Best Alumni Management Software
Alumni management software helps companies and educational institutions connect with alumni. These solutions also help companies, colleges, and universities manage alumni contact information and organize related events. Alumni relations teams, higher education administration members, and company recruiters can benefit from creating alumni networking events through this software, which ultimately helps their recruiting and engagement goals for the university and the company. The alumni management software enables them to access contact information for alumni and includes communication platforms to set up the alumni event.
Some alumni management products are specifically designed for companies. These products enable recruiters, HR managers, and other admins to build out alumni networks so that there can be a potential source of new hires. Alumni management solutions enable businesses to have access to hirable graduates and their contacts who would be a good fit for a role within the company. It also allows corporate users to host events, maintain alumni contacts, and set up recruiting sessions. Other alumni management products are specifically designed for higher education institutions. These products enable alumni engagement workers and management employees to organize alumni donation and fundraising efforts. Alumni management solutions enable universities and colleges to keep in touch with one another and foster opportunities for business ideas, job opportunities, and more. This strengthens the higher education institution's community to encourage more students to enroll in their institution.
Alumni management software shares many of the same features as CRM software, nonprofit CRM software, fundraising software, and donor management software but is tailored specifically for companies and educational organizations seeking to maintain school alumni relations. Alumni management solutions may also integrate with higher education student information systems if a higher education organization uses the alumni management program.
To qualify for inclusion in the Alumni Management category, a product must:
Best Alumni Management Software At A Glance
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- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Vaave is a full fledged alumni management solution (SAAS) for educational institutions & corporates to build their exclusive alumni networks. We also offer a comprehensive bouquet of services b
- Associate Professor
- Education Management
- Higher Education
- 56% Mid-Market
- 24% Enterprise
247 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Education Cloud is a CRM platform that powers connected constituent experiences. Manage engagements with students, alumni, faculty & staff in one place. With products and solutions for recruitment
- Education Management
- Higher Education
- 49% Mid-Market
- 36% Enterprise
584,242 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Hivebrite’s industry-leading platform empowers organizations of all sizes and sectors to launch, manage, and grow fully branded private communities to support their goals. The intuitive platform is
- Non-Profit Organization Management
- Higher Education
- 62% Small-Business
- 24% Mid-Market
1,117 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Crafted for alumni relations and fundraising teams to help advancement teams small or large, measure & craft that repeatable journey for thousands of alumni, parents, and friends. Know your commun
- Director of Alumni Relations
- Education Management
- Higher Education
- 54% Mid-Market
- 36% Small-Business
421 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
AlmaShines is a comprehensive alumni management platform to drive alumni engagement, boost their participation in events, reconnect with unengaged alumni and lay a strong foundation for lifelong relat
- Assistant Professor
- Higher Education
- Education Management
- 49% Mid-Market
- 31% Small-Business
43 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Build and sustain lifelong relationships with alumni and supporters through Encompass, the integrated platform for fundraising, communication, and engagement built by the educational advancement exp
- Higher Education
- 53% Mid-Market
- 40% Enterprise
1,221 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Graduway from Gravyty helps educational institutions build a thriving, supportive network to fuel your mission. Graduway empowers you to create a thriving community of alumni with a tailored network p
- Higher Education
- 47% Mid-Market
- 40% Small-Business
1,019 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
PeopleGrove software supports the entire student lifecycle in higher education institutions. It is designed to enhance engagement from prospective students to alumni and is used by over 650 institutio
- Higher Education
- 53% Enterprise
- 33% Mid-Market
999 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
ToucanTech is a smart, all-in-one software that powers community and membership engagement. Choose a public website or private portal, which combines with a powerful database, email engine and events
- Education Management
- Primary/Secondary Education
- 65% Small-Business
- 35% Mid-Market
304 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
EnterpriseAlumni is the market leader in alumni management software, powering the alumni networks of the world's leading companies to rapidly accelerate recruiting, sales and marketing. Organizations
- 50% Enterprise
- 29% Small-Business
2,244 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
AlmaConnect helps you connect with your school/college/organization's alumni network.
- Education Management
- 40% Mid-Market
- 40% Small-Business
390 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Gradnet is an Alumni Management and Community Management SaaS. You can create an alumni website or a community organization's website with Gradnet. Public can visit the following pages without logi
- 67% Mid-Market
- 33% Small-Business
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
A Software-as-a-Service provider of platforms that cultivate lifelong relationships between people and organizations, focused on the entire talent lifecycle from candidate to alumni.
- 50% Mid-Market
- 50% Enterprise
47 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
EverTrue’s data, software, & services empower advancement teams to create personal experiences for donors. 100s of organizations fuel fundraising by identifying and reaching more donors via EverTr
- Higher Education
- 83% Mid-Market
- 11% Enterprise
2,874 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
GiveCampus is the world’s leading digital fundraising platform for education. Trusted by more than 1,300 colleges, universities, K-12 schools, and millions of donors, the GiveCampus mission is to adva
- Higher Education
- Primary/Secondary Education
- 55% Mid-Market
- 34% Small-Business
521 Twitter followers
Learn More About Alumni Management Software
What is Alumni Management Software?
Finding effective ways to communicate with alumni is more important than ever for educational institutions. Alumni management software gives colleges and universities a comprehensive solution for engaging with alumni, helping alumni relations offices build strong relationships with graduates and encourage them to donate to the institution.
Key Benefits of Alumni Management Software
- Streamlines the process of gathering, storing, and updating data on alumni
- Improves communication with alumni
- Facilitates alumni donations
Why Use Alumni Management Software?
