New E-book: 5 Ways to Turn Young Alumni into Donors

The “ten-year gap” is a phenomenon in which alumni tend to wait about a decade before they begin donating to their alma mater. Young alumni are often cash-strapped and have priorities other than giving. Of course, this presents a big challenge for higher ed advancement efforts.

But never fear — the dreaded ten-year gap can be bridged.

This new e-book from iDonate and Salesforce.org offers up some proven strategies for engaging young, millennial grads and ultimately earning their donations.

Here’s a couple of the tips of what you’ll find inside:

Use an exclusive, gamified giving strategy.

“Gamification” refers to engaging donors with levels, points, or other ways to make giving like a game. It’s great because it makes giving fun for donors and helps with retention. You can also use it to create levels where young donors buy in at a “lower” or less expensive level and their contribution rises over time. Consider the perks that your school offers consistent donors: do alumni who donate a certain amount every year get game tickets or access to tailgates, special privileges at the school’s alumni center when they visit campus, or public recognition? You could create an exclusive offer for young alumni to buy into these perks at a lower point of entry and have it ramp up over time.

Build loyalty by deploying an alumni community portal.

Communicating with young alums on social media has to be a critical part of your engagement strategy. But there are certain limitations to using a Facebook group to foster your community. There aren’t many options for customizing it to match your brand. It’s harder to encourage authentic connections in such a public space. And at the end of the day, Facebook owns the data, so you aren’t able to run analytics to learn more about how your alumni interact and how your messages are performing. Communities provide a login-only online space for alums to connect, network, share career opportunities, and join groups based around interests or location.