Case Study: Clemson University | Transforms Annual Endowment Reports with iFOLIO Digital PURLS
Executive Summary
Clemson University transformed its donor stewardship strategy by transitioning traditional annual endowment statements from paper into personalized digital reports with iFOLIO PURLs. Designed to streamline reporting and even handling benefactors contributing to multiple university funds, the digital report campaign delivered personalized messages, transparent financial data with interactive definitions, animated performance charts, and student impact storytelling.
Strategic Background & The Challenge
Managing relationships with high-net-worth alumni and supporters requires transparent, engaging, and personal communication. Historically, Clemson University delivered annual endowment reports through physical mailers, which are static PDFs.
However, advancement leadership faced key hurdles:
- Static Reports Lack Immersive Experience
- Multi-Fund Complexity: Donors supporting multiple endowments often received fragmented, multi-page paper mailings that were difficult to consolidate and navigate.
- Lack of Behavioral Visibility: Advancement teams had no tracking mechanism to confirm whether reports were received, opened, or read, or which impact stories resonated most.
The iFOLIO Digital Solution
To solve these challenges, Clemson University partnered with iFOLIO to create customized, digital PURLs, for every donor through a system that scales with automation.
Clemson University Donor Relations Goals:
- Provide a modern & digital-first experience to engage alumni & donors
- Obtain greater insight & reporting into end-user engagement
- Meet demands for process automation
- Utilize iFOLIO's Creative Team for best-in-class digital design
- Scale with a friendly partner
Digital PURLS
The Clemson 2025 Digital Endowment Reports were especially delightful.
Each PURL incorporated Clemson's 2025 Digital Design standards.
Personalized Leadership Stewardship
- Thank You Name personalization
- 2025 Statement of Activity Table - with scroll-over definitions
- Stories of Impact - Donors & Students
- Animated Charts on Endowment Growth & Payout by Purpose
- Animated Charts on Consolidated Endowment Performance compared to benchmarks and peers
- Fiercely Forward Letter & Thank You
Results
Major Donor Engagement Deep Dive ($1M+ Donors)
The tracking capability of iFOLIO PURLs provided Clemson's advancement team with granular behavioral data across major giving tiers:
Out of 147 targeted sends, Clemson achieved 71 opens (48.3% open rate) and 50 internal link clicks. Most notably, the platform revealed extraordinary engagement among major donors ($1M to $10M+ giving tiers), who logged up to 25 distinct visits and extended single-session view times of up to 40 minutes and 40 seconds
