Case Study: Arizona State University achieves personalized recruiting, improved student retention, and streamlined fundraising with Salesforce for Nonprofits

ASU Drives Innovation Across Campus with Salesforce

Arizona State University, a mission-driven public research university known for innovation and broad access, faced the challenge of managing rapid growth across multiple campuses and online programs while keeping relationships personalized. The scale created information silos and made it difficult to deliver targeted recruitment, proactive student support, seamless donor engagement, and scalable online learning experiences.

ASU partnered with Salesforce, setting up a Center of Excellence and deploying Education Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Einstein AI and blockchain pilots to unify data, power the My ASU portal, personalize communications, and enable predictive outreach. The approach cut email volume by 16%, raised open rates by 7%, reduced nonsubscriber rates by 90%, contributed to a 1.3 percentage-point gain in first‑year retention and the largest incoming on‑campus class, while improving donor engagement and creating a roadmap for universal learner records.

Arizona State University

Fred Corey

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education