This is a guest post by Gretchen Dobson, EdD, Vice President of International Alumni & Graduate Services and Managing Director, Australia at Academic Assembly.
Is your institution making the most of your international alumni network?
How do your efforts stack up to those of your peers?
These are the questions we are asking this month through a new survey in the hopes of establishing a nationwide benchmark of best practice in international alumni relations management.
We all want to find complex problems to have simple solutions.
When alumni relations and career services offices go shopping for digital platforms—or try to implement other new initiatives—they tend to try just that.
Alumni engagement, alumni networking, helping new grads find the right career—these are all complex issues that platforms can help solve but can't solve on their own.
Software can be a part of your strategy, but it will never be a strategy.
Career Services and Advancement offices have traditionally been separate, neither working together nor reporting to the same leaders. That makes sense, at first glance—what on earth do student services and fundraising have to do with one another?
Well, actually, a lot. That's why some institutions are taking a new tack. These schools recognize that their role in producing positive career outcomes has a major effect on alumni giving down the road. Prosperous alumni are grateful alumni.
This guest post was written by Victoria Barthram, a Senior Consultant of Graham-Pelton Consulting, a leading global fundraising and non-profit management firm.
A range of global changes and challenges mean that our leaders have an increased expectation that every institution should be implementing and investing in a comprehensive international engagement strategy, regardless of their team size, budget, and resources.
This is not only understandable, but also admirable – education has a powerful role to play in reaffirming the core values of our global society, and it is right that our leaders are looking for ways to step up and play their part. In fact, I have often referred to international advancement professionals as the ‘diplomatic corps’ of their institutions, with successful fundraising having a direct impact on advancing the mission, ethos, and vision that define our Schools and Colleges.
As advancement offices work to boost their young alumni giving rates, many are investing in efforts to increase student giving first. Senior class gifts are a natural way to introduce students to philanthropy and build affinity for their alma mater at the same time, but senior gift programs aren't always easy to pull off.
Hamilton College has found a way to make it work. The college's senior gift program has generated over 90% senior class giving rates for decades—and that giving rate doesn't drop off much for years after those seniors graduate.
We asked Hamilton's Assistant Director Annual Giving, Angela Suppa, to explain how they do it.
Events are the staple of alumni relations, and for good reason. Reunions, regional gatherings, and chapter parties are excellent ways for alumni to reconnect with each other and their alma mater (and enjoy themselves, to boot).
This reunions season, it's important to think about all the other times in alumni's life when they aren't engaged with their alma mater but could be. Improving alumni engagement doesn't mean infiltrating every nook and cranny of their lives or demanding that they become superfans always decked out in school regalia. Nor does it mean cramming the calendar with even more events.
Consistent and meaningful alumni engagement can begin with events—but it cannot end there. What alumni relations needs is a strategy that includes events, but builds on them: an "events-plus" model.
