Schools & Alumni

Alumni and Annual Fund Software for Schools

The annual fund appeal goes out the first week of October. Validate the alumni addresses nobody has emailed since the reunion, build the list by class-year tag and last gift, send with merge tags, and log pledges by due date as the checks come in.

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FundraiserMax Communications screen with Email and SMS tabs and a campaign list with Recipients, Sent, Opened, and Clicked columns

The Communications screen in FundraiserMax. Real product, not a mockup.

How an alumni office would run the annual fund

Hypothetical scenarios. No customer is described.

Alumni relations officer, September, three weeks before the appeal

The alumni file is a spreadsheet from the registrar with a class-year column, and a third of the addresses haven't been emailed in two years.

  1. Data > Data Import > Upload File > Map Columns, with the class-year column mapped to Tags and the household column to Household Name > Review & Import.
  2. Data > Dedupes to review the matches before anything merges.
  3. Lists > Create List > Smart List with the rules has tag (the class-year tag) AND last gift date before a cutoff; one list per class or per decade.
  4. Communication > Email > Validation > choose those lists > start the job. Each address costs $0.01, and anything validated in the last 30 days is skipped.

On screenThe validation summary with the results per address, and a contact count on each class-year list that reflects only sendable addresses.

Annual fund director, October 1

The appeal has a dollar goal and a December 31 end date, and the second email should only go to alumni who never opened the first one.

  1. Campaigns > New Campaign > fundraising goal, start date, end date.
  2. Communication > Email > Templates > build the appeal in the block designer with the first-name merge tag in the greeting.
  3. Communication > Email > Campaigns > new campaign > pick the class-year lists > send.
  4. Drip sequence: step one is the appeal, step two waits seven days and only goes to contacts who didn't open step one.

On screenProgress against the goal on the campaign row, and Sent, Opened, and Clicked counts on each email row.

Gift officer, the Monday after reunion weekend

A graduate committed to give the same amount every year for five years, with the first payment due December 15.

  1. Contacts > the graduate's record > Financials tab > + Pledge > amount, frequency Annually, due date, and the capital campaign.
  2. Each check arrives as a donation logged against the pledge, so the amount fulfilled moves up.
  3. Financials > Search Records > pledge status Partially Fulfilled > Export Report before each board meeting.

On screenThe balance remaining and the due date on the pledge, and the same pledge on the Financials export with every payment under it.

Development office, phonathon week in February

Student callers work four evenings from the class-year lists, and they should see their call queue for the phonathon campaign and nothing else.

  1. Settings > Users > add each caller with the Volunteer role, Limited Access on the phonathon campaign, and the Call Time access level instead of Full CRM.
  2. Call Time > Assign callers > pick the campaign, the caller, and the class-year list.
  3. Each caller opens Call Time and works the queue: name, phone, total given, last result, last call. For each call they pick a result (reached and pledged, callback requested, no answer, left voicemail), type the ask and notes with the pledge amount, and tick follow-up needed with a date.
  4. With a provisioned number, callers dial from the browser inside Call Time, and the dialer only runs between 8am and 9pm.
  5. The next morning, the gift officer opens each contact's Financials tab and enters the pledges from the callers' notes with a due date.

On screenCalls by outcome on the Calls & Meetings dashboard for the week, and every call, note, and follow-up date on the contact records.

The alumni file, screen by screen

Contact Management

Education rows (institution, degree, field of study, graduation year) on the Education tab, a household name, and spouse, parent, and child links on the Associates tab.

Email Marketing

The appeal from a block designer with merge tags, a follow-up that only goes to alumni who did not open it, and email validation at $0.01 an address before the send.

Donation Management

Pledges with an annual frequency and a due date, each payment logged against the pledge, and a receipt-sent date on every gift.

Campaign Finance

A fundraising goal and end date on the annual fund or a capital campaign, with progress on the campaign row and the dashboard.

FundraiserMax Campaigns list with a New Campaign button and Campaign, Status, Progress, Stats, and Dates columns
The Campaigns list, where the annual fund goal shows its progress.

