to Robert Ruchotzke (Director Of Annual Giving) and their amazing team for putting together such an awe-inspiring fundraising campaign.

Michigan Ross’ value-driven mentorship program

The Stephen M. Ross School of Business is a business school operated by the University of Michigan. Their unique “Alumni in Residence” mentorship program focused on engaging with their alumni, while also creating value and opportunities for current students.

The “Alumni in Residence” program focuses on the concept of 1-1 flash mentorships, where each session lasts for about 30 minutes. While current students have wonderful opportunities to learn from their seniors, alumni also get to showcase their achievements in their respective fields and share their talents with the next generation.

Kudos to Caitlyn Johnson (Director of Alumni Engagement) and their incredible team for putting together a program that both current and former students of the School get to benefit from.

How The University of Georgia honored its alumni’s businesses

The University of Georgia is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. The University’s Bulldog 100 celebrates top businesses operated or owned by the University’s alumni.

Every year, the Bulldog 100 ranks the top 100 businesses, based on CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) over the last three years. The list comprises businesses from over two dozen industries, including non-profits, healthcare, and software. The Alumni Association usually hosts a grand celebration for the Bulldog 100, where they count down the businesses that made the cut, until finally revealing the overall winner.

We love how Meredith Johnson (Executive Director of Alumni Relations) and their team are engaging with alumni by shining the spotlight on amazing business ventures.

California State University, Chico’s award-winning webinar series

California State University, Chico, commonly, Chico State, is a public university in Chico, California. Their “Wildcat Connect Webinar Series” was immensely successful in engaging with their large alumni community across the world.

Essentially a simple idea, the “Wildcat Connect Webinar Series” consists of a series of informative webinars that would benefit the University’s alumni. Topics for these webinars ranged from entrepreneurship and startups to career advice, to tips on financial planning. The series was a huge success, as over 1,200 alumni poured their appreciation and support. The initiative also won the coveted CASE Platinum Award in 2021, in the Best Practices in Alumni Relations category.‍

A huge shoutout to Tania Miranda Rueda and their incredible team for putting together an award-winning campaign to engage with so many alumni across the world.

Pittsburg State University’s idea of engaging with alumni through a road trip

Pittsburg State University is a public university in Pittsburg, Kansas. Their “Great Gorilla Tour” enabled the University to (quite literally) meet their alumni where they were, through an elaborately planned road trip across the country.

The most recent “Great Gorilla Tour: West Coast Edition” featured the advancement team in an amazing road trip where they met with alumni in different cities along the way. The trip lasted for over two weeks, and the team toured across nine cities in nine different states, not to mention the hundreds of alumni they got to engage with along the way.

We love how Danielle Driskill (Assistant Director of Alumni & Constituent Relations), Jon Bartlow (Director of Alumni & Constituent Relations) and the rest of their team put together this incredible road trip.

That wraps up our list of ideas to inspire you this year. Hopefully, you enjoyed these ideas just as much as we did. We can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us!

12 Higher-Ed Alumni-Centric Engagement Ideas To Inspire You in 2026

Here are 12 amazing higher-ed engagement ideas that will improve alumni engagement and inspire your engagement strategy in 2024.

March 7, 2022

12 minutes

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Picture this: You’re the director of fundraising and development at a well-known higher education institution. You’ve recently had a ton of money coming in to support your larger-scale initiatives. A private grant-giving foundation is providing your team with the money required to open a high-tech computer lab, and a major donor is funding the building of a new wing at the school.

But what about your other day-to-day operations? You need funds to keep your institution above water, continue paying staff salaries, and invest in behind-the-scenes technology that allows your university to continue running smoothly. Oftentimes, major gifts and grant funding don’t cover those needs.

And that’s where your annual fundraising strategy comes in! In this guide, we’ll explore four powerful tips for boosting this particular type of fundraising. As you begin planning your upcoming campaign, be sure to:

Review your previous year’s strategy.
Set strategic fundraising goals.
Diversify your annual appeal channels.
Double donations with corporate matching gifts.

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All sorts of mission-driven organizations rely on annual fundraising to help ⁠manage their in-between needs—and when it comes to university and other education-based institutions, your alumni are likely to be your biggest supporters!

Are you ready to uncover how you can position your school for the greatest annual fundraising success going into 2022? Let’s get started.

1. Review your previous year’s strategy

Fundraising organizations have learned a lot about effective fundraising strategies (and the way that they’re always changing) from the highs and lows of 2021. And before that, 2020. Going in 2022, reviewing efforts and results from previous years can give you a head start toward success.

To get started, take a look at where your fundraising flourished in the past year, as well as where you see room for improvement. If you notice that your efforts in the corporate giving arena could use some extra work, for example, consider prioritizing corporate fundraising in the upcoming year.

