Case Study: Driving Athletics Funding Through Giving Societies & Personalized Digital Engagement
Strategic Overview: Elevating Athletics Giving Societies
To boost giving society gifts & renewals and convert new prospects into active donors, a top-tier university athletics department partnered with iFOLIO Cloud to launch high-impact, personalized digital email campaigns.
Central to the strategy was the creation of dynamic digital portfolios tailored to the university’s flagship annual athletics fund. These portfolios clearly demonstrated the real-world impact of donor contributions, highlighting how gifts directly support student-athletes, state-of-the-art facilities, and academic excellence. Each digital presentation seamlessly integrated membership tier options and an embedded "Give Now" button, making the donation journey direct, intuitive, and frictionless.
Execution: Highly Engaging Personalized Outreach
By shifting from generic appeal methods to personalized, one-to-one digital experiences, the athletics development team dramatically deepened donor engagement:
- Extended Engagement: Individual time spent reviewing shared presentations ranged from 1 minute up to 22 minutes, with positive responses spanning every donor membership level.
- Relationship Building: In one notable instance, a single donor officer secured a $25,000 gift and subsequently used iFOLIO to send a personalized video thank-you portfolio, significantly strengthening long-term donor stewardship.
Measurable Results
By integrating iFOLIO Cloud into their donor outreach strategy, the athletics development team achieved historic fundraising milestones:
- $200M+ Raised: Driven during peak usage of the iFOLIO platform, representing one of the most successful fundraising periods in the program’s history.
- Higher Conversion Rates: Measurable lift in donor response and renewal rates across all giving society tiers.
Feedback from the Team after using iFOLIO
“iFOLIO has been a game-changer for our team. The ability to share custom content one-to-one with donors and alumni has helped make our outreach more personal and relevant, and the response rate and returns we are seeing have been incredible.
I can’t recommend iFOLIO enough.”
- Giving Officer
