Switchboard Helps Antioch College Students and Alumni Connect Across Generations

Antioch College is a small liberal arts school in Yellow Springs, Ohio. They're a member of the Colleges that Change Lives, and the lives of their students aren't the only ones that they change. Just look at their motto: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." That determination to serve sets the Antioch community apart.

You can imagine why we're so thrilled to work with them.

For the past six months, the Antioch Switchboard has been helping students and alumni connect with one another and their alma mater. Antiochians have used Switchboard to connect about everything from Co-op opportunities to having breakfast together.

We talked to Matt Desjardins, former Director of Communications; Jonina Kelley, Assistant Director of Alumni Relations; and Tanya Couch, Career Communications Coordinator - Cooperative Education about how the Antioch community is using Switchboard. They love the Antioch Switchboard because it creates connections and opportunities that weren't possible before, and because it strengthens the relationship of students and alumni with Antioch itself.

Switchboard Becomes Partner of Alumni Career Services Network

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We're thrilled to announce that Switchboard is now an official corporate partner of the Alumni Career Services Network.

Since its formal founding in 2008, ACSN has connected and empowered alumni career services professionals across the country. As the changing higher ed landscape has placed increasing pressure on colleges and universities to generate positive career outcomes for their students and alumni, ACSN has been there to help make those outcomes possible.

We at Switchboard believe that integrating career services and alumni relations is not only an excellent way for higher ed institutions to build community, but also the best way to secure economic mobility for college graduates. ACSN has been at the forefront of this work for nearly a decade, and we're excited to be a part of that effort.

Members of Team Switchboard will be attending the annual ACSN conference this July in Forth Worth, Texas. If you're going to be there, shoot me an email to say hi! We'd love to catch up with you there.

 

Learn more about Switchboard's alumni networking platform.

How SMU Increased Its Alumni Volunteer Base by 500%

Managing volunteers can be time-consuming, but anyone who runs a successful volunteer program will tell you that the time spent is well worth it. A committed network of volunteers is an invaluable resource for any institution.

Southern Methodist University uses the metaphor of "barn raising" to define its volunteer strategy, and it recruits its volunteers with the promise of what they can accomplish together. SMU has used this strategy to increase its volunteer base by 500% since 2009.

The barn raising metaphor resonated with us so much that we had to talk to SMU about it. We caught up with SMU's Director of Annual and Alumni Giving Astria Smith after her CASE District IV conference presentation, "Barn Raising: What the Amish teach us about volunteer management."

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How Noble and Greenough School Uses Its Smallness to Its Advantage

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Anyone even tangentially involved in fundraising is familiar with this equation:

Donations = Total Population × Giving Rate

Lower giving rates and smaller populations beget smaller yields.

Small schools, be they colleges or independent schools, have to face the challenge of having a small total population every year. They learn to make the most out of what they have and develop strategies that prioritize depth over breadth.

Noble and Greenough School, familiarly known as Nobles, is one of those institutions. They've created a culture of philanthropy that allows them to be aggressive about asking for support, and they've devoted resources to nurturing individual relationships with their alumni. Their Graduate Affairs Office has also made alumni career services and networking a priority. By building a network on top of an already tightly knit community, Nobles is making its smallness work to its advantage.

We interviewed Greg Croak, Nobles' Director of Graduate Affairs, about Nobles' success.

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There’s No Such Thing as Platform Fatigue—There Are Only Bad Platforms

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When college and university offices consider launching a new platform or app for their communities, they’re often torn between the need to provide a service that their constituents want and the fear of paying for one more thing that nobody uses.

Too many offices have worked hard to launch a new website, service, or app for their students and alumni only to see nobody use it. We chalk it up to “platform fatigue,” the weariness we all feel when we have to sign up for another website with another account and remember another password. Members of our community, we think, already use so many platforms, websites, and apps that they don’t have room for one more. That’s why ours failed.

But I’m here to explain why platform fatigue is a myth and why platforms really fail: There’s no such thing as platform fatigue—there are only bad platforms.

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Why Nova Southeastern University Integrated Its Annual Fund and Alumni Relations

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It's not unusual for Alumni Relations and Annual Fund offices to work together, but not many are fully integrated. Nova Southeastern University is one of those exceptions.

We asked Jason Lyons, Associate Director of the Annual Fund, and Rachel M. Mojica, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, to tell us about their CASE District 3 presentation, "Excite, Engage, Evaluate! Alumni Relations and Annual Fund Collaboration." They explained why Nova decided to integrate its Annual Fund and Alumni Relations offices and how that change is paying off.

"It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are." —Wendell Berry