The Alumni Effect

Christopher Batchelder
12/18/2012

Peter Drucker once said that the most important thing in communication, regarding innovation, is hearing what isn’t said. When I first encountered EverTrue, a door opened that I hadn’t even known existed. Two years ago, when I thought of keeping in touch with my classmates after leaving the convenience of living and learning within five minutes of one another, my relative thinking was limited; I was amazed how much more capable we would be of staying close with one another than alumni of decades past, especially with social media and email, but I never imagined an innovative and integrated service that would provide that, and much more. That’s where EverTrue came in.

Class of 2009-2012 in Manhattan

My high school, Phillips Academy Andover, had a special effect on me (as it tends to have with most of its students). The friends I made and the experiences I created, from running on the cross country and track teams to hanging out in the dorm and running for school president, have had more of an impact on who I am than anything else in my life. I decided to become an alumni representative before graduating from Andover, giving me the opportunity to organize events and collect and write stories about my fellow alumni. Naturally, a service like EverTrue fits in perfectly. As soon as the app was released for Andover, I recognized the potential to connect with alumni on a whole new level. An efficient and encompassing level made accessible with mobile technology. I emailed and texted friends whose contact information I had long since lost (or never gotten around to getting in the first place), and started heavily contributing to the photo galleries with candids of my Andover friends and I.

EverTrue reached out to me, allowing me to get to know the team better and become friends with Jesse Bardo, a fellow Andover alum. At this point I was hooked, so I started making designs for EverTrue and encouraged my Andover and college friends to download the app. I couldn’t imagine how I could have kept in touch so intimately without it. I’m now pursuing my entrepreneurial passions and working on an intercollegiate video communication system, called the Duke-UNC Portal, with the help of Andover friends across the country. I’m spending time with the EverCrew this December and hope to work with them full-time one day.

Endowment Spending & Growth Calculator

Enter your fund's current value and adjust the return, spending, and inflation sliders to see how its value in today's dollars changes over time.

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Expected investment return 6.0%

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Spending rate 4.0%

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Inflation rate 3.0%

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4. Continue to Steward Donors

Your relationship with the donors who give to your endowment doesn’t end when you secure their gifts. Because your endowment exists to make a difference in the long term, your supporters will want you to keep in touch about its progress. Ongoing stewardship means keeping donors updated about your endowment’s performance and impact. A report that strengthens your relationship with donors should cover:

The fund’s balance at the start and end of the year
Spending amounts and allocations
How the fund’s returns compare to your investment targets
A short narrative detailing the specific impacts the endowment achieved

Create a report for each endowment rather than sending an identical document to everyone. A donor who endowed a scholarship wants to hear about the students it supported, while a donor who endowed a building fund wants updates on construction projects.

5. Upgrade Your Endowment Management Tools

Your endowment management tools should make applying your spending policy across every fund easy. Investing in dedicated software is especially useful as your endowment grows. Handling unitization in spreadsheets might work for a few funds, but as you begin to manage dozens or hundreds of gifts, dedicated software can save your team time spent manually calculating gains and losses for each one.

Why Nonprofits Need Dedicated Endowment Management Software

Dedicated endowment software brings accuracy and consistency to every part of the management process, from tracking individual funds to improving security. See how these solutions compare to a spreadsheet-based approach:

nfographic table outlining the information below.

How These Methods Compare:

In managing your endowment with traditional spreadsheets, you may see:

High administrative burden: Manual entry across disconnected systems
Limited security and audit footprints: Reduced version control and audit trail visibility
Difficulty with donor transparency: Spreadsheets provide only static data that is difficult to turn into custom results.

By using dedicated software, you are likely to find the following improvements:

Lower administrative burden: Automated fund tracking and calculated allocations
Enhanced security and audit footprint: Audit-ready reconciliation with clear tracking
Greater donor transparency: Connects with reporting platforms

Dedicated endowment management software keeps your organization compliant while freeing up the time your team once spent manually managing spreadsheets.

Secure Your Endowment with Balance by EverTrue

Effective endowment management begins with excellent accounting. Balance by EverTrue handles unitization, applies spending rules, and produces audit-ready reports, so your team can spend more time on the donor relationships that built the fund in the first place.

Turn your data into a clear picture of long-term impact. Combine accurate fund accounting with donor reporting that showcases impact.
Connect with the tools you already use. Pair Balance with Impact by EverTrue and ODDER by EverTrue to create and deliver compelling digital endowment reports that you can send to donors with ease.
Know where every fund stands in real time. Check market values, gift history, and available spending for any fund. Then, share view-only versions with your team, so everyone stays informed.

With Balance, your team can stop spending all your time on manual management and instead add balance to your endowment workflow.

Additional Resources

To learn more about managing your endowment and other ways that technology can help your organization, check out these additional resources:

Webinar: Building a Seamless Relationship Between Endowment Finance and Advancement. In this webinar, we cover the keys to un-complicating your institution’s financial endowment reporting process. Explore how building a connection between your finance and advancement teams can lead to happier donors and happier staff.
The Best Alumni Management Software Solutions in 2026. Alumni management software allows your university to maintain an active community that supports your school in a number of ways. Review top software solutions.
Donor Segmentation: How Organizing Donors Boosts Retention. What is donor segmentation, and how can you use it to boost retention? Learn the need-to-know information in this guide from EverTrue’s fundraising experts.

Less stress, higher endowment funds. Discover how Balance provides the organization, security, and accuracy your endowment needs. Request a demo.

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