Author Archives: Alumni Channel

Harrisburg School District Launches Online Alumni Community Solution to Connect with Alumni Across the World

We are happy to announce that Harrisburg School District of Harrisburg, South Dakota, has chosen Alumni Channel’s online community solution to develop closer relationships with its alumni.

JoAnne VerMulm, Communications Director for the district, took action to begin implementation of the Alumni Channel for their online alumni community. Harrisburg School District Alumni represent an alliance of thousands of Harrisburg graduates across the United States and worldwide. With a growing base of graduates, the high school wanted to cultivate stronger bonds with and among alumni that would lay the foundation for the development of lasting relationships and new partnerships with our Tigers of yesteryear.

To this end, Harrisburg deployed the services of Alumni Channel for online community-building. The school now has a single point of entry that allows alumni to self-maintain their profile information which can then be used to update the master donor database. “Facebook is a great way for individuals to connect, but from a district standpoint, it is difficult for us to know we are reaching all of our Alumni and our previous method of collecting alumni information was no longer feasible with the tremendous growth we’ve experienced,” JoAnne VerMulm said, “Our superintendent recognized the need to expand our methods of reaching our Alumni to not only keep them informed, but to develop lasting partnerships with those who are able to give back to our current students through their time and talent, especially in providing career exposure, internship opportunities, and connections with potential future employers.”

“Schools face a real challenge in keeping connected with alumni who, after graduation, scatter throughout the world,” said Chris Gehringer, president of Alumni Channel. “Harrisburg is taking a leadership position in how it uses technology to give its alumni – regardless of whether they live in the area or the Far East – an easy way to stay involved. Having a professional appearance to your alumni organization is just one more step in building lasting relationships with alumni/donors.”

Empowering Graduates through Alumni Channel

With Alumni Channel, Harrisburg High School will be able to replace a simple contact form funneled into a spreadsheet, with an interactive online community and enhanced electronic communications. Like most other organizations launching a new website, getting people to visit online is a key step. With approximately 25% of email addresses on file for its alumni, the school will embark on an integrated marketing campaign to increase awareness and introduce the benefits of registering on the new site. Included in Harrisburg’s service is a new web site address that can be used on all marketing to promote the use of the site. Through this effort, the number of contacts will increase over time.

To visit the Harrisburg School District’s Alumni Channel, go to alwaysatiger.com.

About Harrisburg School District
Harrisburg School District is one of the fastest growing school districts in not only South Dakota, but in the nation. What was once and remained a one-building district for 107 years has since built an additional 8 buildings in just the past 17 years, with another building breaking ground this spring, and more in the works.

About Alumni Channel
The Alumni Channel online alumni system is designed to increase alumni connections through a secure online alumni directory that will help connect an organization’s entire membership. Alumni Channel offers alumni a community of their own to contact each other, plan reunions, share stories and photos, and it enables the parent organization/school to maintain and build an alumni database providing with valuable alumni contact information. Schools have the ability to not only announce upcoming events and campaigns on the site itself but also customize and send mass e-mails, run reports, export data and distribute surveys. Founded in 1998, Alumni Channel is headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. For more information, visit alumnichannel.com.

New Administrative Dashboard

For a few years, I’ve been thinking of putting together a single webpage that would allow admins to see the health of their site from one place. This dashboard would contain stats showing the vital aspects of any site and would give a quick glance at how things are going.​​
It’s now live and the dashboard provides an up-to-date glimpse into your site’s activity and data. Metrics are available on logins, registrations, updates, administrators, email blasts and more.

You can see all the profiles that have admin access. You can tell when other admins last logged in. You can see stats on your last email blasts.
The dashboard is accessible from both the homepage and the Admin page.

