Young Alumni Club

Mission:

- To engage younger alumni to participate in philanthropy towards Rensselaer focusing on loyalty to the program with gifts made to the Annual Fund and to cultivate younger alumni into becoming future Rensselaer leaders within the philanthropic community.

- Use the Rice University’s Pacesetters Club as the model.

- This program would be similar to the program at Rice in regards to not having any requirements the gift size and focusing on participation and consecutive gifts to Rensselaer and creating member recognition for loyalty to the school and the program.

- Need more publicity and marketing on the websites with a more personal and emotional approach -- pictures of donors with their stories why they choose to donate and students who are aided by funds of the Annual Fund as examples.

- Push class competitions & list goals and progress online. Make donor list public to website for encouragement and participation examples. Utilize class competition for Reunion years as well.

Parameters:

- All undergraduate alumni up to 14 years out can join the young alumni club.

- Count gifts to the Annual Fund only.

- Membership based on a gift of any size – there is no minimum gift

- Membership offered after the second year of consecutive giving.

- If a year of giving is missed – membership back into the club can be attained by giving for two consecutive years.

- Memberships and benefits are given based on number of years of consecutive giving:

  • 2 – 4 years of consecutive giving:Junior Member
  • 5 – 6 years of consecutive giving:Silver Member
  • 7 – 9 years of consecutive giving:Gold Member
  • 10– 14 years of consecutive giving:Platinum Member

Notes:

Consecutive giving would be the key goal for this Club – hoping to gain as much participation as possible by having gifts of any size count. A public donor list would be a great idea for people to lead by example – either online, printed or in an email newsletter –approaching with a more personal feel. Other incentives/benefits could includeoffering discounts for the bookstore and/or hockey games. Or to have a Young Alumni Pi” for all club members who have given for six years or more. There could be an alumni ambassador for each member level to help lead the efforts -- these volunteers could then become the spokespersons for this Club. We will need to continue a separate campaign for the already existing young alumni non-donors from this past year’s efforts & create a stewardship-mailing plan for all the new young alumni donors gained from this year’s efforts.