Here are some other key performance indicators (or KPIs) you might look at:

The total amount of fundraising revenue
Total number of donors
Average donation size (and average increase over time)
Percentage of repeat donors vs. one-time and lapsed givers
Donations made through your website, direct mail, in-person, phone, events, and more

As you craft your newest annual fundraising strategy, make sure to prioritize the avenues that have historically been your most profitable while also giving extra care to channels that may be lagging behind.

2. Set strategic fundraising goals

A significant element of successful fundraising involves setting fundraising goals beforehand. Otherwise, how will you determine “success” in the first place?

You’ll want to choose lofty objectives that inspire donors and fundraisers alike while ensuring you don’t aim too high that it can seem unrealistic or like a “lost cause.” To find the perfect medium between the two, the best and most effective goals often follow the SMART framework.

As you craft your upcoming objectives, make sure they are:

Specific. Your fundraising team (and donors) should know exactly what the goal is and how to reach it.
Measurable. Ensure you choose quantifiable metrics that can easily be measured to determine success.
Attainable. Again, unrealistic goals can set you up for failure. Make sure your goal is attainable, given your team and available resources.
Relevant. Your fundraising goals should be directly related to fundraising⁠—and specifically, your annual fundraising campaign.
Time-bound. Set a clear time period in which your annual campaign will run. This instills urgency among donors and allows you to determine whether you’ve reached your goal by the end.

Here’s an example of a SMART goal for an upcoming campaign - “To collect $10,000,000 in individual contributions to fund university operations by 12/31/2022.”

To contrast, a poorly crafted goal might look like this - “To raise a lot of money in the next few months.”

The former sample is much clearer and will ultimately result in greater success, while the latter is subjective and vague. When your annual fundraising objectives incorporate each element listed above, you can ensure your team is positioned for success.

3. Diversify your annual appeal channels

The more fundraising strategies and tools develop, the more comprehensive your campaigns are expected to be. As a result, organizations are encouraged to integrate multiple channels to spread the word about their annual fundraising efforts far and wide.

The particular avenues you choose to leverage for your annual campaign can vary depending on your donors’ preferences and your team’s strong points. However, they will likely incorporate a combination of the following:

Website
Email
Direct mail
Social media
Phone calls
Text messages
Face-to-face

Several years ago, you may have been able to reach your goals solely through phone and in-person solicitation efforts. Now, it’s essential that you take a multichannel approach⁠—both to meet donors where they already are and to stand out from other organizations seeking your audiences’ attention.

4. Double donations with corporate matching gifts

Did you know that more than 26 million people work for companies with corporate matching gift programs? It’s likely that many of these individuals are your alumni, donors, and other key supporters.

Before you can expect a solid flow of corporate matches coming in, however, you’ll need to enact specific matching gift marketing strategies to raise awareness of this powerful opportunity. Because although 26+ million individuals are eligible for company matches, more than 78% of this group is completely unaware.

To incorporate corporate matching gifts into your annual fundraising strategy, consider these best practices:

Share general matching gift information on social media.
Incorporate matching gift appeals in your donation solicitations.
Highlight matching gift opportunities directly in your online giving process.
Follow up with match-eligible donors after receiving their initial gifts.
Provide company-specific matching gift program guidelines with donors whose employers you know.

For you, matching gifts mean that your school has the potential to collect two donations for the cost of soliciting one. And for your donors, they get to know their contributions went twice as far.

You can’t do the big things (like your overall mission impact) without being able to fund the little things as well. An effective annual fundraising strategy allows your team to collect the dollars you need to bankroll every part of your school’s operations⁠—from the most glamorous of tasks to the most mundane.

Luckily, integrating these best practices into your strategy will allow you to raise more funding for your institution and better situate your team for ongoing success. Good luck!

4 Tips for Your Annual Fundraising Strategy

Effective annual fundraising is critical for universities and other donation-driven institutions. Explore four easy tips to set your school up for success.

Adam Weinger

December 30, 2021

12 minutes

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With the holiday season in full swing, your institution is likely already focusing on how it will connect with alumni as they return home for the holidays.

While you should engage your alumni every day of the year, the holiday season presents a great opportunity to supercharge alumni relationships and foster lasting connections during a time when people are feeling generous. It’s a great time to reach out to graduates and let them know just how valuable they are to the continued success of your college or university.

Whether you reach out with a simple “thank you” or throw a full-blown appreciation event, there are plenty of ways to connect with alumni and bridge the physical distance between them and your school. As you freshen up your alumni engagement strategies for the holiday season, work these ideas into your efforts:

Send festive holiday cards.
Host a peer-to-peer fundraiser.
Engage with them on social media.
Send branded gifts.

Your alumni are a valuable part of your institution. Implementing extra appreciation and engagement efforts will inspire them to stick around and establish lifelong connections to your school.

