Schools improve donations by focusing on their most generous donors, part 2

Read Part 1 here

Most schools find that building strong relationships with parents, alumni, and the close relatives of students and alumni, is an excellent way to increase donor loyalty and donations.

Alumni tracking increases donations

“Alumni are hugely important to us,” says Troy Williamson of Menaul School. He’s also discovered through the data in FundRaiser that some classes of alumni are more generous than others. At Menaul School, the most loyal and generous class years are currently from the 1940’s – 1960’s.

Mariemont School also has found that tracking alumni donations by graduation year has helped increase donations. “We are doing more segmentation with the alumni data, too, for development, mostly by graduating class.” says Ann Pardue. “Representatives of specific graduating classes come to us for data. The more we can refine the data, the more they come to us, and are motivated to donate.”

For Bishop McDevitt School, the most generous alumni classes are from the 1960’s – 1970’s. However, tracking has also shown them that classes 2004 – 2009 are now giving in higher amounts. Regarding the upswing in giving from recent classes, Kate Hagerty, Director of Institutional Advancement at Bishop McDevitt, has cultivated online giving as a way to engage the newer graduates. Bishop McDevitt School is a FundRaiser Hosted user. “People are more aware of philanthropy now, and they like to give online and to receive notices online.”

Relationship tab

Relationship tracking contributes to the ability to make good contact with donors. Troy of Menaul School uses it regularly. “We use the relationship feature in FundRaiser, in particular as relates to alumni. It lets me know who knows who. I almost always go to the relationship section to find out who a person is related to before we do a face to face meeting. I may have met their brother, sister or daughter, and then I can mention that connection. It creates a place to start.”

“We love the relationship tab,” says Carol of Lansing Christian School. “We have someone who pays attention to current families and keeps that updated.”

Experience with tracking relationships has helped Jim Hodges, a volunteer for Menaul School who helps maintain the database, create a good system for getting them entered into FundRaiser. “New students come in every year. I get the sheets on those with the contacts/relationships to enter. For instance we might have the mother, father, or grandparents in the database and then we will want to mark that connection. Relationship tracking can be time-consuming. It’s not easy to do at the same time as entering donations. I set aside specific time for it. Sometimes one record will take 15 minutes to do one and the next might take me 5 minutes.”

Good tracking of memorial funds

Another important piece of FundRaiser, related to alumni giving, is memorial donations.

Schools such as Bishop McDevitt, with several memorial funds, may be faced with quite complex tracking needs. “Each memorial fund has certain bylaws that we have to follow. Any money disbursed from a particular fund is dependant on how much is in the fund that year. These funds cover a lot of different needs. We depend on them, not just for tuition assistance, but also for other needs like sports activities.” says Kate.

FundRaiser makes sure that sections of the pot are clearly labeled. “In FundRaiser, I can clearly designate gifts going into a fund and I know how much is in each fund. Any money disbursed from a particular fund is dependant on how much is in the fund that year. Someone else does the accounting, but my job is to know how much of the larger pot belongs to the smaller sections,” says Kate.

In addition, FundRaiser can help with direct memorial gifts given in honor of someone related to the school. “When a friend or family member passes away, we start getting donations from their family and friends in memory of so-and-so who passed away. In some cases they even set up a scholarship fund,” says Jim of Menaul School. “For awhile there can be a flurry of memorial of donations.” FundRaiser helps makes sure that the correct acknowledgements are made to the donor, and the family of the deceased person.

Help when you need it

To help users get up to speed, FundRaiser specializes in excellent support, including training classes (both online and on-site), online help articles, and telephone support. “I’ve taken some of the training classes and they’re very helpful,” says Ann of Mariemont School Foundation. “In addition, if I need more help and call tech support, everyone I talk to is as nice as can be. FundRaiser Support does a great job.”

“FundRaiser is very user friendly,” says Kate of Bishop McDevitt School. “Just dive in and try the different functions. If you need it, customer support is very helpful. Any question I had at the beginning was a phone call or email away. I know how much FundRaiser support can help, because we depended on it at the beginning. The person who was filling in on the job before I got here had never used fundraising software before. Customer support helped her through all of that.”

Keeping up the data requires some time and attention, but it pays off in real support. “It’s important to keep it up is because that is where we get a large part of our donations. If we don’t keep this accurate we will fall short of our goals. That’s the bottom line,” Jim of Menaul School.

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