alumni relationship management

When John Easom took up the role of International Alumni Officer at Keele University in 2005, he inherited an Oracle system which was wholly inadequate for the enhanced alumni relationship and fundraising programme that he intended to initiate. So without delay John starting looking around for a replacement system.

Having looked at a number of CRM suppliers, John chose thankQ because it not only provided all the tools the alumni department needed, but also the high level of responsiveness and ongoing support that the university expected. 

The alumni team uses thankQ extensively to log contact data, including details of pledges and donations. thankQ captures education, employment, interest and profile information, building up a complete picture of each individual which can then be categorised into specific groups for communication purposes. The alumni team also uses thankQ’s searching and reporting tools to monitor progress amongst their diverse audience which includes university schools and faculties, university students and staff, alumni and corporate organisations.

The alumni team certainly puts thankQ through its paces. Take a look at some of these statistics:

• 40,000 magazines mailed out once a year
• 13,000 generic emails every month
• mass emails to thousands of targeted groups (for individual schools and faculties)
• data for up to 7,000 contacts for the university’s annual telethon (this is currently reported out of thankQ and handled by a third party provider)
• daily ad-hoc communications.

With such a prolific amount of communication activity, it is not surprising that John cites thankQ’s email and letter writing interface as his favourite tool and one that he uses to great effect every day. The ability to build templates, personalise communications and select mailing preferences  for mass and individual communications ensures that Keele University consistently presents itself in a professional and businesslike way.

John says ‘without thankQ we couldn’t have started this fundraising programme and developed our communications in the way that we have. thankQ is the single most important communication tool at our disposal and is fundamental to everything we do. In fact, if we didn’t have it, I would throw in the towel!’

Sometimes it’s difficult to measure the improvements and efficiencies that a CRM system can bring to an organisation. John provided us with a simple example of one of the ways in which thankQ earns its keep:

Last year, Keele University appointed a new Vice Chancellor who brought a strong agenda for engaging with distinguished alumni. Because the alumni team had spent the last 5 years processing contact data through thankQ, they were able to reassure the Vice Chancellor that a programme of engagement was not only possible, but could immediately be put into action. 

As John says, ‘All we needed the Vice Chancellor to do was tell us what categories he wanted. That made us look good and that’s always nice.’