Alumni Engagement: It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint
It’s now almost the end of April and Universities/Colleges/Independent Schools are about to enter the busiest time of the year. Alumni officers are juggling graduation, updating student information, and end of year class gifts. Along with the other traditions your organization might honour.
I started my fundraising career working at an Independent School steeped in tradition. I still remember the long days and nights getting ready to ensure another event was executed flawlessly. I miss and don’t miss those days.
Alumni engagement is a term that is quickly tossed around but never truly embraced because of how challenging it is to track and quantify. That’s often because Alumni engagement is tough to truly quantify. But as a data person, I want to see a direct correlation between an output and an outcome.
Let's lay down some ground rules, alumni engagement is a long game. The seeds an alumni officer sows today will not fully bloom until many years from now. So let’s look at alumni engagement as blips on a radar and look at it like a journey.
What are some meaningful steps your alumni office can initiate today?
# 1 Alumni engagement occurs during the admission process.
Yes, you read that right. They are prospective students for a few months, current students for x number of years (4 years if you are a college, 14 years if you are a K-12 school) but you’re an alumnus for life. Therefore, alumni officers need to be part of the admissions process. You do not have to sit in on admission interviews. However, is “alumni” front and centre during campus visits? If not, now is a time to make a change. Being visible may include a giveaway in the tote bag to a prospective student, an email asking for their thoughts on their recent visit, or an email highlighting your alumni and organization.
# 2 Alumni Engagement means creating opportunities to connect in a meaningful way with your institution.
It means offering to connect new students with alumni and/or students in their area to meet. This recommendation checks multiple boxes in the overall alumni engagement checklist. First, it allows alumni an opportunity to volunteer without a lot of commitment. Second, it allows current students to demonstrate leadership through service and develop a deeper connection with Alumni Office. Therefore planting the seed of what the office does. Third, you have made a new student feel welcome. Building relationships and associations with your school is the cornerstone of alumni involvement (that is in your control). Coaches often do this with student-athletes as a way of integrating new players into a team.
# 3 Communicating regularly with alumni/students/parents
Each of your stakeholders will use different forms of communication. Your older alumni like the magazine or the newsletter they receive online. Current students and younger alumni want to know what you do on social media like TikTok and Snapchat. Parents want email or text messages. Create a calendar of communications. It’s not enough to set dates of when you will be posting/emailing/mailing, make certain your voice is the same. Your messaging should be consistent, regardless of the medium. Investing in a communication person or team is integral. The alumni office is the institution's voice so seek help from faculty and staff. Highlight the school play, team achievements, alumni to watch, etc.
#4 Track your work effort.
Remember the initiatives you start today will not bear fruit immediately. It will take some time to work out the kinks and obtain feedback. Track your efforts. Use your CRM or other tools to mark what you have done and what kind of progress or challenges you encounter. Not everything will work out. You do not know how things are going if you do not track and measure.
Conclusion
When it comes to engaging Alumni, it is important to start early, offer them value adds, communicate frequently, and track your progress. By doing these four things you ensure you have the best chance to make meaningful connections with your Alumni and that you know what works for your organization.
If you have some questions about building out Alumni engagement strategies, or how to track engagement over time, please reach out for a free consultation.
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Sentinel Consulting is a consulting firm that focuses on helping non-profits strengthen their operational efficiency. We speak the same language as our clients because we were all fundraisers at some point in our careers.