Loreto Normanhurst, an independent girls school based in Sydney, Australia, launched their first online alumnae community in 2021, to connect their global network and provide opportunities for them to give back. Their exciting new platform, powered by ToucanTech, has already attracted almost 700 sign ups, and is a hub for alumnae to engage in careers, events, networking and more. 

Year Group Appeal 

To kick off the launch of their new community, the Year 12 Student Bursary Committee challenged the Ex-Students Association to match the first $1,000 for the first 50 Alumnae Year Groups who raised $1,000. Year groups donated online via the alumnae website, and could register their interest to join through a form on the challenge campaign page. 

The challenge was extremely engaging, as year groups were able to track their own headway through a target bar on the website, and also view other year group’s progress! They were sent regular encouraging emails and social media posts by the Loreto Normanhurst Community Engagement team. 

After initial launch, the challenge was taken up rapidly by a number of year groups until more than 35 challenges were running. They have had alumnae donate as part of this initiative, with an impressive quadruplying in participation on their previous year. The total raised by alumnae was $49,692, with a further donation of $27,000 by the Ex-Students Association given through matched funding. 

The winning year group was the class of 1983, who raised a fantastic $5,140, with the Class of 1988 coming a close second with $5,100 raised. A special mention was given to the class of 1975 for their pledge to support an indigenious student for 6 years of their education. This is an inspirational example of how a small number of alumnae can make a huge difference in the life of a current student. 

To promote the Year Group Appeal and reach their wider school community, they published the full annual giving campaign proposition on both their new main school website and the recently launched Alumnae community site, the Normo Network. 

Sharing donor impact 

As this campaign attracted many first-time donors, it was important to share the ongoing impact that bursary fundraising has on the students at Loreto Normanhurst. With their new alumnae platform, they shared impact stories on their news page, from scholarship award announcements to lockdown activities that help the wider community. The story which shared testimonials from previous bursary recipients and their journey after Loreto Normanhurst reached over 500 views, and details of how to get involved in the challenge reached over 850 views!

Not only did this challenge along with Annual Giving appeal result in their best year for bursary fundraising yet, but it was also a great way to engage alumnae and drive traffic towards their new site. Since launching in May 2021, almost 700 alumnae have registered and their site receives 1,000 visitors each month.

Cracking alumni giving is an impressive feat - this is just the beginning of alumnae fundraising for Loreto Normanhurst and their continued engagement through events and online activities will help to build a culture of philanthropy that will support the school for years to come. We hope that their new platform will support them in inspiring giving, and supporting both the existing alumnae network and current & future students of Loreto Normanhurst.

How to create a Giving Challenge fundraising event

To find out more about creating inspiring fundraising challenges and bringing your community together to reach your goals, follow these simple steps:

1. Create a fund for each of your year groups or houses by navigating to Admin portal > Fundraising > Funds and then click on the 'Create new fund' button. Remember to put in the target so that it will be displayed on the panel.

2. As this is a temporary event, you need to create a new page that will fit the purpose of this challenge and that can be deactivated after it ends. Create a custom page to sit along the main menu by going to Admin portal > settings > Design Hub, then click on the 'Create new page' button.

3. Add the panels onto the page by clicking on 'Create panel' button: Begin with the standard 'welcome' panel, then add the 'Support us' panel in order to attach your fund:

4. If you would like to have a 'Contact us' form at the bottom, you can create another panel from the 'Contact Us' category and add the relevant template in.

   Our Design Team is always on hand to support you with any request or change you may have, so please consult our annual Design service.