Many regional events attract a handful of alumni; are devoid of institutional programming; have no donor component or post-event follow-up; and cost thousands in food, beverage, and travel. Other events are driven by alumni in largely social settings. The high-performing alumni relations office adds to the social component by bringing the university to its alumni in more meaningful ways through collaboration with academic units and other campus partners.
An institutional message is central to an effective alumni relations program; coordination with the development office ensures greater attendance; and post-event follow-up mines attendees for their potential to volunteer and give. This gives a greater sense of purpose to an external alumni programming strategy. Alumni offices do not exist on an island but instead should be positioned to advance the institution as a whole.
Alumni relations efforts across campus i. But how often, for instance, is the alumni magazine published with no input from… the alumni office? And tension often exists between alumni relations and development.
High-performing alumni relations offices work hand-in-hand with its advancement partners, each contributing to the success of the other. Of course, this requires a vice president that understands the strength of seamless collaboration among alumni relations, communications, and development particularly the annual fund but the result is a powerful and sustained advancement effort—and recognition of the importance of alumni engagement as an institutional asset.
The alumni relations profession has become increasingly vital to the success of the institution and requires the best talent, top to bottom. Having a private platform or site that allows alumni to connect to each other, share experiences, get careers support, and stay in the loop with what is happening on campus is also something of great value.
Once again, understanding what is important to your alumni is key, and using data to identify the needs and wants of your community is the best way of doing this. One of our clients, UWE Bristol, had great success building their alumni community through an Executive Education programme that blends face-to-face sessions with webinars and social events.
This added tremendous value, giving alumni access to life-long learning cutting edge research, and cross disciplinary networking opportunities. Your communication is only as effective as the quality of your data. Effective alumni programs invest in keeping contact information up to date.
Successful outreach is only possible with up to date contact information. It can be disheartening professionally as well as personally if your communications fall on deaf ears, or your initiatives do not work as well as you had hoped.
You need enough fuel to get where you want to go. Too much data, or the wrong type, will waste your resources. Maintaining an up-to-date database can be a challenge, especially if you do not have a system for regularly updating records. The first step is to ask for contact information from students before they graduate, and then get updates from alumni whenever possible, at events, over the phone, via email and so on.
If you have an online platform, Alumni can often update records themselves, or with advanced solutions like Aluminate , by syncronising profile information from social platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Top tip: Collect alternate email addresses from your alumni. DTU grew their database from to , and increased deliverability as their email solution blocks invalid addresses and will deliver to the alternative address. Sponsorship — Sports Sponsorship: Creates a sense of belonging, pride and brand.
Patronage — Sponsorship of alumni of excellence, because of their cultural relevance e. Sale of corporate merchandising. Efficient management of the Alumni Directory — the database data base with family profiles Project Escalate outgoing student profile. It is always convenient to communicate the resulting data and the improvement actions, not yet implemented, so that the former students clients internalize that they have not only been listened to but that we care about their opinion.
Relevant and free trainings for ex-students — Thematic networking e. This type of action also contributes to expanding your network of professional contacts — Business Database, Alumni Directory. Alumni Job Opportunities.
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