Fundraising isn’t limited to educational institutions. While we usually link alumni fundraising with alma mater alumni events, enterprises can also significantly benefit from alumni mentorship fundraising. While companies typically generate revenue through sales, partnerships, and sponsorships, building an engaged alumni network offers another powerful opportunity.
Recent shifts, like moves to cut indirect funding for federally funded research projects, highlight the need for diversified funding streams.
Leveraging alumni mentorship fundraising can strengthen relationships with former employees, enhance stakeholder engagement, and drive meaningful financial contributions. Here’s how Aluminate for Enterprise helps your organization harness this potential.
How alumni mentorship enhances alumni fundraising success
Alumni networks can help enterprises bring in essential funds in several distinct ways.
The first is through regular alumni contributions, such as alumni membership fees or recurring donations. Another is through one-off alumni donations.
Yet another way alumni networks support fundraising is by facilitating donations, either by approaching prospective donors or by hosting fundraising events.
So, how does alumni mentorship help with fundraising?
Alumni mentorship revenue
Most higher education institutions can have voluntary and paid mentoring and career development services available to current students.
Alumni mentorship programs offering paid mentoring services can bring in revenue through those mentorship services.
This might not amount to much at first, but over time it can be a consistent supplementary source of revenue.
The power of alumni mentorship in encouraging alumni giving
Active involvement in alumni mentorship can positively impact fundraising in several additional ways:
- Increases Alumni Engagement: Heightened engagement fosters loyalty and a deeper connection between alumni and the enterprise. This connection encourages alumni to contribute more actively to fundraising efforts.
- Raises Awareness of Organizational Needs: By working closely with current employees in mentorship programs, alumni come to view their contributions as investments in the continued success and future growth of the enterprise. This often motivates them to give more of their time and financial resources.
Alumni benefit significantly from this arrangement as well. Alumni feel valued and appreciated, knowing they are making a meaningful difference in the professional growth of current and future employees. Additionally, alumni who financially support their former enterprise might enjoy certain tax advantages.
Alumni mentorship fundraising successes
Several enterprises, including major global corporations and professional services firms, have successfully established alumni mentorship programs. They recognize that these programs significantly enhance alumni engagement and encourage alumni giving.
Can your enterprise draw inspiration from these successful models and replicate their achievements? Absolutely.
Members of the alumni community who have achieved success in their professional lives are often eager to provide their former enterprise with substantial financial support.
Even those who aren’t currently in a financial position to donate large sums can still meaningfully contribute through revenue generated by formalized alumni mentorship programs.
Aluminate can boost your alumni mentorship fundraising success
Whether you’re looking to build an alumni mentorship program or engage alumni to boost giving, you’ll need the right platform to get started.
Aluminate for Enterprise is the preferred choice among leading enterprises. Our digital platform enables corporate alumni networks to build thriving online communities. Our innovative and dynamic features significantly enhance alumni engagement, fostering a lasting legacy of giving and professional support.
With the right strategies, Aluminate for Enterprise can deliver the same outstanding results for your organization.
Strategies for leveraging alumni mentorship in your fundraising efforts
Do you want to leverage alumni mentorship fundraising for your enterprise? These simple strategies will help.
1. Formalize your mentorship programs
Formalize your alumni mentorship program. Approach leadership and make it official, with established procedures or rules. Even if you have a limited initial response to the call for mentors, this will likely grow in time. Alumni who enjoy participating in the program may enlist their fellow alumni to follow their lead.
Aluminate has all you need for a robust mentorship program. The Aluminate Community Builder features a fully scalable mentoring module. And our matching engine algorithm helps mentors and mentees find each other, so you don’t have to spend hours pairing them up.
2. Incorporate fundraising into mentorship activities
Incorporate appeals for fundraising into your alumni mentorship programs. Your alumni mentors are already committed to offering professional growth opportunities. These are the ideal alumni network members to approach with fundraising appeals.
When you use the Aluminate platform, there are several ways you can appeal to alumni for help with raising funds. Post details on the digital dashboard or an alumni newsletter, or message individual alumni directly.
You can personalize every page, so each user sees what’s most relevant to them when they log in.
3. Showcase Mentor Impact Stories
Showcase mentor impact stories to provide social proof of the impact of mentorship and fundraising. This will create more awareness of the power of mentoring and generate interest in your mentorship program. A short video clip on the community platform is an engaging way of getting the message across.
To ensure that all your alumni can access these stories, include them in your alumni newsletter. If your newsletter isn’t getting the views it should, you probably just need a few tips. We can help with that too, with our guide to writing an alumni engaging newsletter.
4. Recognize and reward your mentors for giving
Don’t just tell your alumni network about the good that your mentors are doing. Show your alumni mentors how much you appreciate their efforts on mentorship programs and fundraising campaigns.
It encourages these alumni to keep giving, encourages others to get involved and do the same, and raises overall alumni engagement. You can use the Aluminate platform to give them the recognition they deserve in full view of their fellow alumni.
Reward them for their previous gifts, and they’ll be more likely to give again. Rewards don’t have to be huge to make an impact. Even small gestures of appreciation like discounted alumni merchandise are always appreciated.
5. Engage alumni mentors in peer-to-peer fundraising
In your alumni community, there are successful professionals and entrepreneurs with contacts in various industries and sectors. They know who best to approach among their peer group of other alumni and business contacts for donations and sponsorships for your enterprise.
However, it all starts with having up-to-date contact information for your alumni network. So be sure to keep your alumni data updated. Keeping your alumni community data accurate is the first step to facilitating peer-to-peer fundraising.
Aluminate makes it easy with our social data sync (SDS) feature. Members must opt-in to share their data. Once this permission is obtained, SDS will automatically update their profile data as soon as your members update their social media data on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Build your alumni fundraising strategy with Aluminate
Alumni mentorship can impact your fundraising efforts in different ways.
It can bring in revenue through formalized mentorship programs. It can drive alumni engagement, which leads to increased interest in giving something back to the organization.
And it can create the desire to make more of a difference in the professional lives of those they mentor.
Do you want to harness the power of alumni mentorship fundraising and ongoing engagement beyond student success? Build your alumni network and give your fundraising strategies a boost with Aluminate for Enterprise.
Choose the platform that can make alumni mentorship fundraising work for you. Request your demo today.
