How Providence Day School increased donations 5X through their alumni-centric engagement strategy

Up until 2013, Providence Day School witnessed 4% alumni giving participation. The school aimed to grow alumni giving by maximizing event attendance via targeted events for diverse alumni groups. With this initiative, the school adopted a holistic alumni-centric approach and grew alumni donor participation to 20%.

5X

increase in alumni donor participation from 2013 to 2019

92

diverse events organized in under 2 years

400%

increase in Homecoming event participation in a year

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About Providence Day School 

Established in 1970, Providence Day School is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The school is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

For more than 40 years, Providence Day School has fostered in each student a passion for learning, a strong sense of social responsibility, and a commitment to personal integrity.

What were the challenges faced by Providence Day School?


Low alumni donor participation

With an alumni strength of over 4,000, Providence Day School witnessed only 4% alumni donor participation. This resulted in limited support from alumni donations towards the advancement of the school. 

Limited staff resources

While Providence Day School has a large Advancement Team, a huge portion of the engagement and fundraising programs is overseen by only one member - Steve Bondurant, Director of Alumni Relations.

Tedious event planning

While Providence Day School organized multiple large-scale events throughout the year, there was no centralized platform to streamline event planning that would cater to all their alumni segments.

The school also published multiple event pages across various platforms such as the school website, Facebook, etc., and tracking progress across each platform proved to be a tedious process. With the new strategy of organizing several targeted alumni-centric events, it was even more important for it to be easy to market and organize an event. ‍

Outdated alumni contact information

Like most institutions, Providence Day School also had a huge chunk of scattered alumni data stored in the form of spreadsheets, survey forms, and hard copies. Data stored in this manner posed a problem as it got outdated quickly and was, therefore, deemed inaccurate over a period of time.

What was Providence Day School able to achieve after implementing Almabase?


Increase in alumni donor participation as a result of an alumni-centric engagement strategy

With a centralized platform for planning events and the communication around it, Providence Day School is able to effortlessly plan multiple events throughout the year. Event pages can now be configured completely by the Alumni Relations team eliminating dependencies and unnecessary delays.

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With 4000+ alumni across 50 years, Providence Day School had a wide audience to cater to and the Alumni Relations team knew that in order to draw more alumni to actively participate, providing value to all was pivotal. From roadshows, community service, to lacrosse and other affinity-based themes, the school has organized 92 events in under 2 years accommodating the needs of its diverse alumni groups.

Providence Day School organizes various events catering to diverse alumni segments through their alumni-centric engagement strategy.

As a result of its alumni-centric approach, participation for the school’s annual homecoming event grew by nearly 400% from 2018 to 2019

With a massive increase in event participation and overall engagement, Providence Day School was able to increase its alumni donor participation from 4% in 2013 up to 20% in 2019. 

92 events organized in under 2 years
400% increase in Homecoming event participation in a year


An up-to-date alumni directory

With alumni data being automatically captured from events, registration forms, social media, and various other platforms, Providence Day School is able to keep its alumni database up-to-date. Alumni also have the ability to add details such as employment data, interests, and notification preferences to their individual profile pages, further contributing towards an up-to-date alumni directory. There’s no manual work involved here as any updates made to alumni profiles are automatically added to their Raiser’s Edge database. 


Increased email engagement 

Providence Day School segments its alumni based on various parameters such as class years, location, interests, etc. for more personalized and effective email outreach. 

Class representatives have the ability to email their classmates requesting attendance at an event or donation towards a cause. The peer to peer solicitations proved effective.


Providence Day School sends an email invite exclusively to NYC alumni ahead of its NYC Alumni Roadshow event

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Providence Day School continues to grow alumni donor participation & boost event attendance with Almabase. Check out the school’s digital alumni network here.

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