Mentoring programs for students and young alumni are increasingly popular in the higher education community, but they're not turning out to be all that we hope they are. Mentoring programs promise to tap into the inactive parts of our alumni networks to help students and young alumni advance their careers and engage older alumni at the same time. This promise isn't being realized.
Manufacturing Legibility: Measuring What Is Easy Is Not Measuring What Is Right
Flipping the Funnel: Engagement That Cultivates Giving in the Long Term
Cracks are showing in our traditional methods for engaging alumni. Alumni giving is down, fewer and fewer think their degrees were worth the cost, and they aren't giving for the same reasons. The fundraising landscape is changing, and so are public expectations of and perspectives on higher education.
In times of change like these, it's important that we examine—and challenge—our core assumptions.
So today we consider the funnel.
Is What We're Doing Working?: 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Calculating ROI
It's a simple question that every industry struggles to answer: Is what we're doing working?
As the public increasingly asks that question of institutions of higher education, those schools are turning to their offices and asking it in turn. We've all felt pressured to answer it, expected to, as if defining and measuring intangible ROI is easy.
But it isn't easy. Many offices aren't measuring their performance at all. Many of those that are are measuring the wrong things. And that makes impossible to answer the question.
Why Do We Treat Our New Alumni So Poorly?
Our relationships with new grads almost always start off on the wrong foot. They're frustrated with their student loan debt. They hate being asked to give to the annual fund. They give at low rates, don't think their degrees are worth the cost, and don't think their alma maters are doing enough to help them build their careers.
To better understand why alumni feel this way, what we can do about it, and what we stand to gain by improving, let's return to the moment they become alumni. When we walk through the experience of our alumni, starting with graduation, it becomes much more clear why they resent us—and what we can do to change that.
Managing Global Alumni Relations
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.