Alumni Relations & Advancement Software
The buyer population — Universities
Base industry report for 611310 →- Establishments · CanadaA
- 237
- Under 10 employeesA
- 14%
Of 237 Canadian establishments with employees, 14% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight. Each of those is one potential account, before any filter for size or fit.
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
One thing must be trueEntry turns on a single condition that can be named and tested before much is spent. Clear it and this becomes an execution question; fail it and no amount of operating skill helps.
Displace an incumbent the screen found well defended — payments attached to the workflow, data that does not leave, a contract that renews itself. Share here means giving a buyer a reason to break something that currently works, which is a higher bar than being better.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 9
The binding constraint — incumbent vulnerability
Alumni software sits between two records that are already on the atlas. The higher-ed SIS/LMS record (611310) covers the system that knows who graduated; the nonprofit-fundraising record (8132) covers the donor CRM that books the gift. Advancement is where they meet: the university's development office runs a nonprofit-style donor CRM, but its prospects are its own alumni, fed from the SIS. So the market splits into two layers. The system of record is the advancement CRM, and it is held by Blackbaud and Ellucian. Blackbaud sells Raiser's Edge NXT and Blackbaud CRM to universities and private schools out of the same $1.14B-revenue business recorded on 8132 [A, via that record]; Ellucian sells CRM Advance (Microsoft Dynamics/Power BI based) and its Banner and Colleague advancement modules alongside the SIS it already runs [C, vendor]. Salesforce Education Cloud is the third option. Gift history, pledges, endowment and scholarship accounting and decades of constituent records live here, and a switch is an SIS-scale project. The engagement layer — alumni community, directory, mentoring, events, giving days, video, donor signals — is where the startups went, and it has already been rolled up. Gravyty (K1 Investment Management) is Graduway's alumni community merged in December 2021 with Gravyty's AI fundraising tools, after K1 put about $60M into Graduway in 2019 and $21M into Gravyty in 2020 [B]; it now claims 2,750+ institutions [C]. EverTrue was combined with ThankView under a Rubicon Technology Partners majority investment in October 2021 and has since added Pledgemine, Fundriver and DonorSearch [B/C]. Anthology's alumni products (Encompass, the old iModules; Advance; Raise) went to Encoura in February 2026 after Anthology broke itself up [B/C]. Hivebrite, the best-funded independent (€18.5M Series A 2019, €35M Series B 2023 led by Quadrille Capital with Insight Partners [B]), is not an alumni company any more: only about 20% of its revenue comes from education [B, Maddyness]. Hivebrite was not acquired by EverTrue — it remains independent and itself bought Orbiit in 2024. Almabase is the counter-example: bootstrapped after about $500K of early angel and 500 Startups money, it sells an alumni engagement and giving layer that syncs to Raiser's Edge, Blackbaud CRM, Salesforce and Ellucian [C]. PeopleGrove ($1.8M seed and $4.7M Series A, both led by Reach Capital [B]) went toward student career mentoring and has merged with CORE's clinical-placement software. The wedge is narrow and occupied. Every engagement vendor already sells 'works on top of your Raiser's Edge', the buyer is a committee-led, academic-year procurement office (the distribution problem on the SIS record), and general-purpose donation tools like Givebutter ($50M from BVP Forge, 2024 [B]) set the floor for giving pages. Incumbent vulnerability decides it: the CRM layer is not vulnerable, and the layer above it is owned by three PE-backed roll-ups and a profitable bootstrapper.
Sectors joined: EdTech · Gaming/EdTech · Training/AI · EdTech AI · Arts Education · VR/AR Training
[UNVERIFIED] Sector-to-NAICS mapping is analyst judgment — see data/angel-sector-map.json. Counts are a per-record cross-reference and are not additive across records.
The incumbent
Who owns this market and who is coming for it. Fields a screen never reached say so rather than guessing.
Market size, derived
Built from the competitor set upward rather than quoted from a forecast. Published TAMs in these categories are frequently reverse-engineered from each other, so any published figure is checked against the vendor arithmetic rather than trusted on its own.
Disclosed revenue from 1 of 11 named vendors. The market is at least this large.
No vendor has both a disclosed revenue and a published share.
Only a revenue floor is known — the true market is larger by whatever the undisclosed vendors earn.
