FOR ALUMNI RELATIONS AND ANNUAL GIVING TEAMS
Every alum deserves a note. We find the ones who just earned a congratulations.
A promotion, a new job, a move, an award — the moments when a graduate is genuinely glad to hear from their school. We spot them in public news and profiles, draft a short note for each one, and put it in front of the right person on your team. You read it and send it from your own email.
"Maria — saw you're leading ops in Denver now. Congratulations. We just started a Denver alumni chapter and I thought of you. No agenda. I'd just love to point you to your people out there."
Free. Real graduates of your own institution, with the notes already written. We don't need your database, and there's no call first.
In plain terms
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We watch the public record for your graduates — professional profiles, local news, press releases — and pull out the ones who just got promoted, changed jobs, moved, or were recognized for something.
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We write each of them a short note that mentions the specific thing that happened and asks for nothing. It sounds like your team, because we write it to match how your team already talks.
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You read the notes and send them from your own email, under your own name. We never email your alumni. That part is always yours.
That's the whole service. The rest of this page is why it works and what it costs.
WHY A NOTE WITH NO ASK IS WORTH WRITING
$500,774
versus $3,732.
Average lifetime giving from a graduate who feels their school really knows them, compared with one who feels unknown. Same institutions. Same alumni. The difference is whether anyone ever noticed them.
Alumni don't go quiet because they stopped caring. They go quiet because nobody noticed anything — and by the time you need them, you're a stranger asking for money.
A note about someone's promotion isn't a fundraising tactic. It's the reason they take your call in four years.
- 68%
- say their school does not know their giving and volunteer priorities
- 14%
- say their school understands their current career or life stage
- 24×
- more likely to donate when a graduate feels very connected rather than very disconnected
Figures from the 2026 National Alumni Survey, an independent study of 82,252 alumni across 31 colleges and universities. Cited with permission. Spark Plug is not affiliated with the survey.
01 WHY THIS IS HARD TO DO YOURSELF
You already know the note works. Finding the reason to write it is the job.
Writing to one graduate about their promotion takes ten minutes. Finding out that forty of them got promoted this quarter takes a full-time person you don't have. So the note doesn't get written, and the only time alumni hear from you is when the fund drive, the reunion push, or the year-end appeal comes around.
They notice the pattern. From their side it looks like you only call when you want something — and that impression is very hard to undo later, no matter how good the appeal copy is.
More email won't fix it. The fix is showing up at the right moment with nothing attached, which is a research problem before it's a writing problem.
02 WHO DOES WHAT
Three jobs. We can take the first two.
The third one is never ours, at any price.
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We do this
Find who's worth writing to
We search public professional profiles, local news, and press releases for your graduates, and pull out the ones something just happened to. The first delivery includes the past year, not just this week.
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We do this
Write the note
Not a template with a name dropped in. A few real sentences about the specific thing that happened, plus a line on why this person is worth your attention and who on your team should be the one to write.
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You do this — always
Read it and hit send
Every note goes out from a person at your institution, from their own email, under their own name, after they've read it. There is no version of this where we email your alumni.
We never see your alumni database Nothing connects to your CRM No IT project No new software to learn Everything exports to a spreadsheet
KNOWING WHEN NOT TO WRITE
The graduate who just got laid off doesn't get a solicitation. They get help.
THAT'S THE WHOLE DIFFERENCE
Not every moment is a good moment, and not every note should lead somewhere. So the notes come in a deliberate order: first you show up for something with nothing attached. Later you offer something useful — an introduction, an invitation, a way back in. The ask comes last, if it comes at all, and by then it doesn't land as an ask.
Holding back is part of the work. It's also the part no software decides on its own.
03 WHAT HAPPENED WHEN A SCHOOL TRIED IT
One well-timed hello. By week thirteen, a real relationship.
MidAmerica Nazarene University · one academic term
One term of this, run entirely on public sources, with every note sent by their own staff.
- 175
- graduates found at a real career moment
- 36%
- of them reached and connected with
- 81%
- of those contacted wrote back
- 54%
- said yes when later asked to volunteer
One of those 175 was a graduate named Wes. MNU wrote to him at 9:44 one morning about a moment in his career. He replied twenty minutes later, having already filled out the volunteer form. Inside six weeks he had taught a class, sat on a career panel, joined an advisory council, and given a five-figure gift — without anyone ever asking him for a cent.
An 81% reply rate isn't a better subject line. It's what happens when a note is about something that actually just happened to the person reading it.
04 THREE WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
Pick by how much you want off your plate.
Everyone starts the same way: a free sample list of your own graduates, so you can see the work before you decide anything.
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Under 50,000 alumni
The Friday Brief
One email every Friday: everyone we found that week, with a note written for each. The top few are flagged, in case the week got away from you.
From $299/moYou send the notes
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Any size
Intelligence Workspace
We do the finding, in a much wider search that includes the past year. Your team writes the notes, in a workspace built for it.
From $6,000 a yearYou write and send
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Any size
Always-On Activation
We do the finding and the writing, and put each note in front of the right person on your team, sorted by school, degree, and class year.
From $1,000/moYou send the notes
05 STRAIGHT ANSWERS
The questions everyone asks first.
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An email, on a schedule you pick. Inside it: a list of your graduates who just had something happen — a promotion, a new job, a move, an award — with a sentence on why each one matters and a short note already written for you to send. Depending on the size of your school that might be five people a week or fifty. You skim it, send the ones you want, and ignore the rest.
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No, and that's deliberate. No list, no data-sharing agreement, no IT ticket. We work only from information your graduates published about themselves. The tradeoff is that you confirm each person we find is really your alum — we can't check against a file we don't have.
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The same way a very diligent staff member would, at a scale no person can keep up with: professional profiles, career-move listings, local news, and press releases, filtered to your school and checked on a regular schedule. We find roughly three out of four of your living alumni.
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Fair question, and the answer is in what we do with it rather than where it came from. Everything we see is something the person published about themselves, on purpose, to be seen. Nothing is guessed at, scored, or bought from a data broker.
And restraint is built in: the graduate who just got laid off doesn't get a solicitation. They get help. A system that couldn't tell the difference would be the thing to worry about.
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Wealth screening tells you who can give. This tells you who's reachable right now, and gives you a reason to write that has nothing to do with money. You'll still want the first one. This is the part that comes before it.
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We write them to match how your team already writes, and you read every one before it goes anywhere. When a note is wrong, you don't send it — and you tell us, and the next batch is better. Nobody at your school ever sends a sentence they didn't approve.
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Then start at $299 a month. One email every Friday, everyone we found that week, the top few flagged in case the week got away from you, and the notes already written. It was built for the office where the alumni director is also the events director.
I'm not a charismatic closer. I'm a practitioner who builds systems. This is the system.
WHO’S BEHIND THIS
I led alumni engagement at Ohio University and the University of Oregon, alumni programming at Ohio State, and advancement at Western Governors. I know the pressure to hit the number, and I know what it costs when the only time alumni hear from you is when you need something.
I also know what it looks like when it goes right — when someone hears from their school at exactly the moment it matters and remembers they belong to something. I built this for teams who don't have twenty people to do it by hand.
Software hands a maxed-out team one more thing to operate. I hand them finished work. The difference is the difference between a gym membership and someone getting you in shape.
Erin Essak Kopp
Founder, Spark Plug
See what you're missing.
START FREE
We'll build you a free sample list from your own graduates — real people, real career news, with the notes already written. Yours to keep and send, whether or not you ever pay us a dollar.
We don't need your database. There's no call first.