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5 ways to make your alumni program more accessible to all your alumni
Engaging alumni has been a critical part of your alumni programming but, the bigger question here is - how many of these initiatives are truly accessible to every single one of your alums?
Traditional alumni engagement initiatives include organizing local mixers, career networking events, and workshops on campus but 2020 has put an end to all of these in-person activities. While these initiatives will continue to be an integral part of your alumni program in the longer run, the one downside that has become evident in these past few months is that they’re not accessible to everyone.
If your programming involves quarterly class reunions on campus or Friday night happy hours at a nearby club, alumni who live far away are most likely to miss out. Also, some of your busier alumni might not have enough time to come to your in-person event and some may not see enough value in providing their services as a mentor. Various factors such as location, time, and the right value are crucial in defining how accessible your alumni programming is.
As advancement teams increasingly need to think out of the box in order to penetrate wider segments of alumni, institutions have found the perfect way to make their alumni programming more accessible to everyone - On-Demand Alumni Programs. On-demand alumni programs are services that any alum can access from anywhere, ideally anytime they want.
As 2020 throws one curveball after another, here’s a closer look at how your peers are fighting these challenges by implementing on-demand alumni programs.
1. Virtual Events
Events have and will always be at the forefront of your alumni programming. However, the pandemic has completely transformed the way alumni events are now being hosted. An increasing number of institutions are choosing to include virtual events in their alumni programming owing to strict social distancing measures in place.
Virtual events allow more flexibility and that’s also a major reason behind this format seeing a huge traction over the last few months. As your alumni mostly stay confined to their homes, time and location are no longer a constraint when it comes to participation. Moreover, events like social mixers and happy hours hosted virtually are also helping institutions provide their alumni with some much-needed respite in the face of rising anxiety and stress due to isolation.
2. Career support networks
Career support networks offer incredible opportunities for alumni and students to interact with one another, increasing the chances of students landing job offers, internships, and finding the right mentors. For your alumni community, a career support network acts as a great source for professional networking opportunities and helps alumni make valuable connections to further accelerate their careers.
With unemployment an ever-looming problem on the horizon for students and alumni alike, career support networks have become even more relevant in 2020. As alumni and students count on their peers and alma mater respectively to navigate the tough job market, career support networks should be a mainstay feature to your alumni programming in 2020.
While traditional job fairs or in-person networking sessions are currently on hold due to the pandemic, institutions have switched to the virtual format to host these events.
3. Alumni Business Directory
Alumni business directories are a great way to empower businesses owned by your community members. These directories are perfect for showcasing your solidarity with budding entrepreneurs in your community and help uplift their efforts by leveraging the power of your alumni network. Not only do these networks help promote local alumni businesses, they’re also super helpful in building avenues for collaboration between alumni business owners.
According to data from Yelp, a platform used widely by local businesses to advertise their services in the US, nearly 66,000 businesses have folded since March 1. Researchers at Harvard believe that the rates of business closures across various markets are likely to be even higher. (Information source: The New York Times)
If the above data is to be believed, investing in an online alumni business directory for your alumni may no longer be an option but a necessity in 2020.
4. Continued learning programs
If your institution believes in providing value to alumni and foster lasting relationships, you have to find ways beyond the traditional. Continued learning programs are a great way to ensure that your alumni stay actively engaged with you long after they’ve left campus.
While you may already have monthly guest lecture programs or seminars where your notable alumni come to campus and share their experiences with invited community members, just imagine the impact of doing all of this virtually. If you share the same resources in an educational webinar, podcast, or video format and live-stream it, or just publish it on your alumni website, your alumni community will be able to access all this information anytime they want, at their own convenience. More importantly, they can always come back to these resources and even re-share them with their own networks, helping you tap into a wider network of alumni.
The best way to identify what learning resources your alumni find valuable is by asking them. You could start by conducting a short survey to gauge their interest in different topics ranging from professional to personal development.
Take inspiration from Fielding Graduate University’s Alumni Association that did a phenomenal job of providing on-demand learning resources to their alumni community in the form of webinars, virtual workshops, and learning guides amidst COVID-19. Head over to Fielding Graduate University’s alumni website to learn more.
5. Online Mentoring Programs
From increasing meaningful engagement to facilitating professional development for your alumni and students, a mentoring program is a great addition to your alumni programming. While some of you might already have this in place, how much of this is truly accessible for every single one of your constituents?
Do you have a mentoring program where your alumni have to visit your campus to talk to students or answer their questions, even if it is for a couple of days in a year? What if this process could be completely moved online adding more flexibility? Digitizing your mentoring program means increased flexibility for both alumni and students as they get to avail the benefits of this program right from their homes at their own convenience.
How to leverage your alumni network
Now that your alumni program is accessible and easy to engage for all your alumni, let’s look at some of the things you can do with it.
