Nurturing Relationships Together

Engaging Supporters Through Meaningful Conversations

Who we are


CoAltus are an outsourced fundraising and communications agency founded in 2019 to support higher education institutions to improve their fundraising strategy, create meaningful interactions with Alumni, and bring telephone fundraising for the higher education sector into the 21st Century.

The four founders of CoAltus have strong backgrounds in the charity sector, managing the UK’s largest dedicated telephone fundraising organisation, and working together for the past five years to support and inform dialogue fundraising technique and strategy for a large number of household name charities in the UK and across the globe.

What we do


We run alumni engagement campaigns, consult on engagement strategy, and focus on telephone fundraising to engage prospective supporters in warm conversations with current staff or students.

CoAltus specialise in mass-scale engagement and the development of robust regular giving programmes designed to garner committed, long term relationships with donors and alumni.

Telephone Fundraising

Telephone fundraising is where we started, and it’s what we do best. Our mobile contact centre be set up on site or at fundraisers’ homes, and dedicated servers guarantee data security. 


With CoAltus, you get a team of award winning telephone fundraising experts managing your recruitment, training, compliance, data security, analysis and reporting, operations and feeding into long-term strategy. Alumni speak directly with a team of fundraisers recruited and employed by CoAltus from your current students, meaning our staff are experts on the student experience who have a personal connection with the institution. 


Our calls focus on high-quality, bidirectional conversations, allowing fundraisers to have meaningful discussions with potential donors,capture further information about their relationship with the institution and deliver competitive fundraising returns. 







Post-Call Communications with Sherpa

Our Sherpa system uses data collected during the call to produce bespokefollow-up communications for those we have spoken to. The system takes the most salient topics of conversation within in the call, and allows fundraisers to provide additional information on events, volunteering, and university news at the click of a button. This drastically reduces the amount of time fundraisers spend writing post call communications manually, and offers alumni a tailored letter, postcard, email (complete with tracking and reporting) or SMS from the student or staff member to whom they spoke at a drastically reduced cost to traditional approaches.














Shepherd

Shepherd gives you the opportunity to stop sending communications your recipient simply won’t read. This cuts the white noise of multiple mass communications, increasing engagement on correspondence that the alum is interested in, and reducing internal resource, fulfilment and postage costs. 


In essence, Shepherd is a tool for you to communicate with your alumni based on their interests, leading to a unique supporter journey for each individual. With it, we aim to revolutionise the way in which universities communicate with their alumni, and encourage an ongoing dialogue between an alum and their institution. The end result is alumni engaging regularly with an individual, tailored, multi-channel journey based not just on their interests, but on projects and fundraising propositions that we know they’re likely to engage with.









The CoAltus Concierge

The CoAltus Concierge system allows you to better engage with visitors to your website and social media channels, creating meaningful interactions, building the foundations of relationships with visitors and giving a further opportunity for interaction with alumni and potential donors. 


The Concierge system puts live chat into the digital spaces where visitors will engage you most – for example your development office web-page, or your alumni Facebook group. Your concierge will be on hand 24 hours a day to answer quick queries, signpost to further information on ways to deepen your relationship, and act as a filter to small-scale requests, allowing your development office to focus on conversations that require a complex response. 


We’re passionate about dialogue, and indeed about evidence-based decisions. Therefore, 100% of interactions on the Concierge service are delivered by a human employed by CoAltus. 






SMS

SMS is a fundamental part of a multi-channel engagement journey, allowing us to quickly deliver follow-up links from other channels (telephone, CoAltus Concierge) and ensuring quick engagement. 


Similarly, large-scale SMS broadcasts can be a useful tool in a fundraiser’s kit. Aside from the significantly higher open-rate when compared to email (some organisations report open rates in excess of 95%) and the vast numbers of users who exclusively use mobile to browse the web, we can use SMS to boost the number of meaningful interactions, using keywords to deliver alumni the exact information they choose to receive, within seconds of requesting it. 












Email

With response rates increasing across the charity sector, and with the potential afforded by more bespoke alumni communications through CoAltus, we’re anticipating a resurgence in the efficacy of email in the coming years. 


