Building an Alumni Engagement Enterprise Across Five Campuses
How Alamo Colleges District Used Navigate360 Advancement CRM to Support a Growing Alumni Engagement Program
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Community College
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San Antonio, TX
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Serves 98,425 students
Opportunity
Alamo Colleges, a five-campus community college district serving 98,425 students around San Antonio, TX, was building an alumni engagement enterprise from the ground up with limited staff. Alumni data came from multiple siloed systems, and some graduates had connections to more than one college. Meanwhile, Alamo had plans to delete non-donor alumni from its donor database, creating a need for a dedicated platform to maintain relationships beyond fundraising.
Solution
Alamo brought alumni information from Banner and Raiser’s Edge into the Navigate360 Advancement CRM to support communication beyond fundraising. EAB worked with Alamo to organize outreach around alumni’s college affiliations and configure recurring communication that the team had previously managed manually.
Impact
“The mere existence of the Navigate360 Advancement CRM is critical to alumni engagement at Alamo Colleges”
Mary Kay Cooper
Alumni Relations Manager, Alamo Colleges District
Automating 250+ daily emails, including weekend sends, freed staff time for other engagement work without sacrificing ongoing relationship-building. One alumni expressed interest in hiring Alamo graduates, and others shared updated contact information that helped Alamo stay connected.
How Alamo Uses Navigate360 to Reach Alumni and Track Engagement
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College-Based Outreach
Alamo groups alumni by their first listed college to avoid duplicate district-wide emails. For college-specific invitations, the team also uses second and third college affiliations to reach additional alumni connected to that college.
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Campaign Reporting
Alamo sends separate emails to audiences from each individual college, allowing them to compare campaign open rates and see how alumni from different colleges responded to outreach.
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Birthday Campaign Automation
Alamo previously used spreadsheets to manually email birthday greetings to alumni. They used Navigate360 to configure an automated daily birthday campaign, which saves significant staff time. Advancement staff can review recipients and make changes before each automated send.
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What’s Next
Alamo’s Advancement team plans to use event forms and personalized contact update campaigns to increase engagement and is exploring using Navigate360 microsites to create an alumni business directory.
Ready to learn more?
See how Navigate360 Advancement CRM can support alumni engagement at your community college.