Author Archives: Alumni Channel

A Consumers Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems

In partnership with NTEN, Idealware presents an impartial, detailed comparison of 33 different donor management systems (also called donor databases) that cost less than $4250 in the first year.

They provide two reports—the first 48-page Consumers Guide includes an overview of common features in donor management system, comparisons and summaries of all 33 systems reviewed, recommendations for which systems best meet common nonprofit scenarios and a directory of consultants who can help you in this area.

The second 85-page document provides detailed reviews of twelve systems—Common Ground, Donation Director, Donor Perfect, DonorPro, eTapestry, Giftworks, Mission Assist, Neon by Z2, Orange Leap MPX, Sage Fundraising 50 and Total Info. For each each system, we walk through the functionality offered for each of 127 criteria.

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Technology Makes Alumni Relations Easy

As featured in the July 2009 Christian School Products eNews:

by Chris Gehringer, President of Alumni Channel

You spend countless hours and dollars to make your students the best they can be. You nurture them, guide them, teach them, and watch them grow to become mature individuals. They grow up, move on, get jobs, and start families. As time passes, they become successful, caring, thoughtful individuals that get involved in their communities, become leaders in their faith, embrace parenthood, and move up the ladder in their careers. A recent interview with Tim Befus of Rock County Christian School reveals they hope their alumni relations program builds stronger relationships between the school and students, enrolls second-generation students, and brings more financial donations.

So, what are you doing with all these talents and resources? Do you have an alumni relations program to keep in contact with your alumni? Continue reading →

DeWitt Clinton’s Remarkable Alumni

On Oct. 29, 1929, the most devastating day in the history of the New York stock market, Wall Street began its great economic descent. But on the same day in the northern Bronx, people were casting aside the calamity on Wall Street and celebrating the arrival of a new high school building.

More than 2,000 people crowded through the marbled halls to the auditorium of DeWitt Clinton High School on Mosholu Parkway to hear Mayor James J. Walker inaugurate the ambitious all-boys institution, which cost the city $3.5 million. Mayor Walker remarked, “This temple of education will well repay us even after we are gone, by training future generations to be good citizens.” Indeed, Clinton’s impact would not only give back to New York, but repay American society in significant ways.

Its alumni include Ralph Lauren, James Baldwin, Stan Lee (creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men), Richard Rodgers (writer of 42 Broadway scores, including “Oklahoma!”), and more.

Read more at NYTimes.com >>

Alumni Use Old School Ties to Find Work


The last time Miriam Korn Haimes used Syracuse University’s career services, she was a kid. Twenty-one? Twenty-two, maybe?

When you’re the Class of ’76, that’s ancient history. The bachelor’s degree nestles at the bottom of a rich résumé filled with professional benchmarks, including a 23-year career at JPMorgan Chase, topped by the title of senior vice president.

“I hadn’t kept up with the university at all,” said Ms. Haimes, of Montclair, N.J. “It was so long ago.”

Until this spring, when Ms. Haimes’s department was relocated to Columbus, Ohio, and she found herself unemployed.

In the new world order of job searches, networking is everything, so she gamely dusted off her 33-year-old Syracuse affiliation. Armed with her business card and her 60-second “I’m in transition” speech, she went recently to a cocktail party for alumni.

Read more at NYTimes.com >>

Six Degrees of Togetherness

Advancement administrators at the University of North Texas have come up with a nifty way to use the “six degrees of separation” principle to connect alumni, supporters, and friends. With the public research university’s “Six Degrees of UNT” program, constituents will be contacted via e-mail invitation and asked to forward the invitation to former UNT classmates, faculty, staff, and supporters. Subsequent e-mails ask each invitee to provide current contact information.

Officials hope to wind up with clean print mail and e-mail addresses for more than 190,000 people in a contributor relations database when all is said and done. But it’s not all about getting a good solicitation list in an efficient manner — the contact info will be used for programs such as the North Texas Alumni Association’s online community to keep people involved with the university and with each other. “It’s just as important to keep alumni and friends connected with one another as it is for us to keep in contact with them,” says Derrick Morgan, executive director of the alumni association. “We need to make it easy for them to engage and conduct business together.” The program is a partnership with The Pursuant Group, a Dallas-based online fundraising firm.

Now, just one question remains for six-degree principle fans:  How is Kevin Bacon connected to UNT?

This originated from the blog of University Business Magazine.

Newest Communities – July 2009

[St. Anastasia Alumni logo]St. Anastasia School Alumni Association

Douglaston-Little Neck, New York. Launched July 1.  Visit Community »

  • St Anastasia Elementary School opened in 1929 and graduated its last class in 2009.   At the same time, within the framework of the “Preserving the Vision” initiative of the Diocese of Brooklyn, the school was reorganized and renamed Divine Wisdom Catholic Academy.  No longer a parish school, but in fellowship with St. Anastasia Church, DWCA operates under the governance of a lay Board of Directors selected from the ranks of alumni and friends of the old SAS.  With a large base of graduates, the school hopes to cultivate stronger bonds with, and among, alumni that will lay the foundation for fundraising in support of Divine Wisdom.  Visit Community »

Shelby Academy votes to keep financially troubled school open

Shelby Academy membership votes 52-10 to keep financially troubled school open

Posted by Scottie Vickery — Birmingham News July 14, 2009 8:39 PM

The membership of the financially troubled Shelby Academy voted 52-10 tonight to keep the school open.

After the board vote, the crowd erupted into cheers.

Shelby Academy’s membership — made up of board members, parents of current students and parents of former students who pay a $100 membership fee — voted.

Mitchell Spears, attorney for the school, said the school is about $576,000 in debt. It owes $376,000 on the mortgage, and the rest is in unsecured debt and salary and wages owed to the staff. He said it would take about $80,000 a month to run the school if it had 100-110 students.

Paige Watson Phillips, who is a member of the alumni association, said before the vote that there were 1,000 alumni ready to help.

Continue reading →