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

“If Notre Dame can achieve that objective, we know that these people are going to be engaged at a much greater level. Engagement leads to stronger giving, both annual giving as well as major and capital giving,” Kintera’s Varano says. “So, it’s a way to treat each alum as an individual, provide them with the kind of information that they are interested in hearing about, and provide them with a Web site that allows them to connect with other alums, find a job, do all these other kind of social-networking things.