Know Your Supporters: How Audience Personas Can Transform College Fundraising

Colleges have no shortage of data. Advancement teams track alumni engagement, giving history, event attendance, career outcomes, geographic location, and more. The information is there. 

Despite that, colleges still struggle to translate that data into meaningful engagement and increased philanthropic support. One reason that efforts fall flat is that institutions are communicating too broadly. When you try to reach everyone with the same message, the result is predictable: low engagement, missed opportunities, and a donor experience that feels generic rather than personal. Hayley Harris, our Managing Director of Annual Giving and Engagement, often talks about communicating to an audience of one.

One way to do that is to leverage your data and knowledge to create audience personas.

The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Fundraising

Consider a common scenario. A college sends a year-end giving appeal to its entire database. The message is well-written, beautifully designed, and the call to action is clear. But, the audience includes a 25-year-old young alumnus who has never given, a 45-year-old parent of a current student who gave two years ago, a 70-year-old loyal donor, and a high-capacity major gift prospect.

Each of these individuals has a different relationship with the institution, different interests, and different capacities. In this scenario, they all receive the same message. The message resonates with only one or two groups and to no one’s surprise, the results are underwhelming.

Segmenting and audience personas are an important tool to avoid this.

What Are Audience Personas?

In the context of college fundraising, audience personas don’t need to be complex marketing exercises. These personas are groups of constituents who share similar characteristics, motivations, media habits, and connections to your institution.

The personas can start with basic characteristics, like donors and non-donors. You can then layer on other markers like alumni, past parents, and more. Depending on your data and capabilities, you can go as granular as you like.

Creating these personas turns raw data from your CRM into actionable insight to inform your communications strategy. They are key for turning those broad messages into impactful and engaging communications.

How to Put Personas Into Practice

We suggest you start with roughly five personas that represent your most important audiences. Document their shared traits, their preferred communications channels, and more. Write down the messages that resonate with them. What do they care about?

Once you have those personas and qualities defined, make sure that every communication you send out has an assigned target persona. If a communication is assigned to more than one or two personas, consider whether you should segment the message and be more specific. It requires discipline and focus.

Beyond communications, you can use these personas for event planning, outreach, and other forms of engagement.

A Final Thought

At its core, fundraising is about relationships and understanding people. In a college environment where your audience is large and diverse, that understanding becomes challenging, but even more important.

Use audience personas as a practical tool to help you build stronger relationships at scale. If you need help developing personas or want to brainstorm how best to use them, reach out to the team at AdvancementEDU.