Northern Arizona University (NAU) Alumni Association's mission is to provide opportunities for alumni and friends to connect with each other and support NAU.This support is vital to NAU's future and is accomplished by nurturing a continued engagement in the life of the university.Kintera has helped the NAU Alumni Association accomplish these goals by providing the Web-based technology needed to redesign and revamp its online alumni center with features that keep alumni involved with the university and each other.NAU utilizes the feature-rich Alumni Engagement Center solution suite, which includes Kintera Content Management System (CMS), online giving, online alumni directory, and e-newsletter tools.

NAU Alumni Association used Kintera CMS, a Web site publishing module, to redesign its Alumni Center, successfully implementing a new look and feel for the site.The Alumni Association also built an online community of over 90,000 NAU alumni using Kintera's online directory tools in conjunction with the NAU alumni/donor database.Kintera CMS tracks statistics on the open rates of e-mails sent, number of monthly visitors and the number of Web page hits. On average, NAU alumni e-mail communications maintain a 25 percent open rate, while the Web site receives 127,000 hits a month.

"Before we launched our alumni engagement center, NAU's e-newsletter subscriber base contained 7,000 subscribers. Now with Kintera's help, we have almost doubled the number of subscribers registered to receive our e-newsletters, bringing the total close to 13,000," said Anne Walden, program coordinator, communications and records for the NAU Office of Alumni Relations. "Tracking these statistics has demonstrated a measurable increase in interest by NAU alumni.These tools also allow us to see what types of communications interest our subscribers, helping us create more targeted efforts."

NAU alumni can also make donations online via the alumni center.Without implementing a proactive campaign, NAU has been able to raise $12,000 in online donations."If we were able to raise this without a specific fundraising campaign, imagine what NAU can accomplish once we have a campaign in place," said Walden."We are very excited about the potential outcome."

Realizing the importance of new visitors, the NAU Alumni Association launched new programming on its site to keep alumni coming back.The alumni center features contests and polls that increase the level of personal interaction alumni have with both the web site and each other. For instance, the NAUAA's "@Work@Play" photo contest encouraged alumni to share their work and home lives by submitting candid photos. By keeping the content of its online alumni center fresh and updating it on a daily basis with new information,NAU keeps alumni engaged by making the website a regular part of their routine.

The NAU Alumni Association was recently awarded Kintera's Website Rebranding Award, given annually to the organization that best uses Kintera CMS to renovate its Web presence, and drive increased engagement and involvement with design, functionality, interactivity and opportunities. The NAU Alumni Association received this award for undergoing internal processes to foster change and growth, leading to greater success in fulfilling its mission.

Result Highlights
NAU Alumni Association's success using Kintera technology includes:

• Online directory now contains the entire alumni base of over 90,000
• Online giving donations totaling more than $12,000
• Almost doubling the number of e-newsletter subscribers close to 13,000
• More than one million email messages sent

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