How to Engage Donors and Energize Giving

Alumni donations can be tricky business. Knowing how to engage alumni to give back isn’t an easy task and keeping them engaged for repeat payments can be just as challenging. The following tips might help you to increase the number of donors to your organization and their donation sizes.

The key to engaging with anyone is to catch their attention, but after the whirlwind of undergrad that can take four, five, or even six years to complete, it can be hard to figure out how to peak a new grad’s interest. Most recent grads are focused on one thing: making money to pay off their student loans. So how do you get them to give some of their hard-earned money back to their alma mater? Incentivize! 

Know your audience

When looking at what college to attend, most students look for how they’ll get their money’s worth. Once they graduate and are no longer obligated to pay the school money, the same principle applies. When asking for donations, keep in mind what you are offering your alumni in return, because that’s what will energize their donations!

For recent alumni, drawing on their recent milestone of graduating and their college experience as a whole can be great ways to engage them in a dialogue. Those still on the job hunt are looking for resources on not only how to find open positions but how to land them. Alumni of five to ten years are beginning to look at new job opportunities and how to advance their careers. One thing linking these groups together is networking.

Giving donors opportunities to accomplish their career goals is credible incentive for giving back. Networking events on campus and in cities where large numbers of alumni live demonstrate that their university still cares about their achievements and success even after they’re no longer students. It’s an easy way to reminisce with people who had the same or similar college experience and look back on your achievements since. If alumni know donating to their alma mater helps sponsor these events, they’ll want to take advantage of the opportunity. 

Keep them engaged

After an initial donation from an alumnus, the challenge now becomes how do you keep them coming back? Keep them engaged! This is especially important for older alumni as the best way to get them to donate is to engage them early to keep up with consistent donations.

Brief but frequent updates are a great way to keep donors updated on the progress their college is making. It’s also an opportunity to highlight fellow alumni. You can shout out a successful alumnus’s job promotion, personal milestone, and even volunteer activity. Updates on the college’s facilities, including technology and aspects focused on the student experience, reassure donors that their money is being utilized well in a way that they can see. 

Outreach

The way you communicate these highlights is just as important as the highlights themselves. Luckily, instead of utilizing physical mail or even online newsletters, we have social media! It’s on almost everyone’s radar nowadays, especially young adults, and is an easy way to quickly get your message out. Creating hashtags and specific accounts to promote donors and donations makes it easy to communicate and can help you learn what content increases donations.

A vital component to keep in mind is what method(s) you use to accept donations. No one wants to go through a complicated process to give away money that could be going towards student loans, so make sure donating money is an easy and straightforward process. With all this in mind, you’ll be on your way to successfully engaging with alumni and energizing their giving!