With experience of copy writing email communications delivered to six-figure audiences, skill with data analytics, and passion for long-term A/B testing strategies. CoAltus can manage entire creative processes alongside our design partners, assist in audience selection, and manage large-scale delivery and engagement reporting via our communications hub. 













Giving Days

Giving Days with CoAltus allows us to bring our expertise in mass communications with a focus on the individual to your university. Having managed over a hundred charity fundraising seats in the past, we thrive in a fast paced, fluid and dynamic environment.


CoAltus use our expertise and innovation across all of our services in supporting universities with Giving Days and one-off events. We harness the power of a range of communications to engage with friends of the university, giving them opportunities to support the institution financially, and delivering on traditional financial metrics as well as engagement targets and supporter experience.


Everyone’s requirement is different: that’s why our services are bespoke. Drop us an email to discuss how we can support you in your next Giving Day or one-off event. 








Telephone Fundraising

Telephone fundraising is where we started, and it’s what we do best. Our mobile contact centre be set up on site or at fundraisers’ homes, and dedicated servers guarantee data security. 

With CoAltus, you get a team of award winning telephone fundraising experts managing your recruitment, training, compliance, data security, analysis and reporting, operations and feeding into long-term strategy. Alumni speak directly with a team of fundraisers recruited and employed by CoAltus from your current students, meaning our staff are experts on the student experience who have a personal connection with the institution. 

Our calls focus on high-quality, bidirectional conversations, allowing fundraisers to have meaningful discussions with potential donors,capture further information about their relationship with the institution and deliver competitive fundraising returns.

Post-Call Communications with Sherpa

Our Sherpa system uses data collected during the call to produce bespokefollow-up communications for those we have spoken to.

The system takes the most salient topics of conversation within in the call, and allows fundraisers to provide additional information on events, volunteering, and university news at the click of a button. This drastically reduces the amount of time fundraisers spend writing post call communications manually, and offers alumni a tailored letter, postcard, email (complete with tracking and reporting) or SMS from the student or staff member to whom they spoke at a drastically reduced cost to traditional approaches.

Shepherd

Shepherd gives you the opportunity to stop sending communications your recipient simply won’t read. This cuts the white noise of multiple mass communications, increasing engagement on correspondence that the alum is interested in, and reducing internal resource, fulfilment and postage costs.

In essence, Shepherd is a tool for you to communicate with your alumni based on their interests, leading to a unique supporter journey for each individual. With it, we aim to revolutionise the way in which universities communicate with their alumni, and encourage an ongoing dialogue between an alum and their institution. The end result is alumni engaging regularly with an individual, tailored, multi-channel journey based not just on their interests, but on projects and fundraising propositions that we know they’re likely to engage with.

CoAltus Concierge

The CoAltus Concierge system allows you to better engage with visitors to your website and social media channels, creating meaningful interactions, building the foundations of relationships with visitors and giving a further opportunity for interaction with alumni and potential donors.

The Concierge system puts live chat into the digital spaces where visitors will engage you most – for example your development office web-page, or your alumni Facebook group. Your concierge will be on hand 24 hours a day to answer quick queries, signpost to further information on ways to deepen your relationship, and act as a filter to small-scale requests, allowing your development office to focus on conversations that require a complex response.

We’re passionate about dialogue, and indeed about evidence-based decisions. Therefore, 100% of interactions on the Concierge service are delivered by a human employed by CoAltus.

SMS

SMS is a fundamental part of a multi-channel engagement journey, allowing us to quickly deliver follow-up links from other channels (telephone, CoAltus Concierge) and ensuring quick engagement.

Similarly, large-scale SMS broadcasts can be a useful tool in a fundraiser’s kit. Aside from the significantly higher open-rate when compared to email (some organisations report open rates in excess of 95%) and the vast numbers of users who exclusively use mobile to browse the web, we can use SMS to boost the number of meaningful interactions, using keywords to deliver alumni the exact information they choose to receive, within seconds of requesting it.

Email

With response rates increasing across the charity sector, and with the potential afforded by more bespoke alumni communications through CoAltus, we’re anticipating a resurgence in the efficacy of email in the coming years.

