Building a Thriving Alumni Community with Raiser’s Edge NXT® and Almabase

Connecting 90,000 Alumni and 8,000 Students

Based in the global metropolis of Chicago, Illinois Tech is the only technology-focused university in the city, founded in 1890 to empower people from all backgrounds with education that would help them meet the needs of the age. More than 130 years later,

Illinois Tech is still fulfilling its mission. With current enrollment of over 8,000 students and a global network of more than 90,000 alumni, their advancement team relies on Raiser’s Edge NXT to manage constituent and gift data and power fundraising campaigns. To deepen alumni engagement, the university connected it to Almabase through a bi-directional integration that keeps advancement data synced while powering alumni- and student-facing experiences such as the online directory, mentorship program, forms, community spaces, and communications.

When alumni update their profiles or engage through Almabase, that information automatically flows into Raiser’s Edge NXT for review and approval. New graduate records added to Raiser’s Edge NXT automatically sync to Almabase. As Ashley Agron, senior director of constituent engagement, explained, “You don’t have to log in to the different platforms — just a click of a button opens the other one.”

The result is a connected engagement ecosystem that reduces manual data entry, improves data quality, and provides a unified view of each constituent’s journey. For Illinois Tech’s four-person constituent engagement team, the integration enables more strategic engagement efforts while ensuring alumni, students, and staff have access to accurate, up-to-date information.

Creating a More Connected Advancement Ecosystem

Illinois Tech’s advancement team counted on Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT for donor management and successful fundraising campaigns, while other offices across campus maintained separate spreadsheets and local records to access, update, and activate constituent data. Illinois Tech needed a platform to ensure accurate and current alumni information across the university, which led them to choose Almabase, whose secure, native integration with Raiser’s Edge NXT keeps constituent data synced and consistent across every office and better supports alumni events and engagement campus-wide.

Routine tasks created a significant administrative burden for the small team. Alumni who wanted to update their contact information or reconnect with fellow graduates had to contact the alumni office, where staff manually reviewed and updated records in Raiser’s Edge NXT. Engagement forms lived in Google Forms, requiring staff to transfer submitted information into the CRM by hand, while the university’s alumni directory lacked self-service capabilities. Over five years, only about 3,000 alumni used the platform. Volunteer-led regional engagement efforts also operated without reliable participation data, limiting visibility into alumni activity and placing much of the responsibility on chapter leaders.

Illinois Tech needed a way to modernize engagement while keeping Raiser’s Edge NXT at the center of its advancement operations.

Powering a Unified Engagement Experience

Through this new integration, constituent updates, form submissions, and engagement activity now flow between Almabase and Raiser’s Edge NXT, reducing manual effort and helping staff maintain accurate constituent records. It allows staff to review and approve constituent updates through a centralized data inbox rather than manually rekeying information. “People can log into their Almabase profile, update their information, and have those changes flow directly into Raiser’s Edge NXT,” said Agron. “The sync is nearly instantaneous—once an update is approved, it’s automatically reflected in the constituent’s record.”

The synchronization works in both directions. Constituent records, segments, and queries from Raiser’s Edge NXT flow into Almabase, powering personalized outreach and community experiences.

Building a Self-Service Hub from Directory to Mentorship

Illinois Tech branded the Almabase platform as Illinois Tech Connect, consolidating its alumni directory, mentorship program, community discussion boards, and engagement forms into a single hub. This replaced both Google Forms and the university’s legacy directory. The team established more than 20 community spaces organized by Illinois Tech’s six academic units and various affinity groups. Because Raiser’s Edge NXT records automatically sync into Almabase, alumni are assigned to their academic unit-specific communities upon import, while most spaces remain open for cross-interest participation.

The mentoring module, called Build Your Own Network, replaced a manual matching process previously managed by career services. Alumni identify the types of support they can provide, such as mock interviews, resume reviews, networking guidance, and internship advice, while students specify what they’re looking for in a mentor. The platform automatically surfaces relevant mentor matches based on those preferences, enabling students to send connection requests and begin communicating directly with mentors through the platform.

Almabase’s administrative dashboard tracks engagement activity, including who opened a form, who started but did not complete it, and who may benefit from targeted follow-up. Personalized URLs tied to Raiser’s Edge NXT records help alumni activate their profiles without creating duplicate records, preserving data quality across both systems.

Tripling Mentorship and Growing a Thriving Alumni Community

The results arrived quickly. In the first two and a half years, Illinois Tech Connect surpassed the five-year lifetime total of the prior platform, and that momentum is ongoing. As Agron noted, “Now at four years, we already have over 5,500 people registered and actively using the platform. We had a different platform that over five years barely had 3,000.” In the most recent 30-day period alone, Illinois Tech Connect recorded 33,985 engagement activities, 963 updated directory records, and 884 new registrations.

The Build Your Own Network mentoring module delivered one of the clearest wins, tripling alumni participation in the mentoring program. As Agron explained, “Students could filter exactly who they’re looking for, and it’ll pop up with the available mentors that fit those filters and description.”

The engagement forms on Almabase also created a new volunteer pipeline that feeds Illinois Tech’s advancement efforts. According to Agron, “We’ve had a really big influx of alumni volunteers,” and those engaged volunteers are increasingly becoming first-time donors or increasing their giving. By creating more opportunities for alumni to participate, the university has gained new pathways to deepen relationships and strengthen long-term philanthropic engagement.

With manual data entry largely eliminated, Agron’s team reclaimed valuable time for higher-impact work, allowing staff to focus on annual giving stewardship and reimagining regional engagement efforts.

For Illinois Tech, the combination of Raiser’s Edge NXT and Almabase has extended the value of alumni data beyond advancement operations. By connecting constituent records with the experiences alumni and students use every day, the institution has improved access to information, expanded opportunities for engagement, and created a more unified experience across its alumni community.

“Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT and Almabase have helped us turn engagement into momentum. The stronger our alumni community becomes, the stronger our pipeline of future volunteers, advocates, and donors becomes,” Agron concluded.