Why the future of alumni relations is donor engagement

For advancement leaders in higher ed, strategies for increased giving and donor pipeline development means reaching donors past, present, and future on the social web. Donors, with alumni represented as the primary and most important stakeholder group, must be reached where they already are each and every day. Right now and for the foreseeable future, they're on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, Twitter, and Snapchat. 

There’s no world in which sending more emails or making more phone call solicitations will result in increased giving and activate new donors at all levels. I think we can all agree on this dynamic...

So what’s the strategy moving forward? 

Looking to the For-Profit World For Inspiration  

In developing a guiding strategy, an important paradigm shift is to think of donors as consumers. Technology has shifted our expectations as consumers, and donors are no exception. Ongoing relationships, rather than transactions, are king, and companies (or institutions) that do not treat their customers like they know them will get left behind.

Across the board, donor participation rates are declining. (Down 50% in the last 30 years, 30% in the last 15 years, and overall philanthropic giving decreased in 2018 for the first time in five years.) The subscription economy -- the focus on relationships rather than transactions -- has altered the fundraising world. Event-based approaches have seen a decrease in registrations and attendance. Email click through and response rates have also declined across the industry over the last ten years as donors react to increased volume.

Here are two slides from EAB’s 2018 presentation on Preparing Advancement for a Digital Future that shows how technology is impacting our behaviors.

While donor counts and participation have declined in recent years, over the same period consumers have flocked to social media in huge numbers. The education technology company Evertrue analyzed the digital behaviors of over 20 million alumni stakeholders of their 300-plus client institutions and found, on average, 300,000 Facebook interactions each year per school. Interestingly, 44% of the constituents behind those interactions had made a gift at some point.

Major donors and senior leaders are active on social media, too.

According to Pew Research, Facebook use is relatively common across a range of age groups, with 68% of those ages 50 to 64 and nearly half of those 65 and older reporting they use the site. We know from the way major donors interact with our digital communities that they often support giving days, crowdfunding projects, and participate in the on-going conversation surrounding philanthropy.

For alumni relations teams reporting up to advancement VP’s, the social media accounts they manage and programs they develop must be fully enmeshed into the donor engagement strategy and experience. Delivering on this philanthropy-focused engagement strategy will require some organizational shifting and rethinking as to how and when to deliver philanthropy messages - both direct and subtle. The fusing together of alumni relations, career services, advancement marketing/communications, annual giving, and donor relations teams underneath an advancement VP will likely be required in order to best create and deliver a coordinated philanthropy experience.

My prediction is that what will emerge over the coming years are donor engagement teams that oversee alumni relations and focus on the specific needs of this stakeholder group. I think these teams might be helped to follow the (6) pillars I've outlined in order to build a future-oriented framework.

Embrace a Paradigm Shift: Positioning all donors (past, present, and future) interchangeably as customers within a community that are seeking to engage in a personalized engagement experience and participate in a broader conversation surrounding philanthropy.

Focus on the Digital Realm: Establish the ongoing pursuit of building a philanthropy experience for donors that extends to the digital platforms, with a focus on social media, where they already participate as consumers and community members. Advancement teams must engage in conversations by asking questions and sharing information. However, stakeholders don't want to follow accounts constantly asking for money or reading stewardship/impact stories, so teams must get creative with content and expand the rhetorical space owned in these communications.

Build a Digital Content Hub: Build, support, and grow a digital content hub that functions as a philanthropic engagement home base for stories, experiences, and opportunities aligned with giving priorities that functions as the entry point and fosters gift conversions throughout as well as other conversions like volunteer sign-ups. Donors must enjoy interacting with this hub.

Build Brand Loyalty: Once a storytelling core is established, rebuilding/re-orienting existing alumni-facing social media accounts within the community that takes ownership of the wide-ranging, positive, and world-changing narratives surrounding philanthropy. 

Deepen Engagement: Develop and launch a suite of engagement programs (including some existing, traditional alumni relations programs) positioned within the philanthropy experience in order to provide more value for donor/consumers as they interact within the community in an on-going capacity.

Have fun with philanthropy: Double-down and invest in campaign involvement within the philanthropy experience by supporting fundraising projects big and small that further positions the donor engagement teams as experts in digital fundraising. We know from success during giving days that our stakeholders enjoy competition.

At its core, the alumni relations to donor engagement strategy is based on broadening the rhetorical space attributed to messaging around philanthropy. To build a culture of philanthropy, advancement offices should communicate the importance of kindness, community, teamwork, optimism, leadership, and focus on creating messaging that fosters school spirit and celebrates lifelong learning. Stories and messaging designed for the social web should be "snackable" - consumed in short bursts and unique to each platform.

Although philanthropy is part of the overall business strategy for large, independent alumni associations (in addition to other revenue streams), it is the sole focus for the development teams and advancement VP's. Differences in revenue models yields diverging priorities when it comes to donor engagement strategies and how, where, and when to communicate key philanthropic messaging. Advancement teams and independent alumni associations may find ways to play along together and create a seamless experience for stakeholders, but no longer can development offices afford to allow independent alumni associations total control of conversations that occur with alumni on the social web. Advancement teams must develop their own content creation processes and take the lead on storytelling.

Although there are other organizational models for the future of alumni engagement strategies, I believe these principles represent the future for most teams. Now that universities can confidently say that stakeholders have heard from them in ways that aren’t fundraising related; a narrative that's underpinned alumni relations for decades, it’s time for the development/alumni model to fully fuse together or risk continued disjointedness and ineffectiveness.

Ryan is an engagement strategist and consultant with Chris Marshall Advancement Consulting  Washburn & McGoldrick, and Network Catalyst with Protopia. Follow Ryan on twitter @RyanCatherwood or on Instagram @rcatherwood. Listen to the web show Alum-Less live on LinkedIn, every-other-Friday at 11:30 am ET, or check out the podcast edition.