How can our fundraising & alumni CRM increase engagement?

What is a fundraising and alumni CRM and why is it important for universities?

At Access, we are an APUC and G-Cloud accredited supplier who offer CRM software that supports you with the processes surrounding the management of your students, alumni, and supporters. Our solution allows you to gain a deeper understanding of these, while making it easier to build strong relationships to help raise crucial funds over a long-term basis.

At its core, a fundraising & alumni CRM can streamline your processes and enable you to prioritise the areas that impact your organisation the most. Without one, every phone call, alumni interaction, or event is likely to be stored on a mixture of paper notepads, spreadsheets, or separate software systems. A CRM avoids this confusion by storing the information in a central location which enables swift access to key insights, where you can make informed decisions relating to fundraising campaigns.

Find out more about our fundraising & alumni CRM

What are the benefits of a CRM for your university?

While we’ve outlined the importance of a fundraising & alumni CRM, we can now look deeper into the features that contribute towards forging strong relationships with graduates.

Our software provides you with a database of key insights into your students, alumni, and supporters such as their personal details, how they wish to be contacted, and whether they currently contribute to the development of your university. Access to this information provides you with a number of benefits that can support your fundraising campaigns, including:

Organise targeted calling campaigns

Our CRM includes a charity calling app that allows you to gain a full overview of when your students graduated and whether you have previously approached them for alumni fundraising. This information allows you to determine where fundraising opportunities have been missed, and in turn, organise calling campaigns where these arise.

Once identified, you can then assign specific contacts or a pool of contacts to a caller who will be able to:

• Organise an optimum time to call the prospective fundraiser
• Make the call and instigate engagement
• Update the prospective fundraiser of the development of your organisation
• Accept either one-off or regular gifts

Regardless of the outcome of this conversation, you will be able to update their details and record consent accordingly.

Discover more about our calling app

Enhance your supporter engagement and retention

Our CRM enables you to manage your alumni engagement journey from their first interaction with your organisation to the point where they are deemed a ‘loyal supporter’ by providing donations.

Firstly, based on characteristics such as their demographics, engagement, or donation history, you can segment them into different groups. This allows you to gain a better understanding of what type of content is relevant. For example, you can ascertain who is interested in receiving your monthly newsletter, and those who may be actively seeking to support via alumni engagement. Based on this information this, you can then send personalised, multi-channel content such as emails, SMS, and social media posts.

By taking this approach, not only can it help drive your alumni engagement, but it can in turn help to retain your supporters and encourage them to donate in the future.

Engage with deeper analytics

Not only can a fundraising & alumni CRM help develop personalised campaigns, but it can also provide key insights that enable you to make informed decisions and improve your processes.

A CRM will collect data and present this in the form of a dashboard that shares in-depth analytics surrounding the key areas of your organisation such as:

• Alumni engagement campaigns
• Events
• Volunteer opportunities

Having access to data based on specific areas of your organisation allows you to focus your time and energy efficiently to make swift decisions that can lead to improvement while encouraging them to work more cohesively together.

Prioritise internal communication

Although communication with your supporters is paramount, the importance of internal communication cannot be ignored. If you can’t get your own house in order, the chances are it won’t bode well when you reach out externally.

Every member of staff who has access to a fundraising & alumni CRM will be able to see key information across your organisation. By understanding what is happening in other departments, the context of your campaigns will become much clearer, which will in turn allow for more practical cross-team collaboration to help reach your development goals.

Embrace automation

Time is a factor and by automating your processes where necessary can allow your team to focus on priority areas of your organisation.

A CRM can therefore allow you to automate day-to-day tasks such as:

• Data entry
• Email campaigns
• Donation processing

Although automating these processes can potentially take human error out of the equation, it also allows you to successfully strategise more pressing campaigns around alumni engagement.

Engage with your graduates

Building a relationship with your graduates is a fundamental step to receiving alumni engagement support and develop your university. As our article outlines, the features associated with our fundraising & alumni CRM provide you with the required insights to successfully strategise calling campaigns and engage with potential supporters.

At Access, we encourage you to continue your research into the various factors surrounding CRMs in order for you to choose a suitable solution for your organisation. In the meantime, why not contact us for more information?