Streamline alumni data management — Having accurate and up-to-date data on a school’s alumni community is crucial to being able to stay in contact with them and maintain a strong relationship between each alumnus and their alma mater. But maintaining that membership data can be difficult when alumni move or change jobs and neglect to update their alumni information. Alumni management software can organize important data on each alumnus, such as contact information, occupation, current job, academic profile, and donation history, and make that data accessible to key stakeholders. Having this information available in a membership directory can help alumni coordinators determine which alumni to reach out to in a given situation. Many systems can also integrate with other software solutions, allowing staff to avoid entering the same data multiple times in different systems.
Improve alumni communication efforts — Sophisticated messaging functions in alumni management software make it possible to send targeted communications to thousands of alumni. These tools can reach an alumni association’s members through multiple channels — including email, phone calls, and social media — to inform them about campus news, invite them to an upcoming event, or ask for a donation. Event planning functions allow university administrators to notify alumni about events like fundraisers or reunions, then direct them to an online calendar or registration page where they can register and pay for the event. These communications and interactions can be tracked and analyzed, helping alumni relations offices better target their efforts. Some platforms also offer networking features like job boards, which can help create a stronger online community of alumni.
Boost alumni giving — Alumni donations are an essential funding source for any higher education institution. With alumni management software, university staff can keep a comprehensive database of alumni donors and automate sending messages to donors during a giving campaign. Donor web portals created with the help of alumni management software enable donors to quickly and easily send money to the institution through online payments. These donations can be tracked using CRM-like software, which can inform future outreach to those donors. Reporting tools can consolidate donation data into analytical reports that can be used to shape the university’s overall fundraising strategy.
Who Uses Alumni Management Software?
Generally, alumni management software is used by professionals who are responsible for alumni relations at an educational institution. While colleges and universities are the primary users of alumni management software, some K-12 schools may use it as well.
College and university alumni relations staff — Alumni management software is most commonly used by employees in the development offices at colleges and universities. This includes alumni relations coordinators, who are generally responsible for cultivating relationships with the institution’s alumni and leverage those relationships to meet fundraising targets. Staff responsible for fundraising can use alumni management software to maintain alumni data, seek donations from alumni, and communicate news about the school or information about special events, like reunions.
K-12 school staff — Administrators at K-12 schools may also use alumni management software, particularly at private institutions that rely on tuition and donations to fund their operations. K-12 academic counselors can use alumni management software to track where graduates go to college and whether they graduate, which could help identify which student indicators are most predictive of college success.
Alumni Management Software Features
To assist alumni relations staff with their work, alumni management software may have some of the following features:
Alumni data management — Database features in alumni management software help administrators collect key data about alumni, such as contact information, career history, membership status, and donation patterns. This data can enable more effective outreach efforts and can help alumni relations staff determine who to contact and when.
Giving website — Some alumni management solutions can help schools set up customized donation portals. Institutions can add their own branding to these websites, allowing it to fit seamlessly with the organization’s other online assets. These websites can be shared on social networks to help increase the visibility of fundraising campaigns.
Online donation processing — Payment processing tools built in to many alumni management platforms allow for streamlined donation processing. Online payments can make record-keeping easier and cut down on the paperwork that comes with tracking donations submitted by mail. Donors can also set up recurring payments, potentially providing a more predictable donation stream.
Job boards and online forums — Another channel for keeping alumni engaged is online job boards, which can be set up through some alumni management platforms. Alumni can use these forums to post opportunities or request help from other alumni in the same field and build their professional networks, including through integrations with social media platforms. In addition to job boards, some platforms offer online communities where alumni can share stories or post photos. Building online networks can help create a greater sense of community among alumni.
Social media integrations — Integrations with social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn allow alumni staff more channels for connecting with potential alumni donors. Especially for the most recent graduating students, social media platforms are indispensable ways of getting in touch. These tools can also gather data from social networks to help keep alumni databases up-to-date.
Event management — Each stage of planning alumni events like reunions, regional meet-ups, and campus gatherings can be managed in many software platforms, from sending out invitations for the event to processing registrations and payments online. An effective event planning process can go a long way towards creating a stronger alumni community.
Notifications — Targeted communication tools allow alumni offices to send messages to specific groups of alumni, based on characteristics like graduation year, career path, or geographic location. Messages can also be targeted to certain donor groups, such as people who have donated a specific amount over the last year, or alumni who attended an event but didn’t donate. Communication features similar to those found in email marketing software allow alumni offices to track the performance of different messages and better understand how alumni are engaging with their communications.
Reporting — Report generation can help staff make sense of the large volumes of data that colleges and universities collect on their alumni. Institutions can analyze interactions with donors, track how donations have fluctuated over time, and report on planned giving to better predict the success of upcoming campaigns.
Mobile compatibility — Many alumni management software products offer multi-device support so that communications and donor portals created by the software can be viewed comfortably regardless of whether the alumnus is using a cell phone, laptop, or tablet.
Potential Issues with Alumni Management Software
Message dilution — The challenge of getting through to a target audience has become more daunting given the massive amounts of information that people engage with today. Despite the communication capabilities of alumni management software, users must be strategic in how they send out messages and who they send them to, aiming to cut through the rest of the noise. Especially when institutions are asking for donations, requests sent using alumni management software may be ineffective in the absence of a more comprehensive strategy for reaching alumni and encouraging them to donate.
Data accuracy — Updating your contact information on your alma mater’s alumni association website isn’t necessarily top of mind for most people. For institutions, that means keeping accurate records on alumni can be challenging as their alumni move, change jobs, and switch phone numbers and email addresses. Colleges and universities should consider how they will maintain the data in their alumni management platform to ensure they can effectively reach their alumni.