1. Send festive holiday cards

Any alum appreciates knowing their alma mater is thinking of them during this special time of the year. Why not send them a festive eCard or a letter in the mail, thanking them for their continued support for your school?

This is a great way to say thanks for their continued involvement and to wish them happy holidays. Here are a few ways you can create a holiday card that your alumni will love:‍

Feature student or alumni talent: Have someone who’s skilled in graphic design create the card itself. If you go digital with your holiday card, consider having a campus acapella group or musicians sing or play a carol.

Keep it short: Your holiday card doesn’t have to be lengthy to get the point across that you’re thinking about your former students. Keep the card fairly simple, or if you’re sending a video as your holiday greeting, make sure it’s no longer than a couple of minutes.

Add a soft ask to the card: The end of the year is the most charitable time of the year. Include a non-intrusive donation request at the end of your video or card. Add a donation button that links them to the donation page, or provide instructions on how to find your online donation page on your school’s website.

The great thing about holiday cards is that they’re low-cost (especially when you go digital) and they’re sure to make your alumni light up when they hear from you. Make this an annual marketing tactic, and alumni will start to look forward to hearing from you every year.

2. Host a peer-to-peer fundraiser

Alumni giving is used as an indicator of a university’s success. It communicates how invested alumni are in the continued development of the organization.

Colleges and universities among other fundraising organizations recognize the holiday season as one of the best times to push out fundraising appeals to alumni.

‍In fact, Double the Donation’s nonprofit fundraising statistics page indicates that 30% of annual giving happens in December, with about 10% of all annual donations coming in the last three days of the year.

As part of your year-end alumni fundraising strategies, try a peer-to-peer campaign. In this type of campaign, your supporters (in this case, your alumni) set up individual campaign pages, personalizing them with their own images and personal stories that emphasize their experiences at your school. Then, they share the page with their friends and family, encouraging them to donate.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a fantastic way to connect with alumni and inspire them to donate during a time when they’re feeling extra generous — especially younger alumni who spend a good bit of time online. It helps you reconnect with other alumni who might’ve lost touch with your school. They’ll see their friends actively supporting your school, sparking memories of their alma mater. Not only this, but you’ll reinforce loyalty among those who volunteer to fundraise.

3. Engage with them on social media

You engage with students on social media upon admission all the way through their enrollment at your institution. Those digital connections shouldn’t be severed the moment they graduate. The holiday season is a good time to re-up your social media activities to re-spark those connections.

Social media efforts play a crucial role in your overall reachability, enabling you to reach thousands or even millions of followers instantly when you post. If you’re not careful, your social media efforts might lapse during the holiday season, a crucial time where consistency pays off.

Here are a few ways to connect with your alumni during the holiday season:

Have a consistent posting schedule: Ideally, post a few times a week. If your marketing team will be out of the office, use your marketing tools to automate your posts.

Interact with them: Make the most of social media by leveraging it as a two-way communication system. Like or respond to comments on your posts, or go on a following spree where you follow active alumni members back.

Hold an ugly sweater contest: Bring the festivities into your social media strategies. Create a hashtag, such as #YourSchool’sNameUglySweaterContest2021, and ask alumni to share pictures of them in their ugliest sweaters. Declare your winner and send them a gift (like a branded t-shirt or a stuffed animal of your school’s mascot) as a prize.

People will have some extra free time to relax during the holiday season, so they’re sure to be scrolling through their social media feeds. Capitalize on this time and avoid putting your social media efforts on hold during the holiday season.

4. Send them branded gifts

The end of the year is the perfect time to show your appreciation by sending alumni members gifts. After all, who wouldn’t be excited to get a package in the mail, especially if it’s a free gift from their alma mater?

While sending gifts to every graduate might not fall within your school’s budget, you can send them to those who are active in your alumni program. Your team should be sure to pick the appropriate gift that represents the alumni’s level of involvement, whether that means taking a look at their volunteer hours or donation history. Some branded gifts that will serve as great memorabilia for active members of your alumni network include:

Custom t-shirts
Magnets
Keychains
Mugs
Stuffed animals of your school’s mascot

These can easily be branded to your school, and recipients will be reminded of you each time they use their gift. If you want to express appreciation for major donors, you might instead send larger gifts, like food baskets or gift certificates. Either way, get into the spirit of giving this holiday season by sending a token of appreciation to your active supporters.

Whether you’re asking them to get involved in a campaign or extending a thank you to those who stay involved, the end of the year is the perfect time to step up your alumni engagement efforts. Between a boost in your fundraising appeals and gifts, make the most of this upcoming holiday season by investing in alumni engagement. Good luck and happy holidays!

4 Ways To Delight Your Alumni This Holiday Season

The end of the year is a wonderful time to reconnect with your alumni. Step up your alumni engagement strategies this holiday season with these 4 tips.

December 28, 2021

12 minutes

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