With experience of copy writing email communications delivered to six-figure audiences, skill with data analytics, and passion for long-term A/B testing strategies. CoAltus can manage entire creative processes alongside our design partners, assist in audience selection, and manage large-scale delivery and engagement reporting via our communications hub.

Giving Days

Giving Day with CoAltus allows us to bring our expertise in mass communications with a focus on the individual to your university. Having managed over a hundred charity fundraising seats in the past, we thrive in a fast paced, fluid and dynamic environment.

CoAltus use our expertise and innovation across all of our services in supporting universities with Giving Days and one-off events. We harness the power of a range of communications to engage with friends of the university, giving them opportunities to support the institution financially, and delivering on traditional financial metrics as well as engagement targets and supporter experience.

Everyone’s requirement is different: that’s why our services are bespoke. Drop us an email to discuss how we can support you in your next Giving Day or one-off event.

Why this approach?


With experience in-house in university development offices, charities, and outsourced fundraising suppliers, we believe that there’s still a way to go to find the balance between bespoke, engaging and informative conversations with Alumni and the economies of scale that are enjoyed by those with servicing the charity sector.

We have specifically designed a long-term, relationship fundraising model that does just this: develops alumni, their family, and friends of the university to become ambassadors, advocates and champions of the institution, with a mind to building long-term, stable regular giving income. With a focus on supporter experience, you’ll benefit from some of the most experienced specialists in the country working alongside you to increase alumni engagement, boost meaningful interactions, and develop long-term donors from your alumni base.

Educational philanthropy does not require the same approach as traditional telephone fundraising in the charity sector, and nor would it benefit from it. As we have seen for ourselves, the use of a traditional charity fundraising agency can lose the bespoke, natural feel of conversations with alumni, whilst inefficiencies at small-scale specialists can mean their services are expensive, and can fail to meet compliance criteria.

What we do has saved and changed lives around the world, and higher education is no different: whether funding vital research, improving campus facilities, or offering grants and bursaries, we’re incredibly proud to be able to contribute to leaving the world in a better place than we found it.

Our Team

Each member of our team brings a unique set of skills and expertise to our organization. 

Ben Smith

Chief Operations Officer
Co-Founder
Ben started his career in fundraising managing an in-house calling floor while completing his Master's degree. He progressed to head operational, creative, supporter experience, and client services teams, as well as serving as Joint Managing Director to the UK's largest telephone fundraising agency.

In just over a decade in the sector, Ben has led telephone fundraising's supporter experience focus following the Etherington Review, had a hand in campaigns winning National Fundraising Awards as a floor manager, copywriter and Client Services Director, and contributed to Institute of Fundraising guidance on using the telephone as an effective fundraising tool.

Jon Skeet

Chief Information Officer
Co-Founder
Jon is a passionate and experienced data professional having managed the IT, Data, Development, and Information Security functions at the UK’s largest telephone fundraising agency for close to 10 years. On being elected to the board, he also served as chair until accepting the position of Joint Managing Director.

In these positions, Jon has been responsible for implementing a robust information security programme, guiding the company through the introduction of GDPR, advising clients on lawful basis for processing, and developing the technical processes to support clients needs within the company’s operational framework.

Tom Madelin

Chief Finance Officer
Co-Founder
Tom is an experienced finance professional having held key roles in multiple fundraising agencies for 20 years.  He has worked with agencies both in the UK and internationally including specialist telephone agencies.

Tom is a Xero partner and certified advisor with a strong focus on business planning.

In a voluntary capacity, he is currently Treasurer and acting chair of the Tibet Relief Fund.

Jamie Powrie

Client Services Director
Founding Member
Jamie has spent most of his career in fundraising, specialising in innovation and strategy. With both in-house charity experience working at a leading  international NGO and as an Account Director at the UK’s largest telephone fundraising agency.

Jamie has consulted with some of the largest charities, universities and not-for-profits in the country to develop robust fundraising programmes that generate long-term ROIs.

Contact Us

We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a message using the form below, or email info@CoAltus.com. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

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