Six ways an alumni CRM can boost trust and foundations fundraising for universities

Trusts and foundations are charitable organisations that offer grant-based funding to help non-profit and educational institutions achieve their mission. With 10,000 or so registered in the UK alone, some are small family foundations that give out lower-level grants, while others like the Wellcome Trust are large philanthropic bodies distributing millions of pounds every year. 

At the top end of this scale, you’ll also find institutional and multilateral donors like the UK Government and the World Bank. Together, they create a fundraising ecosystem that helps universities advance their learning offer and drive life-changing research forward.  

It can be difficult to keep track of open calls, applications, and reporting deadlines when you’ve got tens, if not hundreds, of organisations on the books. It’s even harder when you’re working across multiple spreadsheets and a labyrinth of past and current donor files.

An alumni CRM will help streamline your fundraising programme so that you spend less time on organisation and admin, and more on what you do best: researching new donors, building relationships, and creating winning applications. 

Sound good? Here are six ways an alumni CRM database can help your team take their organisational fundraising to the next level. 

Tip #1: Using an alumni CRM to advance your prospect research

Prospect research is the fuel that drives trust, foundation and institutional fundraising. To cover your bases, this will mean delving deep into funder RFP portals as well as search-engine style databases like Funds Online and the Charity Excellence Framework.

A spreadsheet may work initially, but as the list of prospects grows, they can quickly become cumbersome. In contrast, an alumni CRM works as a centralised hub that keeps all your prospect information neat, tidy and accessible. Just as you would for an individual donor, a good CRM will allow you to create profiles for each potential prospect and make note of critical details such as:

• Funder name and location
• Average grant size
• Funding priorities
• Application processes and key dates
• Key staff, board members and contacts

Top tip: Did you know that our CRM solution allows you to add a percentage “Confidence” rating and rank a donor’s likelihood to give? It’s a great tool to help create next year’s forecast.  

Tip #2: Aligning donor and organisational priorities 

Once you’ve input your prospects, it’s easy to match them with potential projects. Rather than combing through a spreadsheet manually, multi-criteria search functions let you filter by key factors, like grant amount, funding priorities, and application process (e.g. whether or not a donor will accept an unsolicited approach). 

This functionality makes it quick and easy to respond to emerging project needs — enabling your team to pull lists of potential donors and create an outreach strategy targeting the ones that fit. 

Top tip: Every funder has a different process. Why not use your alumni CRM to log requirements for different donors and make dedicated application checklists?

Tip #3: Keep track of your trust and foundation fundraising applications

Once your application has been submitted, you will need to track its status and outcome. Not only will a good alumni CRM keep an active log of submissions, you can also use it to set reminders for key dates (e.g. decision-making deadlines) and update your application status.  

If your application is successful: You can use your alumni CRM to log each payment (and the associated schedule) and start building a detailed giving and relationship history.

If your application is unsuccessful: It’s easy to log the transaction and feedback. You can also set yourself a reminder to reapply — even if that won’t be for another 12 months! 

Top tip: Are you trying to hunt out a past application? There’s no need to trawl your organisation’s filing system, just make sure you’ve linked the file directly to your alumni CRM.  

Tip #4: Transcend your relationship management

Trust and foundations fundraising — like any type of fundraising — is all about relationships. There are two sides to this coin. The technical side (think reporting and payment schedules) and the personal side, like sending event invitations and ad hoc updates.  

An alumni CRM will boost your relationship management by allowing you to set reminders and assign tasks linked to key dates and deadlines. It will also help you keep an accurate record of donor communications. This way, no matter who is handling the relationship, you know they’ve got everything they need to keep the relationship going strong. 

Tip #5: Deep dive into your trusts and foundations fundraising data

When targets are high and the clock is ticking, it can be tempting to apply to every organisation out there. You need to resist this temptation and be strategic. By pulling insight reports from your alumni CRM data, you can quickly gauge application success rates, income trends, and the popularity of various asks and projects. With this information, you can make informed forecasts about expected income — factoring in confirmed gifts and setting realistic "stretch targets" for the upcoming year.

Top tip: Why not use these insights to audit your donor relationships and identify any donors where communications may have lapsed, and a re-application is possible.

Tip #6: Stay compliance-ready with centralised documentation

Finally, when it comes to trust and foundations fundraising, keeping thorough records for compliance and audit purposes is essential. An alumni CRM will create a centralised hub for all your grant agreements, application documents, and any other paperwork you might need. 

This doesn’t just help with auditing and compliance, it strengthens the very foundation of your fundraising programme, and demonstrates an active commitment to top-notch grant and relationship management. 

Are you ready to make a case for an alumni CRM to senior stakeholders? Find out more about building an alumni CRM business case.

Using an alumni CRM can fundamentally change how universities approach trust and foundations fundraising. Whether you're managing a few key funders or a broad base of trusts, our team is here to help you make sure you’ve got everything you need to take the next step.