Competitor set · 11 named · 1 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| BlackbaudNASDAQ: BLKBA | $1.1B | — | TTM to 31 March 2026, all segments (nonprofit, education, corporate); higher-ed advancement not broken out [A, via 8132 record]. Markets Raiser's Edge NXT and Blackbaud CRM to universities as 'the leading software provider in the higher education area for fundraising' (customer quote on its own comparison page) [C] |
| EllucianC | not disclosed | — | Private. CRM Advance product page: advancement CRM with Power BI dashboards and Microsoft Copilot; customers named include Oregon State University Foundation, University of Denver, University of Idaho [C, vendor]. Bought Anthology's SIS/ERP business in the 2025-26 break-up [C, anthology.com] |
| Salesforce (Education Cloud)NYSE: CRMC | not disclosed | — | Education CRM sold to admissions and advancement; education revenue not disclosed |
| GravytyB | not disclosed | — | Graduway (London; $12.7M from Susquehanna Growth Equity, Dec 2017 [B, Calcalist]; K1 investment Aug 2019, $60M per K1's linked release [B]) merged with Gravyty (Boston; $21M from K1, Jan 2020 [B, EdSurge]) on 2021-12-06 [B, K1]. Now also Ivy.ai/Ocelot, Gratavid, Athlete Network, PeerPal; claims 2,750+ institutions [C, vendor] |
| EverTrueB | not disclosed | — | Boston. $23.5M raised by Sept 2017 (Series led by University Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures earlier) [B, company release]. Rubicon Technology Partners majority investment combined it with ThankView, Oct 2021: 2,000+ customers incl. 1,000+ universities, colleges and independent schools [C, release]. Products now include DonorSearch, Signal, ThankView, Pledgemine, Balance (Fundriver); claims 13,000+ fundraising teams [C, vendor] |
| EncouraC | not disclosed | — | Acquired Anthology's Lifecycle Engagement and Student Success portfolio (Reach, Engage, Raise, Encompass, Advance, Baseline) on 2026-02-02, terms undisclosed [C, Encoura release]. Encompass is the former iModules alumni platform, folded into Anthology in 2020 [B, EdSurge via search] |
| HivebriteB | not disclosed | — | Paris; founded 2015. €18.5M Series A (2019) and €35M (~$37M) Series B, Oct 2023, led by Quadrille Capital with Insight Partners [B, Maddyness, Built In]. Education about 20% of revenue, corporate 40%, associations/NGOs 40%; ~200 staff [B, Maddyness]. Claims 2,000+ organisations [C]. Independent — not acquired by EverTrue |
| AlmabaseC | not disclosed | — | Founded 2014; 500 Startups batch 19 (2016) [B, TechCrunch]. Otherwise bootstrapped; integrates with Raiser's Edge NXT, Blackbaud CRM, Salesforce and Ellucian [C, vendor]. Revenue figures seen only on aggregators, not used |
| PeopleGroveB | not disclosed | — | San Francisco. $1.8M seed (July 2017) and $4.7M Series A, both led by Reach Capital [B]. Now student and alumni engagement plus CORE clinical/experiential placements after combining with CORE [C, vendor] |
| 360AlumniC | not disclosed | — | Alumni engagement CRM and community platform (directory, map, mentoring, events, dues) [C, vendor]; private, no funding found |
| GivebutterB | not disclosed | — | Austin; general nonprofit fundraising and CRM, not alumni-specific. $50M led by BVP Forge with Ardent Venture Partners, April 2024; 35,000+ nonprofits [B, NonProfit Times]. The price floor for giving pages |
Evidence
Evidence. Market size and alumni-specific vendor revenue UNVERIFIED — no vendor breaks out higher-ed advancement revenue; Blackbaud's $1.14B is company-wide and carried from the 8132 record. Researched 2026-10-08. Opened at source: Built In NYC 2023-10-18 and Maddyness 2023-10-18 (Hivebrite Series B, prior €18.5M, revenue mix) [B]; hivebrite.io (2,000+ organisations, alumni product) [C]; K1 release 2019-08-07 (Graduway investment, $60M referenced) [B]; Calcalist 2017-12-06 (Graduway $12.7M, Susquehanna) [B]; EdSurge 2020-01-28 (Gravyty $21M, K1) [B]; k1.com Gravyty tag page (Graduway–Gravyty merger 2021-12-06) [B]; gravyty.com (2,750+ institutions, product list) [C]; evertrue.com 2017 release ($6M, University Ventures, $23.5M total) [B]; ThankView-hosted EverTrue/ThankView merger release (Rubicon majority, 2,000+ customers, 1,000+ education) [C]; evertrue.com homepage (DonorSearch, Pledgemine, Balance, 13,000+ teams) [C]; anthology.com (break-up: Ellucian took SIS/ERP, Encoura took Lifecycle Engagement, Blackboard emerged debt-free) [C]; Encoura release 2026-02-02 [C]; ellucian.com CRM Advance page [C]; blackbaud.com Blackbaud-vs-Ellucian page (vendor marketing) [C]; TechCrunch 2016-11-18 (Almabase in 500 Startups batch 19) [B]; almabase.com (integrations) [C]; Higher Ed Dive release 2017-07-12 (PeopleGrove $1.8M seed) [B]; 1worktech copy of PeopleGrove Series A ($4.7M, Reach Capital) [B-]; peoplegrove.com (CORE combination) [C]; NonProfit Times 2024-04-24 (Givebutter $50M) [B]; 360alumni.com [C]. Not used: EDUCAUSE 2016 advancement market-share figures (page returned 403; a search summary quoted Raiser's Edge 41%, Ellucian Banner Advancement 17%, Advance 14%, Colleague 7% — unopened, ten years old); ListEdTech CRM share post (figures only in images); Almabase revenue and funding totals (getlatka, aggregators); the EverTrue–DonorSearch deal date (Sept 2025, from search summaries; nonprofitpro.com redirected). Ellucian ownership (Blackstone/Vista) carried from the 611310 SIS/LMS record. Verify before acting.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
Blocked automated access (Cloudflare). The global association for alumni relations, fundraising and advancement services at universities and schools; runs the CASE Summit and district conferences.
Canadian advancement association for alumni, fundraising and communications staff; member community (Connexion), National Conference, CASE Insights on Philanthropy (Canada) survey.
Call for proposals for the 2027 national conference, posted 2026-09-01.
Association of prospect development professionals — the researchers who buy DonorSearch-style wealth and affinity data; runs Prospect Development 2027.
Higher-education trade news with finance, closures and mergers coverage and a press-release section where advancement vendors announce rounds.
CASE and EDUCAUSE (educause.edu) returned Cloudflare challenges; EDUCAUSE is left out as it belongs to the SIS/LMS record's buyer. aasp.org (advancement services professionals) did not respond.
The businesses it sells to
Operating-business records filed along the same branch of NAICS — the customers of this software, screened as businesses in their own right.
No operating-business record has been written along this branch yet. The base industry report says what the subsector typically runs on.