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.
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.
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.
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're excited to share our first partnership with a school overseas—The American School in London. The K-12 school is internationally recognized, and with about 1,300 students and 13,000 alumni, its community is the size of a small college's.
Hundreds of those alumni are already using the ASL Switchboard to exchange advice and opportunities.
We asked ASL's Director of Online Communications Liz Allen to shared why she and her team chose Switchboard and how they're using it now.
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.
