If you have one quarter to show momentum, you need a simple plan you can launch next week and review every Friday. Budgets are tight, and expectations are high, so this guide focuses your energy on actions that clearly move people to participate, volunteer, mentor, attend, and give. This playbook uses the four modes from CASE, the global association for advancement professionals, so you can measure consistently and borrow proven tactics from corporate programs to speed up results. You will segment smarter, create clear value, and track the outcomes that leaders care about. By the end, you will know exactly what to stand up in 12 weeks and how to report progress with confidence.
Start with Results That Matter
Treat growth in people who take action as your primary goal. Track how many people attend, volunteer, mentor, and give, then turn that activity into repeat behavior and recurring gifts. Tie every tactic to one metric you can report monthly.
Rising tuition discounts make sustainable revenue critical. Private nonprofit colleges reported record discount rates in 2023 to 2024, with over 56 percent for first time undergraduates, according to NACUBO, the association for college business officers. That reality makes participation and giving growth urgent for every advancement team.
Define Success So You Can Benchmark
Use the four modes defined by CASE for consistent measurement: philanthropic, volunteer, experiential, and communications. This lets you track total participation using the same definitions your peers use globally.
Core Metrics to Track
- Percentage engaged in any mode
- Engaged alumni per staff full time equivalent (FTE)
- Volunteer hours logged
- Event participation rate
- Giving conversion from participants to donors
Create one source of truth for mode totals so advancement, career services, and communications teams report the same numbers every month.
Build Your Data Foundation in 30 Days
Clean, contactable data is the single biggest unlock. Set a simple target: raise the share of people you can legally contact by 10 percent this quarter through de-duplication, email enrichment, and better tagging.
Steps to Complete
- De-duplicate records and remove hard bounces
- Enrich missing email and city fields
- Tag industry, degree count, and preferred contact channel. Institutions with financial services partnerships can use the EnterpriseAlumni financial services alumni framework to flag referral sources and pipeline contacts during this cleanup phase.
- Document opt ins and consent sources in your CRM or customer database
Segment by Behavior You Can Act On
Start with five practical cohorts you can act on this quarter: recent graduates, mid career alumni, multi degree holders, international alumni, and parents. CASE data shows that multiple degree alumni engage at higher rates in every mode, which makes them a priority.
Define one job to be done for each cohort, one signature offer, one primary channel, and one conversion ask. Use moments like promotions, relocations, and reunion years to time outreach when people are most receptive.
Create Offers Alumni Will Value
Clear professional and social value drives participation. Put career help, connections, and recognition up front and you will see response improve quickly.
Offers That Scale
- Mentor office hours in 30 or 60 minute blocks
- Five minute resume or portfolio reviews
- Industry Slack or Discord circles with monthly prompts
For every offer, set one primary call to action and measure the percentage of people who complete it within 14 days.
Channels and Cadence That Respect Attention
Respect inboxes and let behavior, not fixed blast schedules, drive your outreach. Combine a light monthly update for everyone with targeted journeys that trigger from behavior.
Nonprofits sent an average of 62 emails per subscriber in 2024, according to the M+R Benchmarks nonprofit digital study, but fundraising click through rates averaged just 0.48 percent. Quality beats volume every time.
Baseline Calendar
- Month 1: Launch note from a dean with three useful offers
- Month 2: Spotlight a cohort story with one clear action
- Month 3: Outcomes report showing real numbers
Cap broad emails to two per month, plus triggered messages. Use SMS for confirmations only, never cold solicitations.
Make Volunteering the On Ramp to Giving
Micro volunteering removes friction and scales cleanly. It also creates high volume, trackable actions that leadership can see. Graduates who had a mentor during college are nearly twice as likely to feel engaged at work, according to Gallup, so expanding mentoring supports both student outcomes and future philanthropy.
Menu to Offer
- Video testimonials and portfolio reviews
- Class talks and mock interviews
- Group mentoring sessions for six to eight weeks
Send a thank you within 48 hours with one photo or quote. At 60 days, make a targeted soft ask tied to the activity they supported.
Friction Free Giving Journeys
Default to a small monthly gift and reduce fields on forms so more people finish. Add wallet pay and employer match prompts to lift average gift size without adding friction.
Show impact areas clearly. In the 2024 NACUBO Commonfund Study, nearly half of endowment spending went to student financial aid. Connect gifts to outcomes like scholarships and emergency aid that donors can picture.
90 Day Sprint Plan
This plan favors quick launches over perfect builds. Each week has a clear output, so staff know what to deliver.
Weeks 1 to 6
Run data cleanup, define five segments, draft offers, and finalize your micro event kit for small in person gatherings. Launch mentor office hours and run your first three micro events with follow ups within 48 hours.
Weeks 7 to 12
Expand to five cities, recruit 50 micro volunteers, and soft launch recurring giving with wallet pay. Report results on a one page scorecard and queue tests for next quarter based on what you learned.
Conclusion
Programs grow when alumni feel useful, seen, and invited back into a mission that still matters to them. Your job is to make that invitation clear and easy to accept.
Start this week with data cleanup, one useful offer, and a small event. Measure what happened and do more of what works next week. Keep reporting the same metrics monthly so leaders see progress and invest in the work that moves people to act.
FAQs
What counts as engagement under the four modes?
Philanthropic covers any gift or pledge. Volunteer includes mentoring and event hosting. Experiential includes event attendance. Communications covers email opens, form completions, and community joins.
How many broadcast emails should we send each month?
Cap at two broad emails per month plus triggered journeys. Focus on value packed messages with a single clear call to action and track response to spot fatigue early.
What if we have very limited staff time?
Pick two offers that scale, like mentor office hours and five minute reviews. Automate a new grad journey and a lapsed donor win back. Recruit student workers and alumni hosts to extend capacity.
How do we know if the 90 day plan is working?
Look for growth in event participation rate, volunteer hours, mentor sign ups, and recurring gifts. Track engaged alumni per staff FTE and compare to CASE benchmarks monthly.
