10X Increase in Alumni Engagement and Donor Activity

PeopleLinx continues to increase outreach and engagement for the Alfred University Advancement Team

1 in 8 Alumni Proactively Booking Calls

Alfred University's partnership with PeopleLinx showcases the power of leveraging technology to amplify fundraising outreach and engagement efforts.

By partnering with a software solution designed to fit their needs and pace, the advancement team achieves remarkable campaign results of 80-90% open rates and 15-30% response rates with active and inactive donors.

The end result is even more unbelievable. On average 1 in 8 alumni proactively book appointments with engagement officers and 1 in 30 give directly as a result. The AU team needed to dial-down outreach just to keep up.

Aerial view of a college campus surrounded by colorful autumn trees, with athletic fields including a football field and a baseball diamond.

1 in 30

Give Directly

80%

Open Emails

1 in 8

Schedule Calls

20-30%

Respond

How it Started: Alumni Success Turns into Partnership

In January 2023, Alfred University reached out to PeopleLinx CEO, Patrick Baynes (class of 2007) for a feature interview in the alumni magazine.

The story “Turning Cold Calls into Warm Leads” led to a lightbulb moment where Patrick, a former Phonathon caller during his time at Alfred, realized PeopleLinx technology could massively amplify alumni engagement efforts.

The article quickly turned into an introduction to the Advancement team, leading to a pilot program and huge success story. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Erin Martinovich
Vice President for University Advancement
Alfred University

A geometric design with a large blue speech bubble and quotation marks at the corners, featuring segments in various shades of blue.

This solution empowers us to reach 30-40% more individuals than we would have without the PeopleLinx software. It created opportunities for really tangible and meaningful conversations. 

A person holding an iPhone displaying multiple Top Engaged Alerts on the screen, with a blurred background of a bed and other objects.

Challenge: Engaging a Large Community with Limited Resources

Alfred University was faced with the challenge of elevating its engagement outreach efforts with limited resources and staff.

Erin Martinovich, VP for University Advancement, oversaw a team responsible for various levels of engagement, from alumni and donors to volunteers and major gift contributors. Despite their steady growth, they recognized the need to expand their outreach capabilities given their limited human resources.

Solution: A Partnership with PeopleLinx

This year, Erin took a decisive step to address this challenge by partnering with PeopleLinx, a software and services solution designed to enhance outreach and engagement with new and reactivate past donors.

The PeopleLinx team provided strategy, messaging creation, campaign support and execution. Altogether the program enables each Engagement Officer to reach 200+ more alumni each week with 80% opening their emails, 20% responding and 1 in 8 booking appointments directly on their calendars.

Their alumni engagement process has completely changed forever.

A black aircraft silhouette with a blue triangular logo on the tail.
A screenshot of a dashboard from PeopleLinx showing an overview of marketing data for a user named Erin Martinovich. The dashboard displays a line graph tracking metrics such as total prospects, opens, clicks, scored leads, top engaged, replied, and calls made over the days of a month, with different colored lines representing each metric.

If you’d like information on how PeopleLinx helps clients like Alfred University be more productive and successful, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

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