Case Study: The Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association exceeds social media campaign goals and drives alumni engagement and donations with Blackbaud (Attentive.ly)

The Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association - Customer Case Study

The Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA), which supports the University of Wisconsin’s mission, sought to activate its alumni base via social media to boost brand awareness and remote engagement. Facing the challenge of identifying and connecting with the university’s most passionate online supporters, WFAA needed a scalable way to find ambassadors who would amplify campaigns and motivate donations.

WFAA used Attentive.ly to identify high-impact alumni (Klout >50), then seeded campaigns around Homecoming and the Fill the Hill tradition by sending Homecoming Pride Packs and Flamingo Spirit Packs to selected ambassadors, supplying toolkits to campus partners, and encouraging social sharing. The Homecoming campaign exceeded its 3,600-pack goal, sending 4,200 packs, and produced broad reach across channels (Facebook reach 328,418; 5,520 engagements; 51,411 video views; Twitter impressions 89,295; Snapchat filter views 54,200). The Fill the Hill outreach drove 96 donations directly from 150 influencer packs and helped WFAA establish a repeatable influencer strategy to improve future social fundraising.

The Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association

Dexter Patterson

Social and Digital Media Specialist