Handwritten Mail for Schools, Alumni Relations & Advancement
Education and advancement teams use Handfelt to keep alumni and donor relationships warm with personalized handwritten notes — scaling stewardship through reunions, appeals, and peak giving season.
The challenge
Lifelong alumni and donor relationships are the foundation of advancement, but personalizing communication authentically at scale during peak seasons takes more time than most teams have.
How Handfelt helps
- Thank donors and steward major gifts
- Welcome new alumni and re-engage lapsed ones
- Reunion, annual fund, and giving-day outreach
- Personalize by class year, affiliation, or giving history
- Write in an advancement leader's own hand
Why handwritten mail works here
Recipients are consistently more moved by a handwritten note than senders expect (Kumar & Epley, Psychological Science, 2018).
Handwritten addressing raised the likelihood of a response by about 25% versus computer-printed labels (Edwards et al., Cochrane, 2023).
Direct mail is roughly 37 times more likely to get a response than email (ANA/DMA Response Rate Report, 2025).
Related
Want to see a sample in your own handwriting?