How to Transition Alumni/ae Volunteers into Donors

Like other nonprofit organizations, your higher education institution thrives off the support of volunteers, who operate programs, conduct outreach, manage events, and more. Among these dedicated individuals are volunteers with an extra-strong connection to your school—alumni/ae. 

The prospect of paying forward the support they received during their time at your school drives alumni/ae to engage further after graduation. Moreover, they’re better candidates for more in-depth volunteer activities, such as mentoring students, reaching out to fellow alumni/ae, and offering pro-bono services. 

So, what’s the next logical step for making your volunteers feel more connected to your institution? Convincing them to start donating financially.  

Alumni/ae fundraising constituted a whopping $12 billion in 2023 alone, which was 20% of overall giving to educational institutions. Encouraging volunteers to contribute to alumni/ae fundraising efforts helps build a firm support network and expand your organization’s capacity. In this guide, we’ll explore effective tactics for transitioning alumni/ae volunteers to donors, empowering you to build a robust future for the next generation of students.

1. Use the Moves Management Framework

Upgrading volunteers to become financial donors requires a thoughtful, strategic approach that appeals to their motivations. Furthermore, standardizing this approach can help you track results and find what works for your alumni/ae audience. 

Taking a play out of professional fundraising playbooks can set you up for success from the beginning. That’s where the moves management framework comes in.

According to DonorSearch, moves management is when nonprofits deepen their relationships with donor prospects to make them loyal supporters. The cycle goes through the following stages:

• Acquisition: Identify potential new donors and make first contact with them. 
• Cultivation: Build a relationship with the donor and gather information for the solicitation stage.
• Solicitation: Make a fundraising ask informed by personal preferences.
• Stewardship: Acknowledge the donor for their contribution. 
• Retention: Continuously engage the donor with tailored follow-up communications and involvement opportunities.
• Upgrade: Convince the donor to engage further with your school (usually by donating more).

Since your prospects are already familiar with your institution and might even know about your fundraising initiatives, your moves management process likely won’t look exactly like this. Instead of building relationships from scratch, you’ll have more information about your prospects from their time volunteering with you. 

Instead, you’ll need to fill in the gaps regarding their donation habits and preferences. For example, you might explore which causes they’ve given to in the past and their net worth to assess their giving affinity and interests (more on that in the next section).   

2. Tailor Asks for Segments

As previously mentioned, the information you learn through the moves management process helps you customize your fundraising asks to different groups of alumni/ae. These asks are more effective than general asks because they target each volunteer’s distinct preferences. 

For instance, let’s say you’re raising money for a capital campaign. Pennington & Company’s guide to capital campaign fundraising recommends taking a phased approach that targets different potential donors based on their involvement and affinity to give. So, you likely wouldn’t ask volunteers who haven’t yet supported your fundraising efforts to contribute a major gift in the early phases of the campaign—instead, you’d wait until the public phase, where smaller donations are encouraged.

Be sure to use prospect research tools to hone your fundraising asks. These tools can help you find relevant information, such as real estate ownership, donation history, and board membership, to create segments and shape asks. 

3. Contextualize the Impact of Donations

Volunteering has different scopes of impact depending on the organization. For example, five hours spent volunteering as a student mentor likely has a different impact than if you volunteered five hours at a small animal shelter. That’s why it’s so important for your team to contextualize alumni/ae impact on your institution—both volunteer and monetary. 

Furthermore, you should highlight how these contributions relate to each other. Let’s say you’re appealing for donations from alumni/ae who volunteer as student mentors. You might say that a $100 donation is worth 10 hours volunteered through this program. This way, volunteers can understand their impact in a relevant frame of reference. 

4. Build Engagement Pathways

Even if your target audience is someone (like alumni/ae volunteers) with existing connections to your organization and cause, diving straight into a donation ask isn’t always the best way to win support. Instead, create standard engagement pathways that get volunteers more involved with your cause before requesting donations. Here are other opportunities you can offer to engage alumni/ae volunteers:

• Sign up for more shifts or more involved work
• Join a volunteer advisory board (an internal leadership and planning committee)
• Become an ambassador (a public-facing representative from your school)
• Provide skills-based training for use in volunteer and professional settings

No matter what specific activities you choose to implement, the key to an effective engagement pathway is to gradually increase both the impact of the volunteer work and the time volunteers invest in your cause. You can determine an engagement pathway that appeals to your institution’s alumni/ae community by asking for their feedback directly. Ask alumni/ae volunteers via survey or interview about which ways they’d like to support your initiatives going forward and why. Then, if you notice any trends, you know that these are fruitful avenues for further engagement that you can pursue. 

Ultimately, regardless of whether your volunteers convert into donors, showing appreciation is crucial to keeping them engaged with your institution. Thank your alumni/ae volunteers initially with a handwritten thank-you note and provide more personalized forms of thanks as they continue supporting you, like small gifts or appreciation events. As long as you follow the aforementioned tips and acknowledge their support, you can build a secure foundation for your school’s volunteer-to-donor journey, keeping these important supporters close to your cause.

About the Author

Erin Lemons
Vice President of Marketing, Association Solutions  

Erin Lemons joins Togetherwork Association Solutions with over 15 years serving as a marketing director, event producer, and project manager creating robust marketing campaigns and initiatives that focus on the growing and ever-changing technology needs of the association industry. She leads the marketing teams and strategy at Pennington.

About Pennington

Pennington and Company helps their clients engage alumni/ae – and keep them engaged – during and in between concentrated fundraising efforts. Pennington can assist with feasibility studies, case statements, strategic assessments, gift management, special communications, and other offerings. They focus on creative solutions, a tailored action plan, and reports and consultations that help fraternal organizations identify, prioritize, and communicate opportunities and objectives.