Publish date:

• 1st July, 2025

University alums play a vital role in helping their schools grow and succeed. They act as ambassadors by promoting their school, supporting students in their careers, and raising the school's profile.

However, how can universities connect with alumni worldwide when they have limited communication options? They need a CRM.

Salesforce for universities addresses the challenges that schools face and streamlines communication, fostering a more connected experience for everyone involved.

In this article, we’ll explain how Salesforce helps universities build strong, lasting relationships with alums. We’ll also discuss why Salesforce is the best platform for engaging with alumni.

Salesforce is one of the best CRM tools for higher education for several reasons. First, Salesforce for universities helps colleges manage their relationships and interactions to improve those connections.

Secondly, Salesforce in higher education has several solutions, such as:

• Salesforce Education Cloud for Higher Ed is a platform that helps colleges and universities manage their relationships with prospects, students, alumni, and donors.

• Salesforce EDA (Education Data Architecture) is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed specifically for education at all levels. EDA serves as the main structure for the Salesforce Education Cloud.

• Salesforce HEDA (Higher Education Data Architecture) is a framework specifically designed for the higher education sector. It helps schools understand and manage the connections between alumni, the school, and outside organizations.

What Is Salesforce Education Cloud?

Salesforce Education Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool designed for schools and educational institutions. It consolidates data about prospective and current students in one location. The platform features a data model centered on education, enabling users to develop applications that support the entire learning journey. It helps manage various stakeholders and simplifies operations to serve students, faculty, and alumni better.

Here are some key benefits of Salesforce Education Cloud that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of educational institutions:

Want to implement Salesforce Education Cloud into your CRM? Contact our experts for details.

Organizations that Benefit from Salesforce in Higher Education

Salesforce improves student experiences and boosts alum engagement. Salesforce for Education provides solutions tailored to address the distinct challenges encountered by universities, vocational schools, and corporate training departments.

Universities and Colleges

Universities and colleges often struggle to manage large amounts of student data and maintain alumni engagement. Salesforce for universities helps streamline these processes and enhance communication.

• Centralized storage of student records, admissions, and engagements;

• Powerful CRM tools to foster long-term alumni relationships and boost fundraising efforts.

Vocational and Technical Schools

Universities and colleges often struggle to manage large amounts of student data and maintain alumni engagement. Salesforce for universities helps streamline these processes and enhance communication.

With Salesforce Education Cloud, schools can streamline their processes. They can utilize specialized tools to track student progress and foster stronger connections with industry partners. It will lead to better student success and improved collaboration.

Corporate Training Departments

Corporate training departments require straightforward methods to monitor employee development and ensure they meet industry standards. Salesforce can help with this.

Manage and track training programs to improve employee productivity;
Automate compliance tracking and reporting to meet industry regulations.

K-12 Schools

K-12 schools need to keep parents, students, and teachers connected while also tracking student performance. Salesforce for education provides solutions that:

• Make it easy for parents and students to access academic information. It helps them stay connected with teachers and the school community.

• Track student performance in real-time, enabling educators to provide timely support.

Nonprofit Educational Programs

Nonprofit educational programs often struggle to manage donor relationships and track program outcomes. Salesforce provides help:
Efficiently manage donor records and generate reports for stakeholders;

Monitor program participation and outcomes for better decision-making.

Salesforce for education is a helpful tool for all types of organizations, including universities and nonprofits. It helps them tackle common challenges. By leveraging Salesforce in higher education, schools can consolidate their data, foster stronger relationships, and achieve lasting success.

Top Benefits of Salesforce for Universities

Let’s explore the key benefits Salesforce brings to higher education:

Benefit #1. Unified, industry-oriented CRM

Salesforce's higher education CRM solutions offer a straightforward approach to digitizing and automating key processes in higher education. These tools are specifically designed for use on campus and have been proven effective.

Benefit #2. Effective tool for fundraising

A recent study by Forrester found that Salesforce for higher education helped improve relationships with alumni, enabled record-breaking fundraising efforts, and resulted in $2.4 million in cost savings associated with outdated systems.

Salesforce for universities streamlines the management of large-scale fundraising and stewardship campaigns across multiple channels.

Several innovative colleges and universities, including USC, Stanford, Purdue, Rutgers, Michigan State, UPenn, and Notre Dame, have begun using the Salesforce platform. They have updated their fundraising efforts, improved their engagement with people, and utilized AI for research and reporting. It helps them make better decisions and measure their return on investment quickly.

Benefit #3. Customizable to all your needs

Salesforce offers many solutions for higher education that are ready to use. With help from Salesforce consultants, you can customize your CRM to meet your institution’s changing needs. Salesforce comes with pre-set objects and workflows and uses a unique system called Education Data Architecture (EDA). It enables Salesforce to manage various tasks crucial for colleges and universities.

