Alumni Engagement and Fundraising Platform for a Private University
Education
What They Were Facing
Harborview had 95,000 alumni records scattered across a legacy advancement database, three different email tools, and event management spreadsheets. Only 8% of alumni were considered engaged, annual fund participation had dropped below 12%, and major gift officers had no data-driven way to identify high-potential donors. Reunion and event planning was manual, donor communications were one-size-fits-all, and the development team spent 60% of their time on data cleanup rather than relationship building.
How We Solved It
AQBEE implemented Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud (Education) as the unified advancement and alumni engagement platform. Data Cloud resolved alumni identities across all legacy systems and enriched profiles with career data, social media activity, and engagement scores. Marketing Cloud powered personalised alumni communications with dynamic content based on class year, affinity group, career stage, and giving history. Einstein AI models predicted major gift propensity, enabling gift officers to focus on the highest-potential prospects. An Experience Cloud alumni portal provided event registration, mentorship matching, career networking, and online giving. Automated stewardship workflows in Flow ensured every donor received timely, personalised acknowledgement.
The Impact
Personalised multi-channel outreach and the self-service alumni portal tripled the engaged alumni rate from 8% to 24% within 18 months.
Data-driven segmentation and personalised giving campaigns increased annual fund revenue by 67%, generating an additional $4.8M.
Einstein propensity models identified previously unrecognised high-potential donors, adding $12M to the major gift pipeline in the first year.
Automated data cleanup, identity resolution, and stewardship workflows freed 60% of development staff time for relationship building.
“We had 95,000 alumni and could only name a few hundred who were actively engaged. AQBEE helped us see our alumni as individuals again. The Einstein models found major gift prospects we had completely overlooked, and the alumni portal has become a genuine community hub. Our annual fund is up 67%, and for the first time, our development officers are building relationships instead of cleaning spreadsheets.”
Want Similar Results?
Let's discuss how we can deliver the same kind of transformation for your organization.