Haverford College Joins Reeher Fundraising Platform

Press release (Oct. 21, 2011) — Reeher LLC announced that Haverford College has joined the Reeher Platform, a software service for higher education fundraising management. The private Haverford, Penn.-based college, which serves approximately 1,200 students and more than 13,000 alumni, parents and friends, is using the Reeher Platform to increase retention of donors to its Annual Fund, as well as identify and predict the best new prospects.

“For a school of our size, we’ve developed a sophisticated and well-resourced alumni relations and annual giving program, and have benefited with a strong annual fund participation rate of 48 to 50 percent,” says Craig Waltman, senior associate director of alumni relations and annual giving at Haverford College. “We noticed a pattern of some donors giving only every other year or every third year. This on-again, off-again pattern had been happening for awhile, and we needed to understand and address it to continue Annual Fund growth.”

“With the Reeher Platform, we’ve been able to pinpoint the people we’re retaining from year to year – and those we weren’t – and develop strategies to bring those who were sliding off the giving wagon back on again,” says Diane Wilder, assistant vice president for institutional advancement at Haverford College. “One of the other important functions the Reeher Platform provides is the ability to help us uncover new Annual Fund prospects. It’s a great tool that our research team can use to sift through the prospect pool and identify the best prospects more quickly than we might have otherwise.”

The Haverford College Annual Fund program is well staffed, with gift officers traveling across the country to meet with past, current and prospective donors. According to Wilder, the Reeher Platform has made a valuable difference in helping gift officers to determine additional prospects to meet with during their travels through its unique geographic targeting and web-based, mobile functionality.