On Intl Day of Education - How do you do your Alumni Fundraising?
Helen Maynard-Hill
Director of Funds and Impact at Movement on the Ground - Providing a dignified, innovative and sustainable response to the refugee crisis that benefits refugees and host populations.
At the weekend I received a request – Join our Alumni.
It was from the music school I attended when I was a teenager. Every Saturday morning my parents would dutifully take me to the local school where I would join hundreds of other young people to “develop a musical education” in addition to regular school- well, that’s what my parents thought. For me it was a great way to have fun in a band and meet boys! I wonder what the French Horn player I had a crush on for literally years is doing now – but I digress.
I wonder what the French Horn player I had a crush on for literally years is doing now?
This led me to thinking about Alumni, especially today which is International Day of Education. Many large universities have an active and vibrant Alumni with engagement strategies and can receive large sum donations to help the next generation of students on their journey. But what is their outreach? Who do they contact? How? How often and can that be increased? And how do smaller less well funded educational establishments organise their Alumni?
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Chapel and York International offer educational institutions help with their international out-reach to their alumni helping to decipher who to contact, how, what to say to them and how to keep them engaged. The idea is that eventually the relationship can be stable enough to go for the all important ‘ask’ and to keep the relationship live and active.
There are also other organisations such as Hiverbrite who offer a CRM service specifically for alumni fundraising as well as clever hints and tips to “read the data” and make the most of your Alumni database.
So, on this International Day of Education, I’m interested to hear how you do it. How do you make the most of your Alumni? Even if you aren’t an enormous University (or are just a Saturday morning music school) I’m interested to hear your successes as well as your challenges on reaching out to your alumni and especially to those overseas. I’m keen to start the conversation and share between us, after all every day is a learning day.