As a student leader in college, my club spent a full year fundraising to host a year-end celebration. We hosted bake sales, raffles, and even a “kissing” booth, so we could generate enough funds. The amount of time it took to raise so few funds was ridiculous and had nothing to do with the purpose of our group. We spent so much time fundraising, and so little time doing. When I look back at my college years, my strongest emotional connections are to the times I spent engaging outside the classroom in various student groups.
As an Alumnus, I get solicited to donate to my Alma Mater all the time via mail, email, and the occasional singing telegram. I’ve never donated. Not because I don’t have the funds to donate, but because I feel like I’m just writing a check that gets lost in the black hole of operations. It’s emotionless donating. I could check the “other” box and restrict the funds to a specific campus project, but it still feels emotionless to just check a box. I’d be much more excited to donate money directly to “my” college club to host their year-end celebration. I want to help them spend less time fundraising and more time doing.
So we built AlumniChoose to solve these problems.
AlumniChoose is an online fundraising tool for current campus groups that leverages the power of social media and micro-funding. It works in four steps:
Step 1: Campus Groups post projects they need funding for.
Step 2: Family, friends, & Alumni financially support interesting projects.
Step 3: Student Groups receive funds and start their projects.
Step 4: Donors receive project progress updates.
The idea of micro-funding should sound familiar because it’s been proven successful many times in other industries, but it hasn’t caught hold in Higher Education yet.
The mission of AlumniChoose is to help student leaders realize their full potential by spending less time fundraising and more time doing. Two by-products of our mission include:
- Higher retention rates through increased engagement
- Increased donor pool & donations using fewer institutional resources
Through partnerships with Student Affairs offices, we make #1 happen. We make the process of posting projects, getting the word out, raising funds, receiving funds, and updating project donors insanely easy. Student leaders get to spend less time fundraising and more time doing.
Through partnerships with Alumni/Development offices, we make #2 happen. We know that small restricted donations are a pain for Development Offices. We also know that we LOVE small, restricted donations. When one person donates $1 to a student club project that excites them, because that’s all they can afford, we smile :-).
Through backend processes, we run all the leg work for the Development Office on all the small restricted funds, so they can continue to focus on the large unrestricted donors who “keep the lights on.”
Like what you hear? Then let’s get to it. Whether a Student Leader, Student Affairs professional, Alumni, or Development Office, make your way to AlumniChoose and either set up your own campus project or fund a campus project that sounds exciting to you. Together, let’s positively impact even more student’s lives!