1. Alumni engagement and community building
Alumni programs readily lend themselves to alumni engagement strategies. Your emails, newsletters, social media posts, and online communities all combine to keep your alumni engaged while providing a sense of community. What sets an accessible alumni program apart is its ability to provide personalized, two-way communication channels that make alumni feel valued and, therefore, willing to support.
💡Check out how Almabase empowers your alumni relations efforts
2. Fundraising & Philanthropy
Alumni who are actively part of your program are more likely to have a personal connection and sense of loyalty. Nurturing these sentiments is a huge part of any institution’s fundraising strategy. An accessible alumni program should also help you nurture first-time donors and turn them into loyal supporters.
💡 Check out how we helped Boyd-Buchanan School turn alumni engagement into fundraising success.
3. Events & Reunions
Alumni programs provide a pool of well-nurtured contacts and probable volunteers for upcoming events such as your homecoming and reunions, among others. These programs become increasingly important for hosting affinity reunions or special events meant for a specific segment of alumni.
4. Mentorship and Career Services
Your alumni should be able to easily see opportunities to help your next wave of graduates, either by providing mentorships or sharing career opportunities. A well-functioning and accessible alumni program reinforces a sense of lifetime partnership between your institution and your alumni to motivate both alumni and current students to get involved.
5. Curriculum and academic involvement
Alumni are not only stakeholders and supporters but can also be organic partners in shaping your educational programs. Your alumni program could either invite feedback or have a formal structure through, say, an **alumni advisory board** for specific departments or courses. Thesis assistance, curriculum enrichment, and extracurricular assistance are some other avenues through which your alumni program can become a valuable pool of educational partners.
Conclusion
An accessible and well-run alumni program naturally develops into a long-term partnership with a body of loyal supporters and advisors who share a common educational and philanthropic goal with you.
Today, there are a lot of tools and platforms out there that will help you build that partnership and nurture it. If you’re looking for a platform that integrates with your CRM, springboards your engagement, and streamlines your fundraising goals, why not give Almabase a try? 👇
Engaging alumni has been a critical part of your alumni programming but, the bigger question here is - how many of these initiatives are truly accessible to every single one of your alums?
Traditional alumni engagement initiatives include organizing local mixers, career networking events, and workshops on campus but 2020 has put an end to all of these in-person activities. While these initiatives will continue to be an integral part of your alumni program in the longer run, the one downside that has become evident in these past few months is that they’re not accessible to everyone.
If your programming involves quarterly class reunions on campus or Friday night happy hours at a nearby club, alumni who live far away are most likely to miss out. Also, some of your busier alumni might not have enough time to come to your in-person event and some may not see enough value in providing their services as a mentor. Various factors such as location, time, and the right value are crucial in defining how accessible your alumni programming is.
As advancement teams increasingly need to think out of the box in order to penetrate wider segments of alumni, institutions have found the perfect way to make their alumni programming more accessible to everyone - On-Demand Alumni Programs. On-demand alumni programs are services that any alum can access from anywhere, ideally anytime they want.
As 2020 throws one curveball after another, here’s a closer look at how your peers are fighting these challenges by implementing on-demand alumni programs.
1. Virtual Events
Events have and will always be at the forefront of your alumni programming. However, the pandemic has completely transformed the way alumni events are now being hosted. An increasing number of institutions are choosing to include virtual events in their alumni programming owing to strict social distancing measures in place.
Virtual events allow more flexibility and that’s also a major reason behind this format seeing a huge traction over the last few months. As your alumni mostly stay confined to their homes, time and location are no longer a constraint when it comes to participation. Moreover, events like social mixers and happy hours hosted virtually are also helping institutions provide their alumni with some much-needed respite in the face of rising anxiety and stress due to isolation.
2. Career support networks
Career support networks offer incredible opportunities for alumni and students to interact with one another, increasing the chances of students landing job offers, internships, and finding the right mentors. For your alumni community, a career support network acts as a great source for professional networking opportunities and helps alumni make valuable connections to further accelerate their careers.
With unemployment an ever-looming problem on the horizon for students and alumni alike, career support networks have become even more relevant in 2020. As alumni and students count on their peers and alma mater respectively to navigate the tough job market, career support networks should be a mainstay feature to your alumni programming in 2020.
While traditional job fairs or in-person networking sessions are currently on hold due to the pandemic, institutions have switched to the virtual format to host these events.
3. Alumni Business Directory
Alumni business directories are a great way to empower businesses owned by your community members. These directories are perfect for showcasing your solidarity with budding entrepreneurs in your community and help uplift their efforts by leveraging the power of your alumni network. Not only do these networks help promote local alumni businesses, they’re also super helpful in building avenues for collaboration between alumni business owners.
