The results from the Impactrics Assessment are in: successful alumni organizations offer alumni and students networking opportunities, career support, and mentoring programs. The good news is that it is easier than ever to provide these services with one of many software products now on the market. Having just added @Tassl and @Alumnifire, there are now…
September 11, 2017
Kathy Edersheim
More and more we hear the question: What makes a three- or four-year college education costing tens of thousands of dollars worthwhile – preparing students for a career or providing an opportunity to explore new ideas and learn how to think? At first, the answer seems to be that education must serve both these purposes…
Networking and connecting are at the heart of alumni relations. Every school should have an on-line platform to keep its alumni connected to each other and to the school. How do you know if you should use a proprietary system, an open system such as Facebook or LinkedIn, or third-party software (or some combination)? While…
It’s time to pay more attention to international alumni and how to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with them. International alumni often want to engage and have a lot to offer their educational institution. Read more about it at How to Engage International Alumni Effectively just published by Academic Impressions. Develop and better define your…
According to the Impactrics Assessment Survey, many alumni relations programs from around the world are putting foundational structures in place as they begin to engage alumni as volunteers and donors. There are some very strong programs that have sustainable structure and programs however they continue to work on metrics and further opportunities for engagement. The…
Regardless of whether you believe that alumni relations and fundraising should be managed separately, as a single unit, or something in between, they share the fundamental goal of generating support for the institution and so they can share techniques for success. McCabe Callahan’s article The Evolution of Philanthropy & the Fall of the Fundraising Pyramid…
Hello World! Markets are global, education is global, and so alumni relations should be global. While most institutions have the majority of their alumni clustered close to campus or within their home country, there is a rapidly growing population of “international alumni” – graduates who returned home from studying abroad or graduates who are working…
Alumni organizations thrive and survive on “meetings” of all types whether leadership training, board meetings, planning meetings or something else (even social events often have a meeting component.) Each time alumni get together in one of these meetings, it is an opportunity to provide a positive experience and to strengthen the connection to the institution…
Every organization looks for talented, capable and prepared leadership. After spending a lot of time on searching and even training, how do we prepare new board members or trustees? The guidelines offered by the UK Charity Commission in their May Newsletter are applicable to volunteer and professional organizations. Providing this kind of preparation should be…
It always helps to have a visual interpretation of a concept so I have been working on that for alumni relations. The breadth of alumni activity means that the visualization is also an opportunity to prioritize – there is room for only a limited number of ideas in the graphic. Here is a representation of…