You already know building great alumni relationships is integral to the success of your fundraising campaigns.
According to the 2024 CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement Key Findings (published 2025), 51.8% of institutions reported an increase in overall alumni engagement, driven largely by communication, experiential activities, and volunteering, and not just giving alone.
But forging strong alumni connections can also fuel your institution’s entire success, including everything from endowment growth, financial planning, and the quality of data flowing through your CRM and accounting systems.
The good news is you already have a built-in audience with a reason to care about your institution. In this guide, we’ll explore three key tactics to keep alumni relationships thriving after graduation.
How to Improve Alumni Stewardship Efforts
1. Leverage predictive analytics
As its name suggests, predictive analytics is a method of forecasting behavior based on existing data. It’s crucial for future-proofing your fundraising efforts and building relationships that last, as well as giving insights beyond giving patterns for financial forecasting, and long-term endowment planning.
Here’s how to improve alumni stewardship efforts using data:
Practice data hygiene: You’ll only glean actionable insights from your alumni data if it’s accurate and accessible. Enrich your data by conducting regular audits, deleting duplicate records, and standardizing data entry. Clean, connected data ensures your CRM, accounting, and reporting systems are aligned, and everyone is working from a shared source of truth.
Choose logical metrics to track: Keep your analysis process streamlined to focus on the most important data points for your goals. For example, for boosting alumni stewardship, you might extrapolate key performance indicators (KPIs) like donation frequency and size, event attendance rates, and click-through rates on communications.
Develop predictive models: A predictive model is a statistical tool that analyzes historical data to forecast future trends. You can build and leverage your own predictive model by putting the metrics in step two into predictive modeling software (it comes standard in many CRM and donor management software systems). Ultimately, you should be able to use this information to estimate changes in donor engagement rates, gift size, and more.
Remember that you can monitor trends outside of your alumni data. For example, monitor overall economic trends so you can understand when a recession might be coming that constricts your alumni’s capacity to give.
2. Curate unique events
There’s no better opportunity to win alumni/ae trust than by getting to know them outside of a fundraising pitch scenario. Unlike formal fundraisers liThere’s no better opportunity to win alumni trust than by getting to know them outside of a fundraising pitch scenario. Unlike formal fundraisers like capital campaigns, social events, not only reignite your alumni’s affection for your school but also give you a chance to talk with them in a laid-back setting. Here are some examples of alumni events that lend themselves to better stewardship:
Reunion mixers: Each year, many alumni come back to campus to reminisce about the happy times spent together at their alma mater. Your development program can leverage this nostalgia by hosting themed reunion events. For instance, you might host a special mixer for alumni classes who hit their five-year graduation anniversaries, complete with food, entertainment, and your school mascot.
Decades-themed party: Allow your alumni to relive their college days by throwing a themed party from the decade in which they attended your school. For instance, you could throw a 70’s disco party or an 80’s neon bash. Pull out all the stops by decorating the venue to match the time period. You could even get photos from your archives to evoke school-specific memories.
No matter what type of event you choose to throw, ensure you have opportunities to talk with alumni personally. For example, if you throw a dance party, include a quieter room away from the dance floor where alumni can sit and chat. This will be your best chance to learn about alumni motivations, which are crucial for personalizing fundraising pitches down the line.
3. Show appreciation
Your donors not only want and deserve your utmost gratitude for continuing to support your school amongst their other obligations and expenses. A Your donors not only want and deserve your utmost gratitude for continuing to support your school amongst their other obligations and expenses. A key contributor to the nonprofit sector’s 55% donor lapse rate is a lack of concerted appreciation efforts targeting donors.
Let’s say you’re raising money for a scholarship fund, consider showing your appreciation by:
Sending handwritten thank-you notes to donors: A personalized note shows the extra effort you put into thanking donors. Bonus points if you can get recipients of the scholarship to write letters as well.
Creating an alumni donor wall: Celebrate the lasting impact your alumni have on your school by creating a donor wall for the scholarship campaign. You can add onto it each year to encourage new alumni to make their mark.
Hosting an annual appreciation dinner: Treat your donors to a dinner meant to thank them personally. Invite scholarship recipients as well so they can speak to the personal impact the funds have made on their educational journey.
Regardless of how much alumni give; you should recognize them promptly and personally. Send an automatic donation receipt immediately after they give and follow up later with a personalized note addressing them by name. As your alumni donate more, you should ramp up your appreciation efforts accordingly.
No matter the size or focus of your institution, your alumni are the ones who carry your legacy into the future. Fortifying your relationship with them is the best way to ensure they proudly represent and support your alma mater throughout their lives.
Want to better understand and engage your alumni?
With Foundant’s Alumni Designations feature in CommunitySuite, you can segment alumni by programs, degrees, and activities—giving you powerful insights to strengthen relationships and refine your fundraising strategies.
Melissa Geitgey
Melissa Geitgey, APR, is the director of marketing for Togetherwork’s higher education product group. Togetherwork is a Saas company that provides integrated software and financial solutions that help organizations and membership groups manage, grow, and engage with their Communities. Melissa has extensive experience leading marketing and communications departments to advance strategic initiatives, managing events and corporate brands for Saas, higher education, athletics, professional services, and nonprofit organizations. She graduated from Valparaiso University with a B.A. in Communications and received her Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) by the Universal Accreditation Board in 2011. She’s a past president of the Public Relations Society of America Hoosier Chapter and former chapter Ethics Chair. When she’s not geeking out about marketing communications strategy and the creative process, Melissa loves spending time with her family, listening to live music, visiting art museums, restoring vintage handbags and subversive cross stitch.
This blog is an original work of the attributed author. It is shared with permission via Foundant Technologies’ website for informative purposes only as part of our educational content in the social good sector. This text’s views, thoughts, and opinions belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect Foundant’s stance on this topic.