donations in 2016
donations in 2017
increase in the number of donors
St. Ignatius College Preparatory is a private, Catholic preparatory school with an alumni strength of over 16,000. Set up in the Jesuit tradition, the institute has been serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1855. More than a high school, it is a community of lifelong learners, supporting students to develop skills that make them thriving adults. The institute is known for a rigorous and integrated program of academic, spiritual and co-curricular activities.
Hosting giving days every year is a big part of the institute’s giving culture. It helps them promote philanthropy and at the same time, improve alumni participation and contribute to the institute’s advancement.
Part of a 4-member advancement team, Genevieve Veach, Annual Fund Director and Alumni Stewardship at St. Ignatius College Preparatory, single-handedly manages all giving day initiatives. For Genny, handling everything from creating giving day pages to reaching out to potential donors was a highly time-consuming task.
In the case of St. Ignatius College Preparatory, a majority of visitors to its previous giving day pages were from mobile devices. However, the institution’s existing giving experience was not optimized for mobile devices and this made a huge impact on their donations. It also ended up adversely affecting the giving experience of alumni who were trying to donate from their mobile devices.
Since each giving day campaign has a different cause, each time the school planned on hosting a giving day, they needed to customize pages on their website. For these customizations to be made, the advancement team had to rely on the IT team. This often led to long delays leading to the institution not being able to publish these pages on schedule for the giving days.
By leveraging the power of social giving and peer-to-peer fundraising, St. Ignatius College Preparatory was able to raise their giving day donations from $140K in 2016 to $257K in 2018. The institution also witnessed higher engagement rates as a result of sending targeted, personalized emails to alumni.
80% increase in giving day donations
St. Ignatius College Preparatory empowered its alumni with the ability to track the impact of their own contribution and also have an insight into who influenced the most number of gifts. With the click of a button, donors could effectively reach their entire social media network and share their contribution measurable via real-time stats, influencing fellow alumni to also donate for the cause.
394 of 1,263 donors that donated during the giving day in 2018 came through peer-to-peer solicitation
By creating secure and effective giving pages, optimized for all devices, St. Ignatius College Preparatory was able to provide to its alumni, a frictionless donor experience. By simplifying the entire donation process and reducing it down to just a few clicks, the institution was able to significantly increase the number of donors and also received positive feedback from them.
60% increase in the number of donors
St. Ignatius College Preparatory used strategic email communication to its advantage by targeting alumni based on previous participation, interests and other filters. By sending targeted, personalized emails, the institute was able to get higher engagement rates than the industry average.
Almabase had the ability to connect with Raiser’s Edge, thereby automatically capturing alumni information and updating the institution’s alumni database. Gifts could also be seamlessly transferred from Almabase to Raiser's Edge. The updated contact information helped St. Ignatius College Preparatory create personalized outreach for future giving day campaigns, leading to a higher number of donations.
St. Ignatius College Preparatory continues to grow its giving day donations with Almabase. You can see more of their pages here.