If Politicians Can Do It, Higher Education Can Too
You’ve read the headlines:
Trump smashes Obama’s small-donor fundraising pace, beats Clinton, Sanders combined
Smaller donations from more people have recently been a badge of honor for politicians to show the strength of their grassroots campaign — predicting popularity and votes. It’s time higher education took a page from the political fundraising playbook.
Higher Education’s Fundraising Model
Traditionally, universities have an advancement office that is:
- Centralized — Development officers’ roles are to raise money based on donors’ wishes university-wide.
- Decentralized — Development officers are assigned to a specific school/college to raise funds for that program only.
- Combination of the two (most common) — Some development officers raise money exclusively for programs (e.g. schools and colleges) while other development officers are focused on university-wide program needs. The idea is to match donor interests while (theoretically) working together.
Increase The Odds
Getting a special visit from a development officer or alumni relations staff member is nice, but it’s not practical to expect 1:1 visits to be the only source of generating donations with the number of living alumni growing and state funding decreasing. If you’re about to say, “We also have a crowdfunding option,” you should reevaluate your strategy. Personal visits and crowdfunding are great, they just are not enough on their own. Imagine if you could mobilize your base (read: alumni) to help raise money for scholarships and other university priorities by appealing to fellow alumni in their community (read: local matters).
It’s also not the annual fund. The annual fund is great and definitely part of the puzzle, but consider if you could get those alumni who **don’t** answer their phone or read the magazine to start giving back. Millennials expect to donate money using the methods that they’re familiar with (read: Square Cash and Apple Pay).
We’ve heard from countless alumni groups that the only way they can accept donations is by having their members fill out a lengthy university form. Members typically roll their eyes and don’t have the 15 minutes it takes to fill out a ridiculous form to donate $5 at a watch party.
They wanted to help support the cause, but now it’s not worth the time.
Alumni Relations is Customer Experience (And It Matters)
Alumni aren’t typically contacted until they are 45+ with a nice title (development officers are raising six figure gifts after all). Often times these individuals who are being called upon haven’t had any meaningful interaction with their alma mater since they earned their diploma and walked across the stage at graduation. Now they’re getting a call out of the blue and being asked for money.
Imagine if the giving experience started before alumni were in the corner office and still on campus as students. What if you could make it easy (and fun!) to give back to the causes that students are passionate about? Those smaller, more regular donations create lifetime donors and make the timeframe of getting those larger, six figure gifts shorter. They have a lifelong relationship with something and someone who has made a difference in their life and they want to make that experience possible for others. These are the donors that make up a good portion of your alumni base who haven’t given before or aren’t regular donors. Engage them. Make them feel important and needed, because they are. The act of giving should be an enjoyable and positive experience for them — they EXPECT it. Otherwise they’ll give their money and time to someone who does.
Only 23% of first time donors give a second time, but 60% of second time donors give a third time.
We’re Talking Real Money — Not Just $5
That $5 donation a year after graduation might just turn into $1.1 billion. Just ask Michael Bloomberg. He got his start giving back to John Hopkins University his first year out of college by making a $5 donation and is now the most generous living donor to any education institution in the United States.
From our experiences in alumni relations, fundraising, government relations, technology and web development, we created Alumni Spaces because we knew there had to be a better way. We’re the next generation of alumni management and that’s what your members expect. We created Alumni.Fund so your alumni groups can raise money and increase your smaller, more regular donations.
It’s worked for political campaigns and it will work for you too.
