Three Things that You are Doing Wrong While Raising Funds from the Alumni

Alumni communities are powerful assets of the Institutions and these assets keep on growing every year. When built meaningful relationships with them, they are your biggest advocates and supporters.

In recent times, institutions actively seek support from their alumni. Out of the total alumni community, only a handful of alumni participate in the fund-raising campaigns and minimum support is received by the institute from its alumni. Have you ever wondered why? These the things that institutes neglect or oversee while strategizing a fundraising campaign to raise funds from the alumni.

Three Things Institutions are doing wrong while raising funds from the alumni are as follows:

1. Non-updated Alumni Database: The alumni database that lies in the excel sheets needs to be regularly updated with the latest information of alumni. Every year, students graduate and add to institute’s alumni community. Keeping a track of the same and making sure they are present in the data is very important to ensure that an institute is connected with its alumni. Not updating your database regularly would leave with incorrect information which might affect your communication with the alumni while raising funds. The first thing to ensure is to have a track about which organization the alumni is a part of, where are they located, what is their designation, correct email id, their social media presence, etc. Without correct information, institutes would end up reaching out to a handful of alumni out of the total alumni strength leaving hundreds of other potential donors.
2. Poor Engagement: Keeping updated alumni information in the database excel sheets is not enough. These alumni should be regularly engaged and connected. Strong reach out channels like Mails and Social Media Channels can effectively help in connecting the alumni. To build a meaningful relationship with the alumni, they ought to be regularly engaged. As much as institutions seek support from its alumni, so do its alumni. Poor engagement practices can leave the alumni community non-active and indifferent to the mission and values of the institute. They wouldn’t feel the need or power of excitement to participate and support their alma mater. On the other hand, strong alumni engagement can trigger their attention and the urge to participate.
3. Fund Collection Desks: Huge alumni community means widespread alumni all over the globe. After graduating, they go to the places where fortune takes them. Fundraising campaigns that focus on the physical collection of funds would rather gather limited funds from alumni located in the same city. The collection desk is an old fashion! In the times of online transfer and payment wallets, collecting funds over the desk is limited and ugly. This poses a great hindrance in collecting huge funds from alumni.
4. The power of the alumni community can be felt if they are well connected and engaged. When built a meaningful relationship with them, your biggest assets can be your biggest supporters.

Here is all you want to about what to expect out of fundraising in the year 2021!