For many higher education institutions, alumni donations are critical. Among other things, they help provide scholarships for students who need it most, as well as contribute to the institution’s research efforts and infrastructure improvements. And let’s not forget the effects they have on the higher education institution’s good name and prestige.

It comes as no surprise then that higher education institutions are increasing their efforts to engage their alumni and encourage them to become donors. Their success varies depending on how they approach this task. When it comes to successful campaign conditions for alumni donations, having accurate data is extremely important. How can authentic data increase alumni donations and what type of data is most useful to institutions?

Maintaining Accurate Data for Alumni

Fundraising is a complex process that benefits from data insights. However, you cannot have accurate insights without valid data points. In addition to that, you can’t even contact your alumni without the correct information. It not only helps you improve your engagement tactics, but it also makes engagement itself possible.

Maintaining accurate data for alumni means that you’ll always have a set of insights about particular donor groups that will help your fundraising efforts in the future. What’s more, you’ll be able to measure the success of your engagement strategies, which allows you to tweak and improve them.

Important Alumni Data and How to Use It

The main prerequisite for a successful fundraising campaign is the accuracy of the contact information. There are plenty of things you could do with an alumni email address, social media handle, as well as correct address and phone number. For example, social media handles come in handy when you want to learn about your audience to be able to engage them effectively.

As we know, Millennials are quite fond of their digital space and online activities. Higher education institutions that wish to engage them might want to consider online fundraising. Crowdfunding, peer-to-peer fundraising, and donations through social media pages would all be great ways to engage the more digitally-inclined alumni.

Additionally, you may use alumni data to gather more information that would further help you increase donations. As an example, you might send surveys to your recent alumni donors to see what they thought about your fundraising process and ask for opinions on how you could improve it. Not only would you be getting more valuable data, but you’d also be engaging alumni, making it more probable for them to donate again. Outreach is vital, so making sure that you can reach your target audience will propel you forward in your fundraising efforts.

Software Solutions for Gathering Accurate Data

Despite knowing that accurate data is a must if they wish to keep the internal processes going smoothly, many higher education institutions struggle with it. Duplicate profiles are a frequently encountered problem, as well as a lack of effort to keep the information up to date.

But what if you had an easy way to keep your alumni data accurate? Software integrations solutions like Runner EDQ’s CLEAN_ADDRESS for Alumni recognize any gaps you may have in your existing alumni data. It ensures that you can reach them by providing you with up to date phone, address, email, social media contact data, and even geocoding.

Alumni donations are essential in keeping higher education institutions in high regard of the public, and accurate data helps to facilitate their contributions. For more information on how Runner EDQ solutions help higher education institutions keep their data clean as well as reach and engage with their alumni, click here.