WHY SPARK PLUG EXISTS

I'm not a data vendor who discovered higher ed. I'm the practitioner who lived this problem for 20 years.

For two decades I led alumni engagement and annual giving at Ohio University, Ohio State, Western Governors, and the University of Oregon. I know the two-person team. I know the database that only tells you what someone did years ago. I know the milestone you find out about three months too late, and the note you never had the hours to send.

I built Spark Plug because the tool I needed in that seat didn't exist: not another platform to operate, but the capacity to act on what's happening in my alumni's lives right now. Everything we do comes from one conviction I never stopped believing as a practitioner — institutions earn loyalty by showing up before they need something. Most can't, because they can't see their alumni in their current lives. We fix the seeing, and then we do the showing-up.

ERIN ESSAK KOPP — FOUNDER & CEO, SPARK PLUG