How SF Helps Universities to Maintain Relationships with Alumni

The primary goal of implementing Salesforce CRM in higher education is to create a connected campus framework that unlocks a multitude of opportunities for all participants in university life.

Salesforce is an alumni management platform that helps reduce routine administrative tasks. It makes managing donations, events, and mentoring programs easier. It allows you to spend more time focusing on what matters—your alumni!

So, how does Salesforce help universities to maintain relationships with alumni?

Streamlines Operations

Salesforce for universities is an excellent tool for researching and reporting on potential donors. It makes entering gifts easier with the Gift Entry Manager (GEM) and helps measure the effectiveness of campaigns and their return on investment. It also offers tools for predictive analysis. By streamlining their operations, the University of Michigan Alumni Association cut their membership acquisition costs by 50%.

Creates Personalized Engagement

Universities use Salesforce Marketing Cloud to connect with alumni through various communication features. It helps them create personalized engagement campaigns on social media and in online communities.

One of the best features of Marketing Cloud is its ability to create content for different alumni groups. For example, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) effectively targeted specific alumni groups and achieved four times its goal for reunion event registrations.

Transforms Alumni Online Engagement

Salesforce offers a tool called Community Cloud, designed explicitly for universities. This tool helps universities connect with alumni online at any time. Community Cloud improves online engagement in two main ways: 

1. It enables universities to share approved data and information with alumni through dedicated portals.

2. It helps alumni connect with their institutions.

How Universities Use Salesforce as Alumni Engagement Platform

First, universities utilize Salesforce to foster and enhance their relationships with students and other stakeholders.

Second, universities use Salesforce to reduce routine administrative tasks. For example:

• donations and fundraising management;

• building of alumni-centric programs;

• Updating alumni contact information;

• creating lists of students and alumni;

• creating marketing campaigns for the upcoming Homecoming weekend;

• Manage alumni connections with Relationships and Affiliations inside a CRM;

• mentoring volunteer programs;

• building personal relationships with alums;

• Engage various faculty and university executive leadership in events and communication processes when appropriate, which also affects the high grades of university students.

After automating all the tasks listed above, you allow Salesforce to enhance alumni engagement effectively.

Possible Issues with SF Implementation

Implementing Salesforce requires a straightforward, step-by-step process. If mistakes happen, the CRM implementation can fail. Common problems include poor project planning, lack of a clear implementation strategy, and overlooking potential risks.

A complete list of issues that can fail looks like this:

• No clear CRM implementation plan and risk management strategy;

• Lack of understanding of your university needs;

• No definite vision of how to manage relationships with alumni;

• Hidden costs associated with CRM Implementation;

• Poor salesforce consultant’s choice;

• Lack of transparency and clear communication;

• Lack of technology integration and CRM testing;

• Poor or no user training;

• Poor CRM adoption.

To avoid the issues mentioned, it is crucial to hire a Salesforce implementation partner with experience in the higher education sector.

Higher education institutions today face increasing pressure to improve engagement, fundraising, enrollment, and student lifecycle management. Salesforce Education Cloud, when implemented the right way, offers powerful tools to address these needs — but to unlock its full potential, working with a certified Salesforce consulting partner like Codleo is essential.

How Codleo Helps Educational Institutions with Salesforce

To ensure Salesforce has a real impact, colleges and universities need a solution tailored to their specific workflows and challenges. Codleo’s certified Salesforce CRM consultants can help with this.

Here’s what we do:

• Review your current student management and internal processes.

• Suggest Salesforce solutions that fit your needs.

• Recommend the best Salesforce editions and Education Cloud features for you.

• Train your team to use, manage, and grow Salesforce with confidence.

• Evaluate and improve your existing CRM setup to enhance user adoption and return on investment.

Whether you're starting a new project or enhancing your current system, our team provides comprehensive Salesforce setup and support for higher education institutions.

Our Higher Education Salesforce Services Include:

• New Salesforce Implementation — Full setup customized for educational workflows

• Re-implementation & Optimization — Fix or re-align old Salesforce setups for modern needs

• Lightning Migration — Move seamlessly from Classic to Lightning Experience

• Custom Student & Alumni Journeys — Journey Builder and automation for the whole student lifecycle

• Fundraising & Advancement Support — Use Salesforce to improve donor and alumni engagement

Why Codleo for Higher Ed Salesforce CRM?

• Over 10 years of Salesforce expertise with a focus on education, nonprofits, and enterprises

• 300+ successful Salesforce CRM projects delivered globally

• Deep experience with Education Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and custom integrations

• Dedicated teams in India, the USA, and Europe for efficient, affordable delivery

• Certified consultants trained to understand the complex needs of educational institutions

• Transparent approach with tailored consulting — not cookie-cutter packages

Whether you want to improve student enrollment, enhance alumni engagement, or streamline internal operations — Codleo is your trusted Salesforce implementation partner for higher education.

Talk to our Education Cloud experts today to explore a solution tailored to your university or college.