The Fight: How the University of Notre Dame Raised $8.7M for Their Student Relief Fund

A philantropic Legacy

The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842 in South Bend, Indiana. As a catholic University, giving back to support the University’s bold mission has always been a part of their DNA. From its humble roots, to a top-tier US University boasting a multi-billion dollar endowment, the notion of philanthropy has evolved from acts of kindness to generous donations at scale from its devout alumni base. With such a diverse, wide-spread and ever-growing community of alumni and friends of the University, Notre Dame took action to adapt, accommodate and support their mission.

Pivot to Technology

Throughout their history, Notre Dame has had a tight-knit and devoted alumni base, helped in part by their renowned athletic program, namely, their Football Team. The Fighting Irish as they’ve been dubbed, maintain a mythological status among sports fans around the world — from movies like Rudy to the tradition of painting helmets with gold flakes taken from the campus’ iconic Golden Dome. Big games, reunions, chapter events, and fundraisers have been an integral part of the culture, but as technology progressed, so did the Irish in order to keep in touch with a younger generation and bridge the gap between old and new. To do so, they compiled their vast and complex network into an online solution.

In fact, Notre Dame was an “early-adopter” of this type of platform and went on to pave the way for several other prominent universities. But as with most technological innovations, newer tools tend to outpace legacy systems. That’s why recently, Notre Dame’s Alumni Association and Department of Development teams moved to Hivebrite to improve their alumni relationship efforts and catapult their online fundraising efforts, all through a single, configurable and powerful private networking platform: Hivebrite!

Donation Campaigns Built for the Modern Era

Large organizations like Notre Dame have complex requirements across the board. But especially when it comes to their network of charitable giving. Advertising, raising, distributing and reporting on donations can be burdensome to say the least. That’s why we’ve partnered to deliver a best-in-class Donations Module designed for quick and easy build and delivery paired with a frictionless end-user experience. The module we’ve co-designed gives flexibility and elegant design combined with automated reporting that gives back time to the teams to focus on strategy and tangible impact of the fundraising efforts.

Notre Dame’s first campaign on the platform performed impressively:

• Donors number: 2,523
• Total Donations: $8.7 million
• Time to build and deploy: Less than one hour

How Hivebrite Makes an Impact

We at Hivebrite are laser-focused on delivering features that empower our community managers, drive connections among members, and facilitate branded experiences across all channels. We are incredibly excited to extend our core feature set with Enterprise Donations and proud to have done it with a team like Notre Dame to execute a successful, global campaign.

“Notre Dame was able to set up a COVID-19 response campaign in a matter of minutes that will be seen by over 100,000 potential donors across the globe. Hivebrite’s technology and user experience enables us to tell our stories in the most impactful way.”

Brandon Tabor, Director, Marketing Operations

Hivebrite is a leading provider of branded community management platforms and helps all size institutions grow and engage their community – Feel free to visit us or request a demo if you would like to know more.