According to data from Yelp, a platform used widely by local businesses to advertise their services in the US, nearly 66,000 businesses have folded since March 1. Researchers at Harvard believe that the rates of business closures across various markets are likely to be even higher. (Information source: The New York Times)
If the above data is to be believed, investing in an online alumni business directory for your alumni may no longer be an option but a necessity in 2020.
4. Continued learning programs
If your institution believes in providing value to alumni and foster lasting relationships, you have to find ways beyond the traditional. Continued learning programs are a great way to ensure that your alumni stay actively engaged with you long after they’ve left campus.
While you may already have monthly guest lecture programs or seminars where your notable alumni come to campus and share their experiences with invited community members, just imagine the impact of doing all of this virtually. If you share the same resources in an educational webinar, podcast, or video format and live-stream it, or just publish it on your alumni website, your alumni community will be able to access all this information anytime they want, at their own convenience. More importantly, they can always come back to these resources and even re-share them with their own networks, helping you tap into a wider network of alumni.
The best way to identify what learning resources your alumni find valuable is by asking them. You could start by conducting a short survey to gauge their interest in different topics ranging from professional to personal development.
Take inspiration from Fielding Graduate University’s Alumni Association that did a phenomenal job of providing on-demand learning resources to their alumni community in the form of webinars, virtual workshops, and learning guides amidst COVID-19. Head over to Fielding Graduate University’s alumni website to learn more.
5. Online Mentoring Programs
From increasing meaningful engagement to facilitating professional development for your alumni and students, a mentoring program is a great addition to your alumni programming. While some of you might already have this in place, how much of this is truly accessible for every single one of your constituents?
Do you have a mentoring program where your alumni have to visit your campus to talk to students or answer their questions, even if it is for a couple of days in a year? What if this process could be completely moved online adding more flexibility? Digitizing your mentoring program means increased flexibility for both alumni and students as they get to avail the benefits of this program right from their homes at their own convenience.
How to leverage your alumni network
Now that your alumni program is accessible and easy to engage for all your alumni, let’s look at some of the things you can do with it.
1. Alumni engagement and community building
Alumni programs readily lend themselves to alumni engagement strategies. Your emails, newsletters, social media posts, and online communities all combine to keep your alumni engaged while providing a sense of community. What sets an accessible alumni program apart is its ability to provide personalized, two-way communication channels that make alumni feel valued and, therefore, willing to support.
💡Check out how Almabase empowers your alumni relations efforts
2. Fundraising & Philanthropy
Alumni who are actively part of your program are more likely to have a personal connection and sense of loyalty. Nurturing these sentiments is a huge part of any institution’s fundraising strategy. An accessible alumni program should also help you nurture first-time donors and turn them into loyal supporters.
💡 Check out how we helped Boyd-Buchanan School turn alumni engagement into fundraising success.
3. Events & Reunions
Alumni programs provide a pool of well-nurtured contacts and probable volunteers for upcoming events such as your homecoming and reunions, among others. These programs become increasingly important for hosting affinity reunions or special events meant for a specific segment of alumni.
4. Mentorship and Career Services
Your alumni should be able to easily see opportunities to help your next wave of graduates, either by providing mentorships or sharing career opportunities. A well-functioning and accessible alumni program reinforces a sense of lifetime partnership between your institution and your alumni to motivate both alumni and current students to get involved.
5. Curriculum and academic involvement
Alumni are not only stakeholders and supporters but can also be organic partners in shaping your educational programs. Your alumni program could either invite feedback or have a formal structure through, say, an **alumni advisory board** for specific departments or courses. Thesis assistance, curriculum enrichment, and extracurricular assistance are some other avenues through which your alumni program can become a valuable pool of educational partners.
Conclusion
An accessible and well-run alumni program naturally develops into a long-term partnership with a body of loyal supporters and advisors who share a common educational and philanthropic goal with you.
Today, there are a lot of tools and platforms out there that will help you build that partnership and nurture it. If you’re looking for a platform that integrates with your CRM, springboards your engagement, and streamlines your fundraising goals, why not give Almabase a try? 👇
Blackbaud, the leading provider of software for powering social impact, and Almabase, the digital-first alumni engagement solution, have announced the expansion of their partnership to the education sectors of Canada and the United Kingdom. The partnership will provide institutions with a modern, digital-first solution to improve constituent data, drive self-serve engagement, and boost event participation.
A Unified Vision
The partnership aligns with Blackbaud’s commitment to customer-centric innovation across digital engagement, Advancement CRM, and financials.
“Partners bring integrated capabilities that extend capabilities and outcomes for Blackbaud customers. We are thrilled that Almabase’s offering, integrated with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® and leveraging Blackbaud’s best-in-class payment solution, Blackbaud Merchant Services™, is now available to even more of our customers around the world.”
- Liz Price, Sr. Director of Global Partners at Blackbaud
