Connect with Donors and Alumni Through an Online Portal Built on Salesforce

As a higher education advancement leader, you’re probably on the lookout for ways to engage more effectively with donors, alumni, and other constituents. If you use (or are thinking about using) the Salesforce platform and ecosystem, one powerful and simple way to deepen connections and provide a great donor and alumni experience is to offer an integrated online portal using Salesforce Experience Cloud. 

Experience Cloud is a portal, or online community, solution that allows you to present the types of data you choose from your Salesforce instance to various constituents of your choice. It also lets those constituents share and view information, update their own data, and interact with your organization. Experience Cloud comes with templates for the most common types of portals, plus tools to manage the web content and data you want to display to your donor, alumni, and other constituents. 

One of the most significant aspects of a donor/alumni portal built with Salesforce Experience Cloud is that no integrations are needed. Because it’s built in Salesforce, it can access and share information with all of the Salesforce solutions your institution uses.

Learn tips and insights about using Salesforce for your higher education institution. Read the guide, Transforming Advancement and Fundraising in Higher Education with Salesforce 

This approach offers multiple ways to strengthen relationships with donors and alumni: 

• Give donors and alumni the convenience of self-service. They can do things like update their contact information and preferences, access receipts, sign up for events, and find information they’re seeking from your organization.
• Provide donors and alumni with a more personalized and relevant experience. Your donors and alumni have a personal connection to your institution, so they expect a personalized experience. Using the information donors and alumni give you directly through the portal, as well as information that’s based on their searches, click-throughs, and other activities with your organization, you can present donors and alumni with information that’s relevant to their interests. For example, for engineering college alumni, present them with articles, events, and information related to engineering.
• Improve the effectiveness of your marketing and fundraising efforts. Again, using the information you gather about donors and alumni through your portal, you can gain insights into your donors and alumni that make it easier to send them more targeted and impactful information and appeals.

• Get donors and alumni involved in other ways. Your donor/alumni portal can be used in other innovative ways, as well. For example, one of the higher education institutions we work with here at Heller Consulting uses their Salesforce-powered portal to give donors and alumni a convenient way to sign up for volunteer opportunities, which are managed through Salesforce for Volunteers. 

Take the next step

The Salesforce platform and ecosystem of solutions offer great possibilities for higher education advancement. If your organization is interested in using Salesforce, learn more about our services for higher education institutions and contact us today.  

Our team is ready to help you create a clear strategy for your organization’s technology and provide managed services to give you the level of help you need when you need it. 

About the Author

Shane Sugino

For the past decade, Shane has helped Higher Education institutions transform their operations and innovate in the cloud. Prior to joining Heller Consulting, Shane held roles in Financial Services, Healthcare, and technology, and he now brings that expertise while leading... Read More