alumni donation request form

After graduating from an institution, a path has opened for an individual that allows for the growth of their career and often steers the way their manner of living.  Without the luxury of finishing school, the journey to finding a job can become difficult and limits your career options.  This is why there are many individuals who have already graduated who are still quite active with certain activities in their alma mater.  Because of the opportunities that have risen, they are thankful and would like to give back to their school, organizations, and certain individuals that have helped them along the way.

Alumni Supporters Donation Request Form

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What is an Alumni Donation Request Form?

There is a number of youth members who do not have the luxury of going to school due to the fact that they simply cannot afford it.  In school, there are also many organizations and clubs that stop their operations due to the fact that they lack the resources to maintain its amenities.  For many colleges and universities, having their alumni or former graduates give back is a huge blessing and help in terms of funding for scholarships or keep certain student organizations alive.  This is where an alumni supporters donation request form comes in.  This is not only limited to helping fund for certain scholarships and support clubs or organizations for the continuation of their operations, but this can also give assistance to a few activities in school.  These forms are documents that allow alumni to donate a certain amount of money in order to help out a certain organization or benefactor.

Donation Request Form

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Why you should donate to your Alma mater?

School Reputation

When you donate for your alma mater, you are able to help support different research programs, back teaching methods, add new facilities, and develop innovative technology for the students to use.  This in return improves the quality of education of the school and also improves its reputation.  So when you apply for work and they see that graduated from this school with a good reputation, what do you think their impression of your resume be?  Having companies believe that you graduated from a good school boosts your chances of getting hired.

Benefits of Future Students

There are many students having trouble finding the resources to cover their costs for school and an increasing number of students on debt that they may have difficulty paying off once they graduate.  When you donate, funding for scholarship programs allows hardworking and deserving students to manage their costs while continuing their education in a high-quality setting.  Not only are you investing in the students when you donate to your alma mater, but you also create a legacy for the generations to come.

Community Involvement

Community-building activities allow for inclusive excellence which makes the schools develop and succeed as community involvement is another manner of improving the reputation of a school.  Through your donations, activities such as offering training programs, outreach activities, competitions, awarding excellent alumni and professors, and so forth can continue as some of these involve money for it to develop.

Gratitude

There are many doors that open once you graduate from a college or university.  This allows us to get a job and support not only ourselves but our family. Having an education from a reputable school can land us our dream job and back with your hard work, it is safe to say that you cannot be where you are today without the help of your school.  Especially those who have very close ties to their alma mater, they are compelled to give back.  Showing how grateful you are is not only limited to donations in cash but can also be shown through your services and expertise.

Steps in asking for alumni donations:

Step 1. Stop requesting money: Most of the time, when an alumnus receives an email or phone call from their alma mater, they already know that they are asking for donations before even opening the mail.  This results in unanswered phone calls and unopened e-mails.  This has to change.

Step 2. Inform news without requests:  Send information about the school without asking for donations or money instead.  This allows for alumni to learn more about the new happenings in the school.  Instead of using the news to solicit money from the alumni, use this as a way to deepen and develop alumni connections and relationships.  Send out newsletters that offer updates regarding successes, and stories that alumni want to hear.

Step 3. Avoid sending mixed messages:  Once you have developed a manner of sharing different kinds of institutional news, this means that you may now start creating letters of request for support regarding a certain cause, how their donation can be used, and who will benefit from it.

Step 4. Connect donations to specific causes:  Once you have informed an alumna regarding a success, it could be that a certain group of students is eligible for projects in another location due to exemplary performance in a field, you may follow up with a request for a certain purpose, like funding for their travels and accommodations for their event.  When you connect the donation to definitive initiatives, donors are more excited to learn about the impact their help will make.  A number of donors are stimulated by emotional connections while others look or tangible benefits.

Step 5. Utilize photos of people:  Having photos of people catch more attention and draw out more emotion compared to pictures of buildings and architecture.  It is smart to have imagery that is appealing to a specific cause.  When trying to raise funds for exemplary students attending an event out of town, then there is more of a reaction showing pictures of these students working hard.

Step 6. Be explicit regarding timelines: When requesting donations, it is imperative to have a goal for each initiative.  Having a deadline assigned is effective since it communicates urgency and boosts engagement.

Step 7. Suggest levels of spending: Note down that a targeted data is important to have before starting this process as it allows you to be knowledgeable about the market and their want to donate.  With that, it is also important to remember the social cues of human beings and have the tendency to make decisions based on the actions of others.  Having suggested levels of spending allows them to gauge how much a usual donation is.

Step 8. Propose a payment plan:  It gets very heavy on the wallet when donating a big chunk of money.  It is much easier to allocate a series of small payments every month.

Step 9. Get personal: It does not feel good for anyone to feel like a number especially when receiving newsletters and communications from an alma mater.  Always personalize communications and greet the donor by name and ask for the donation by name.  Message personalization also helps you see conversions.

Step 10. Know the alumni more: Do your research and know what the alumn’s major was and if possible, what organizations they joined when they were in school.  Creating a particular allure to fund areas of their interests creates more of an emotional tie the recipient will feel, which gives you more chances of getting a donation.

Step 11. Use first person point-of-view: This allows you to build a relationship between you and the donor by making yourself included in the conversation as compared to telling potential donors how much the school will benefit from the money.  This makes you much more approachable.  This can go a long way toward building rapport.

Step 12. Personally thank the alumni:  First of all, do not wait until they hand out a cheque to show your gratitude.  Thank them for reading until the end of the letter for their attention.  A heartfelt “thank you”, by name, for enduring support is not only good etiquette but gives you the possibility for what the probable donor needs to do next.

It may be quite intimidating to request for donations from alumni.  But the benefits that come to fruition goes beyond the improvement of school facilities, but the improvement of student’s lives as well.  With the aforementioned information that has been tackled on, any person affiliated with an institution can learn to successfully gain generous donors that will be willing to help out.

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