Transcript Helping Students Say *Thank You*

Helping Students Say
‘Thank You’
Stephanie Boeding
Alumni communications coordinator
Wartburg College
Waverly, IA
[email protected]
www.wartburg.edu
What a ‘thank you’ can do
iModules tools have helped us more than double the
number of personal notes sent to scholarship donors!
The results: more notes, and better notes.
Students
Donors
Young alumni
www.wartburg.edu
Wartburg: Who are we?
You may have heard of our “summer program”...
Mumford & Sons came to visit!
Wartburg: Who are we?
Named for Wartburg Castle … not Hogwarts Castle
www.wartburg.edu
Wartburg: Who are we?
●
Enrollment: 1,661 students
●
More than 1,000 involved with music or athletics
●
Largest majors: biology, business administration,
journalism and communication, elementary education,
music education
●
Strong German heritage, and affiliated with the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
●
Our four pillars: Leadership, Service, Faith and Learning
www.wartburg.edu
Scholarships
●
More than 90% of our students receive financial aid.
●
This past year, 441 donor-funded scholarships were
awarded to students.
Students saying “thank you” makes students aware of where
their gifts come from, helps our donors stay committed to their
giving, builds connections between different generations, and
even leads to young alumni funding new scholarships soon
after they graduate.
www.wartburg.edu
So how do we do it?
It starts with iModules data import and profile fields…
Then we send our students an email…
Which links to a form…
...where they can write a note!
The end result:
A note that would
Mom proud!
We print off
the notes,
and then...
… in the words of the hit
Mumford & Sons song:
“I will wait, I will wait
for you!”
In the form’s
confirmation email,
we remind
students to come
into our office to
personally sign
their notes.
Most of them come within a day or two to sign their
thank-you notes with an orange pen.
(A little incentive helps!)
Email, round 2
With a data query, we can find all the students who have a
value in the “Scholarship 1 Name” field, but who have no
value in the “Thank You Note 1” field. This identifies the
students who have not yet written a thank-you note.
Then we
send them
an email
reminder…
or two…
Our results
Before iModules
Using iModules
Fewer than 60 notes
Between 140 and 200
completed in each of the
Donors love the personal notes (yes, they can tell)
and even write back to our students!
The rest of the story ...
Our annual Scholarship Luncheon in April
● Donors meet their award recipients
● Relationships are formed
Students are inspired
● Students UKnight
group highlights
philanthropy
Young alumni are inspired
● Graduating students give back
Contact me
Email:
stephanie.boeding@
wartburg.edu
@StephBoeding
sboeding
www.wartburg.edu