The University of Notre Dame Alumni Association recently unveiled an online engagement center with social-networking capabilities fit to engage — and elicit gifts from — even the feistiest of the Fighting Irish alums.

By Abny Santicola

“That is such a huge leap forward from the old days when you had to collect checks. You had to go to your computer, print out a document and then write a check, tuck it in an envelope and send it to somebody,” Bellairs says. “We think there are many people who probably did not participate in an event over the last year simply because it was kind of a hassle — they got used to one-click shopping on Amazon, they got used to buying something on eBay and going seamlessly to PayPal to pay for it.