Calls & Meetings

Call Time queues assigned per caller from a class-year list, a fixed set of results, follow-up dates, and a dialer that skips answering machines.

Event Management

A reunion RSVP page with a ticket price and a capacity cap, email-verified RSVPs with a guest count, and check-in at the door.

Rules that shape the work

Acknowledgment rules apply to a school's development office the same as to any charity. Your business office or counsel decides what applies; here's what the product records.

Under IRC 170(f)(8), a donor needs a written acknowledgment from the charity for any single gift of $250 or more before claiming the deduction. Under IRC 6115, a payment over $75 made partly for goods or services (a reunion dinner ticket, say) needs the deductible portion stated.
In the productEvery gift carries receipt-sent and thank-you-sent flags with dates, the Financials thank-you filter finds gifts with no thank-you sent, the event stores its ticket price, and in-kind gifts carry a fair market value.
Not in the productFundraiserMax doesn't send receipts or acknowledgments on its own. You send them and record the date on the gift.
Alumni and parent records are personal data the institution answers for under its own policies and state privacy law.
In the productRoles (owner, admin, manager, volunteer, viewer) and per-campaign view, edit, or manage permissions, AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, SOC 2-aligned controls, and an Excel export whenever you want your data out.
Not in the productIt holds donor and alumni records, not student records. Grades, enrollment, and financial aid stay in the student information system, and FundraiserMax doesn't connect to it.

What isn't here

  • There's no student information system, tuition billing, or scholarship management.
  • No alumni directory or portal; an alumnus only ever sees an event RSVP page or the email preferences page.
  • No employer matching-gift lookup and no planned-giving module.
  • Class year is a tag and an education row, not a smart-list rule or a merge tag.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can it hold class year and degree?

Each contact has an Education tab with rows for institution, degree, field of study, and graduation year, plus a current-student flag. For lists and targeting, class year travels as a tag (map the class-year column to Tags on import), because the smart-list rule fields cover name, organization, location, giving history, status, tags, and the major donor, volunteer, and board member flags, not graduation year. A per-class tag gives you a smart list for every reunion year.

How do multi-year pledges work?

A pledge has an amount, a frequency (one time, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually), a due date, and a campaign. Each payment is logged as a donation against the pledge, the amount fulfilled moves up, and the status goes from confirmed to partially fulfilled to fulfilled. Financials > Search Records filters by pledge status and exports the list. There's no schedule generator; the annual pledge sits on the record with a due date and you log each year as it arrives.

What happens to bounced alumni emails?

A hard bounce flags the address as bad on the contact, and campaigns and drip sequences skip it from then on. Before a big send, Communication > Email > Validation checks every address on the lists you pick at $0.01 each, skips anything validated in the last 30 days, and shows the results per address. Validation is a paid-plan add-on, so it isn't available during the trial.

Can students run the phonathon?

Yes. Add each caller with the Volunteer role, limit them to the phonathon campaign, and set their access level to Call Time, and that's all they see. An admin assigns the class-year list to each caller under Call Time > Assign callers. Callers work the queue one contact at a time, pick a result from a fixed set, type the ask and notes, and flag a follow-up with a date. They don't enter pledges; the pledge amount goes in the notes and a staff member records it on the contact. With a provisioned number at $10 a month, callers dial from the browser inside the 8am to 9pm window, and the dialer detects answering machines and drops a voicemail, with no per-minute charge.

What does a school pay?

$40 per user per month, or $425 per user per year, with unlimited contacts and no feature tiers. An annual fund director, an alumni relations officer, and a gift officer are three seats; student callers on the Volunteer role are seats too. Add-ons are phone numbers at $10 per number per month, marketing email past 100 sends per account per month at $2 per 1,000, and email validation at $0.01 per address. The 7-day trial can import contacts, build segments, set up campaigns and events, and log calls; sending marketing email, buying a number, and validation start with the paid plan on day 8.

Other organizations

The annual fund from one alumni file.

Import the registrar file, validate the addresses, build the class-year lists, send the appeal, and log pledges by due date.$40 per user per month, 7-day free trial, no charge until day 8.

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