According to the most recent data from the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), eight percent of private school alumni and 8.2 percent of their parents and grandparents donated to their alma mater. 

Fostering relationships with graduates and former students provides such a key fundraising pipeline that schools need to prioritize advancing or just creating an alumni network in the first place. 

Let’s look at some strategies that help your school both grow its impact and increase giving opportunities from alumni, families, and your community at large.  

RELATED: Maximize Donation Impact with These Fundraising Ideas for Private Schools 

Keep in Touch with Graduates 

From the moment a student receives a diploma, your school should have a strategy to keep in touch with them and their family. Contact alumni directly after graduation, periodically feeding them offers to donate, and make sure there’s an easy, convenient method to collect payments to incentivize action. 

But make it more than just fundraising. To build strong, decades-long relationships, your school needs to know where alumni end up after leaving your school. Who owns a business? Who still lives in the community? Who keeps in touch with their school friends and teachers? 

It takes steady, two-way communication to build this understanding. You build lists to reach parents when recruiting, and creating an alumni network is basically the same process over a much longer period. 

Just like with admissions, lead with the value your network provides. You reach out to prospective families with the value your school’s education provides, be that rigorous academic standards, faith-based principles, specializations, etc., rather than only asking for tuition. In a similar vein, promote the value of your alumni community – career growth, job resources, and continued community. 

An easy way to get this information is through a mentorship program. Match young career professionals with mid-career managers and business owners, creating the opportunity for career growth while continuing school values after the classroom. If your school is young and lacks alumni in high-ranking positions, look to parents or partner organizations for these individuals. By offering this program, you can get alumni to submit valuable career information used to design more actionable donation campaign audiences. 

Further enhance your standing with career-oriented alumni through job training opportunities. Offering seminars after-hours on topics such as valuable soft skills, job search tips, mock interviews, and how to earn promotions skill-up potential donors (more income over the long-run) and provide valuable in-person networking opportunities. 

No matter what graduates do after they walk across the stage or where they wind up living, newsletters offer valuable information to your entire alumni community. Just one or two newsletters per year – which may feature sections profiling alumni careers, offering advice, and updating on current school news and events – strongly demonstrate the value of your school for students both during and after their education. 

Newsletters are a great way to continue the conversation with alumni families too, and there are additional ways to keep this valuable demographic engaged. Continue to invite families to school and community events to encourage further investment. 

Even at the beginning of building your alumni network, you can find opportunities for them to help support your school. Beyond Giving Tuesday events, you can offer smaller, targeted campaigns focused on raising monies for a computer lab, for instance, or raising money for a senior class to go on an educational trip together. Campaigns could also tie into the school event calendar, coordinating with local days of giving, and the alumni events mentioned in this article. Here are some other tips focused on strengthening not only alumni donations, but also year-round fundraising events.  

Host Networking Events  

As a low-cost, potentially high-reward opportunity, networking events are one of the best ways to stay top-of-mind with former students and even their families. Promote your school brand as a resource to meet well-connected individuals that further professional and academic careers. 

Invite attendees from across the region, whether exclusive to alumni or open to all. Based on audience segments, you can target this list based on previous donation amounts, graduation year, and/or current profession. 

Get the most out of these in-person events in a way that benefits current students. Offer former students the opportunity to volunteer at school events or mentor current students. Whether participating in STEM events or speaking at career day, any opportunity to put successful alumni in front of students is an awesome way to inspire the next generation of students. 

Coordinate Class Camaraderie 

Many private schools create successful fundraising campaigns through friendly donation competitions among alumni classes every year. This provides an opportunity for schools to prompt an alumni donation plan that lets donors automatically contribute to their class triumph.   

Nothing brings alumni together and makes them reminisce on the impact your school had at an individual level like a class reunion. Liaise with class presidents on best event planning practices to organize periodic reunions and provide them with classmate contact information to facilitate invitations. 

Go beyond typical class reunions and really amp up the experience. Give alumni tickets to school events and provide the opportunity to walk the halls. Make each graduate feel pride for having attended your school. 

Provide an Easy Way to Donate 

It’s easy to overlook, but schools need a way to actually capture the funds from this newly created alumni network. 

Create a simple donation experience that’s easy for donors and reduces the manual work your finance teams need to deal with. Ensure your payments solution actually accepts funds from a wide variety of sources, including ACH, credit, and debit cards, to satisfy donor expectations and encourage future contributions. 

Learn how the Diamond Mind suite helps K-12 private schools offer seamless, secure donations and payment solutions for alumni, families, and more.