Lacey Township High School of Lacey Township, New Jersey, Relies on Alumni Channel’s Online Alumni Community Solution to Connect with Alumni Across the World

8/28/2017

CHERRY HILL, N.J. – Alumni Channel, a web provider of online alumni communities for schools and other non-profit organizations, announced today that Lacey Township High School in Lacey Township, New Jersey, is utilizing the company’s online community solution to develop closer relationships with its alumni.
Continue reading

Lucy C. Laney High School Association of Augusta, Georgia, Relies on Alumni Channel’s Online Alumni Community Solution to Connect with Alumni Across the World

7/1/2017

CHERRY HILL, N.J. – Alumni Channel, a web provider of online alumni communities for schools and other non-profit organizations, announced today that the Lucy C. Laney High School Alumni Association of Augusta, Georgia, is relying on the company’s online community solution to develop closer relationships with its alumni. Continue reading

3 Bad Habits in Alumni Relations

3 Bad Habits in Alumni Relations and Engagement – posted by Gary Toyn of Alumni Access

Some bad habits are more troublesome than others. In my role as a consultant for many types of membership and constituent groups, I’m learning of a few bad habits that are increasingly common, and are negatively affecting engagement.

While this isn’t a comprehensive list, here are three bad habits worth mentioning:

  • BAD HABIT #1:  IGNORING ALUMNI CHURN
  • BAD HABIT #2:  IGNORING THE NEED TO OFFER ALUMNI BENEFITS
  • BAD HABIT #3:  CLINGING TO STALE ALUMNI BENEFITS

Source: 3 Bad Habits in Alumni Relations

Alumni News is Not Really Alumni Engagement | Higher Ed Live

All of us in alumni engagement are charged with generating school spirit by helping alumni grow personally and professionally under the university flag. Although the eventual goal is to create goodwill resulting in gifts of time and dollars, most of us are trying to promote programs and initiatives for our alumni over the short term that will cause a connective spark.

Many institutions rely on reporting alumni news as a central tenant to their alumni constituency engagement strategy. Our communicators publish unbiased, journalistically sound, news articles that showcase professional achievements or unique philanthropic efforts. But this reporting doesn’t really drive alums to do anything.

For example: perhaps fictional alumnus, Steve Studly ’81 has been named to the Georgia State Lawyers “Best Lawyers of 2012” list, or alumnae Mary Matters ’07 recently traveled to the Sudan and volunteered for the Red Cross. These are both excellent professional achievements, but neither will likely help sell your alumni engagement initiatives.

What do you want your alumni to do?

Source: Alumni News is Not Really Alumni Engagement | Higher Ed Live

The Ultimate Collection of Statistics for Alumni Membership, Giving and Engagement — 2015 Update

When it comes to finding meaningful statistics that can help you make decisions about your alumni organization, you can find some helpful stats here or there, but (until now) there was no single repository of really good data that is also relevant. In the spirit of sharing information, here is my collection of relevant statistics from around the web that I have used to help my clients grow their programs and make important decisions. They are especially relevant to higher education, but have application to many types of membership organizations.

Source: The Ultimate Collection of Statistics for Alumni Membership, Giving and Engagement — 2015 Update

9 Steps To A Better Alumni Event Survey

Posted by Garrett Huddy of Attend.com

Better-Alumni-SurveyPost-event surveys accomplish a lot. On the surface, they are a way for you to gather feedback from your attendees. Beyond that, surveys give you an excellent opportunity to add an engagement touchpoint with your alumni, determine your event’s success, and improve your event strategy. Here are nine ways to get better results from your post-event survey: Continue reading

Socially Awkward on Social Media?

iphonefacebookDo you experience a momentary sense of panic before hitting “Post?”

Afraid no one will “Like” what you wrote? Not sure what comments, memories or photos will resonate most with your alumni?

Believe me, I totally understand. I had that feeling too, until I learned to follow these simple steps to a successful Facebook page.

Keep in mind that the goals of Facebook for any school community are to communicate upcoming events, tug at the heartstrings, foster nostalgia, and instantly get feedback from your community as to what means the most to them about your institution. Poster’s block can easily be cured by cruising around campus with an iPhone camera at the ready. Don’t overthink it!

New Call-to-action

Source: Socially Awkward on Social Media?