Have you ever wanted to give back to you alma mater in a meaningful way? Be sure to check out this week’s Campus Tech Connection podcast as we welcomed @tomkrieglstein back to the show to learn how alumni can contribute to the crowdsourcing student potential with @AlumniChoose.
Tom is a passionate education entrepreneur who’s journey of re-inventing higher ed started seven years ago when he co-founded Swift Kick as an educational training company to help colleges and universities increase student engagement outside the classroom, in the informal learning spaces, as a key element to student retention, graduation, and alumni giving. His company worked with over 250 schools, and their training was recognized as the top college training program for three years in a row.
Since then, Tom went on to co-founded Red Rover as a tool to help student connect together around shared interests and build informal learning groups and mentor/mentee matching. Currently, Tom is working on AlumniChoose which is what we will be talking about on the #CTCX show this week.
AlumniChoose is an online fundraising tool for colleges and universities that leverages social media, crowdfunding, and mass-personalization. The mission of AlumniChoose is to help student leaders realize their full potential by spending less time fundraising and more time doing.
Three by-products of the AlumniChoose mission include:
- Empowered student affairs professionals who can easily say yes to projects they, and their students, are excited about by taking the hard work of resource gathering off their plate.
- Increased total donations and donor pool for development/alumni departments and at a cheaper institutional cost.
- Individual donors’ $25 feels like a million dollar donation by linking them to projects most exciting to them and sharing in the project’s success.
The AlumniChoose Core Values:
- Lead With Why: Always think about our mission and lead with that when making decisions.
- Chase Butterflies: Think big. Chase after what scares you. Keep growing.
- D.A.M.: Do As Macgyver. Be resourceful. Be a life hacker. Create creative solutions.
- Infuse Love: Show passion/compassion/empathy in all the work you do both internally and externally with our community of users.
- Open Door, Open Hearts: Share your work, results, and emotions with those around you and know that through openness comes
- Think Play: Tackle any situation/project/task as a child would to a new challenge. If you’re playing, you’re learning, and if you’re learning, you’re growing.
- Raise Tides: We are in this together and our work isn’t just for our gain, but for the gain of everyone around us, the whole team, and our whole community