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Customer Stories:

How the United States Naval Academy Foundation Built a $100M Fundraising Year Through Consistent, Data Informed Engagement

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WHO:

For the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation, fundraising success is rooted in supporting the mission of developing midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically.

The Foundation’s development team oversees frontline fundraising across major gifts, leadership annual giving, planned giving, and corporate and foundation support, managing a growing number of donor relationships across an increasingly complex portfolio structure.

As the team expanded, the focus remained on keeping donor engagement consistent, personal, and aligned across all giving programs.

THE CHALLENGE:

As the fundraising team grew from a small, tightly connected group into nearly twenty frontline staff, maintaining consistency across donor engagement became a key operational challenge.

With eleven individuals managing one to one donor relationships across multiple programs, the team needed a clearer way to align outreach, track activity, and ensure consistent follow up across a large and growing portfolio.

At the same time, expectations across the organization continued to rise. The team needed to balance autonomy for fundraisers with consistent execution against ambitious goals, while maintaining authentic, relationship driven engagement at scale.

WHY EVERTRUE:

Signal by EverTrue helps the Foundation bring structure and visibility to donor engagement across a growing and distributed team.

The platform is primarily used by managers and research teams to:

-Support portfolio conversations with consistent engagement data

-Identify gaps in outreach and follow up

-Inform quarterly portfolio reviews with activity and engagement insights

-Reinforce consistent expectations across fundraising teams

This enables the organization to evaluate outreach more clearly and ensure donor engagement remains consistent across portfolios of varying size and complexity.

The Results:

A focus on consistency and disciplined engagement helped drive a record breaking fiscal year for the Foundation, surpassing $100 million in fundraising for the first time.

Early impact and outcomes included:

-First ever $100M fundraising year for the Foundation
-Two eight figure gifts that contributed to the organization reaching its milestone year

-A $15M gift from a donor whose relationship began at a base level giving society and grew over time through consistent engagement and stewardship

-Leadership annual giving officers managing portfolios of ~250 donors each and raising approximately $1M per officer in their first year

-Strong performance driven by structured outreach, consistent follow up, and relationship based engagement

-Data showing it often takes at least six outreach attempts to secure a first discovery meeting, reinforcing the importance of persistence in engagement strategy

The Full Story:

As the Foundation’s fundraising operation continued to grow, the team focused on a central challenge, how to scale engagement without losing consistency or personalization.

 

With nearly twenty frontline fundraisers managing multiple giving programs, the organization prioritized building stronger operational alignment across outreach, reporting, and portfolio management.

 

Weekly coordination processes, including Friday updates outlining travel, meetings, and engagement goals, helped create visibility across the team and align daily activity with broader fundraising priorities. Regular portfolio reviews further reinforced consistency by using engagement data to guide follow up and improve outreach effectiveness.

 

Leadership annual giving became a key example of structured engagement at scale, with gift officers managing portfolios of approximately 250 donors each while raising around $1 million per officer in their first year. This performance was driven by consistent outreach, stewardship, and disciplined follow up.

 

A key operational insight from the team reinforced that it often takes a minimum of six outreach attempts to secure an initial discovery meeting, helping standardize expectations around persistence and engagement strategy.

 

Across the organization, consistency remains the guiding principle, ensuring that donor relationships are managed with intention, structure, and long term focus.

The result is a more aligned, data informed fundraising operation that can scale engagement effectively while still maintaining the personal relationships that drive transformational giving.

 

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