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Supabase Auth + SSOAI Mentor MatchingStripe Recurring Giving

Student & Alumni Portal Development

Authenticated Portals That Drive Alumni Giving

Custom student dashboards and alumni networks built on Supabase Auth with SSO, AI mentor matching, and Stripe-powered recurring giving.

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73%
Alumni Engagement Drop
Alumni lose connection within 5 years of graduation without a portal
SAML 2.0
SSO Protocol
Supabase Auth integrates with university IdP (Shibboleth, Okta, ADFS)
RLS
Data Security
Row-Level Security -- students see only their own data in Supabase
$25-80K
Build Cost
vs $50-200K/yr for proprietary alumni platforms
What Is a Student & Alumni Portal?

A student and alumni portal is an authenticated web application that connects directly to your university systems — SIS, CAS, Shibboleth — giving students secure access to grades, schedules, and campus services. Alumni get a searchable directory, career networking, event registration, and donation tools. Built on Supabase with Row-Level Security, each user sees only their own data. Alumni profiles stay Google-indexable, so they generate real organic traffic instead of sitting in a database nobody visits.

Your Current Site May Be a Liability

Common gaps we find in nearly every audit.

Alumni engagement falls off a cliff after graduation
Risk: Advancement offices end up losing recurring donors and mentorship pipelines worth millions every year.
Student data is scattered across SIS, LMS, email, and paper systems
Risk: Students miss financial aid deadlines, hit course conflicts, and never see emergency alerts until it's too late.
Alumni directories live in static PDFs or databases that haven't been touched in years
Risk: 50,000+ alumni profiles generate zero organic search traffic or networking value.
Giving pages are generic donation forms with no context about impact
Risk: Donors drop off because they can't see where their money actually goes — conversion rates stay below 2%.
SSO integration with SAML 2.0, CAS, or Shibboleth is genuinely hard
Risk: Students abandon portals the moment they're asked to create yet another set of credentials.
There's no way to match alumni mentors with current students at any real scale
Risk: Programs stay manual — serving 50 students instead of 5,000.

How We Build This Right

Every safeguard, built in from Day 1.

SAML 2.0 / CAS / Shibboleth SSO

Authentication delegates to your university identity provider. Students and alumni log in with credentials they already have — no new passwords, no extra steps.

Row-Level Security (RLS)

PostgreSQL policies make sure each student sees only their own grades, financial aid, and schedule. Alumni control profile visibility with granular privacy flags.

AI Mentor Matching via Claude

Students describe their career goals. Claude analyzes the alumni directory and recommends 5 mentors with relevant industry experience. Automated introduction emails go out from there.

Stripe Recurring Giving

Impact-tiered donations show exactly what each gift funds: $25/month covers meal access, $100/month funds a scholarship, $500/month endows research. Matching gift integration and year-end tax receipts are included.

Indexable Alumni Directory

All 50,000 alumni profiles get their own Google-indexable page. Search for "[Name] [University] alumni" and the platform shows up.

Real-Time Event Management

Reunion registration, ticket sales via Stripe, RSVPs, and virtual event links. Class-year reunions auto-trigger at 5, 10, and 25-year milestones based on graduation date.

What We Build

Purpose-built features for your industry.

Student Dashboard

Course schedule viewer, grades, financial aid status, campus directory, dining menus, library hours, and emergency alerts — all pulled from your SIS via API.

Alumni Directory (NAS Pattern)

Search by graduation year, program, location, industry, or company across 50,000+ individually indexable profile pages built for organic reach.

AI-Powered Career Networking

Claude-powered mentor matching analyzes student goals against alumni expertise, ranks recommendations, and sends automated introduction emails.

Impact-Tiered Giving Platform

Stripe recurring donations with clear impact messaging, annual campaign support, matching gift lookups, and automated year-end tax receipt generation.

Event & Reunion Management

RSVP tracking, Stripe ticket sales, virtual event integration, and automated class-year reunion triggers calculated from graduation dates.

Personalized Alumni News Feed

Topic-tagged university updates — department news, sports results, research announcements — filtered by each alumnus's interests and program history.

Built on a Modern, Secure Stack

Next.jsSupabaseSupabase AuthPostgreSQLStripeClaude APIVercelSAML 2.0Shibboleth

Our Development Process

From discovery to launch. Quality at every step.

01

Discovery & SSO Mapping

Week 1-2

We audit your SIS, identity provider (SAML/CAS/Shibboleth), and alumni database. We map data flows, define user roles, and plan RLS policies for both student and alumni access.

02

Auth & Data Architecture

Week 3-5

We stand up Supabase with SSO delegation, configure Row-Level Security policies, and build API integrations with your SIS for course, grade, and financial aid data.

03

Portal UI & Feature Build

Week 6-10

We build the student dashboard, alumni directory with search and filtering, giving flows with Stripe, event management, and AI mentor matching via the Claude API.

04

Data Migration & Alumni Import

Week 11-12

We import alumni records, map profile fields, generate indexable pages, and validate search functionality across 50,000+ profiles. Mentor matching data gets seeded at this stage.

05

Launch & Advancement Integration

Week 13-14

We deploy to production, connect your CRM for advancement office reporting, train staff on admin tools, and monitor giving conversion funnels. Includes 30 days of post-launch support.

Social Animal

Ready to discuss your student & alumni portal development project?

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Student & Alumni Portals from $25,000

Fixed-fee. Student portal from $15K. Full portal with AI matching from $40K. 30-day post-launch support. See all packages →

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Frequently Asked Questions

Supabase Auth supports SAML 2.0 natively for SSO delegation. For CAS and Shibboleth, we build a lightweight auth middleware that translates protocol responses into Supabase JWTs. Students authenticate through your existing identity provider — no new credentials. The JWT carries role claims that trigger Row-Level Security policies in PostgreSQL.
Students fill out a profile describing their career goals, interests, and target industries. Claude analyzes this against the alumni directory — factoring in graduation program, current role, industry, and location — and returns 5 ranked mentor recommendations with relevance explanations. If the student requests an introduction, the system sends a personalized email to the alumnus with context on why the match makes sense.
Yes. Each alumni profile gets a unique URL with structured data markup, proper meta tags, and server-side rendering via Next.js. Google crawls and indexes them individually. When someone searches "[Name] [University] alumni," that profile ranks. Alumni who want more privacy can opt out of public indexing while still appearing inside the authenticated directory.
PostgreSQL RLS policies run at the database level — not the application layer. Every query is filtered by the authenticated user's JWT. A student querying grades only gets their own records back. An alumni member only sees profiles where the owner has enabled visibility. Even if there's an API misconfiguration, the database itself enforces the access boundaries.
We build impact-tiered recurring donation flows where each tier shows exactly what the gift funds. Stripe handles PCI compliance, recurring billing, and payment methods. We add matching gift employer lookups, annual giving campaign pages with progress bars, and automated year-end tax receipt emails with full donation summaries. The advancement office gets a dashboard showing giving trends and donor retention over time.
Absolutely. We build webhook-based integrations that sync donor records, event registrations, and mentoring activity to your CRM in real time. For Salesforce, we use the REST API. For Blackbaud, we use their SKY API. Alumni profile updates, giving transactions, and engagement metrics flow directly into your advancement team's existing workflows — no manual data entry required.
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