We’ve written previously about the importance of engaging alumni in international recruitment as well as the process of engaging and enabling brand advocates from among your current students. In today’s post, we revisit the key role – the unique role, even – that alumni can play in international recruitment.
The importance of this topic is underscored by the intensifying competition for qualified, self-funded students in markets around the world.
OCTOBER 7, 2011 | POSTED AT BLOG.BLACKBOARD.COM
When Hazel Matthews joined the Sullivan University team less than three years ago, she realized the university was letting a critical asset- its alumni base- leave campus after graduation without maintaining a connection to the college. As Director of Alumni Affairs, Matthews began to work relentlessly with others in the university to change that entirely- and it has definitely paid off. Sullivan University, a Blackboard client, now boasts a robust network of over 4,500 alumni with an active website and social media presence. Alumni referrals have brought dozens of new students to the university and have led many others to job referrals and professional opportunities beyond the walls of the career college. Continue reading
By Vanessa Chase — Writer, Non-Profit Collaborator, Philanthropy Advocate.
Storytelling is an important tool that non-profits are using in fundraising and communications. But perhaps its most important role is being able to forge relationships with constituents in a scalable way. Especially when it comes to annual giving stewardship
Phone calls take time and so do handwritten notes. Planning appreciation events can be costly and you might not have a good turn out. Conducting donor visits would also be out of the question for most annual giving folks.
So what solution is left?
What I would like to advocate for is a major donor-esque approach to annual giving stewardship – accountability report.
The number of low-cost or free online resources and tools available to nonprofits today is astounding. Many nonprofit professionals are overwhelmed by the all choices and as mobile media continues to grow, prepare to be mind-boggled by all the new technology options that will be available to your nonprofit in coming years.
Nonprofit storytelling is a very hot topic lately, although it is hardly a new practice for our sector. But how does storytelling, which appeals to the heart and the imagination, blend with the stringent measurement requirements that so many institutional funders now insist upon? Is there a mixture that works to engage both donors and supporters for the long haul?
Do Storytelling and Data Have Chemistry in Your Fundraising World? – NPQ – Nonprofit Quarterly.
Organizations that want to persuade people in their 20s and early 30s to give and volunteer don’t have much of a chance if they’re not updating their Web sites frequently and including compelling details about their causes and the people they serve, a new survey finds.
Three out of four donors born from 1979 to 1994—a generation often referred to as “millennials”—said they were turned off when a nonprofit’s Web site had not been updated recently. Six in 10 said they wanted nonprofits to share stories about successful projects and programs and appreciated information about an organization’s cause and the people it serves.
If you have logged into your Twitter account and created a Twitter timeline widget, you can alter various properties so it displays how you want. From the Twitter documentation here are a few tips:
To create a timeline you must be signed in to twitter.com and visit the widgets section of your settings page.
For sites where the theme and link color do not provide enough customization to make the Tweets feel like they’re a part of the page, Twitter offers a set of additional client side customization features. These settings allow you to control the background color, borders, header, and footer of the timeline. Continue reading
Last week we heard that Harvard University is recruiting alumni of a popular humanities course (The Ancient Greek Hero) to serve as volunteer mentors and discussion leaders for the MOOC-scale, online version of the class. So then a question worth asking is why would Harvard ask alumni to serve in this capacity? Who benefits, and how?
Alumni as Volunteer Course Facilitators: 7 Reasons it Makes Sense – alumni futures.
In this enlightening post, Idealware’s summer intern, Rachel, shares her perspective as a 20-year-old college student with a strong interest in social justice and experience trying to organize and engage around related topics.
A groundbreaking survey shows that community colleges are likely to experience an increase in giving when they track and engage their former students. However, data indicate that two-year institutions have made minimal investments in staffing and resources to develop alumni relations programs.
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education recently conducted a survey of 133 community colleges in the United States and Canada representing a broad range of demographic profiles. This included enrollment size, geographic area and alumni base.
Benchmarking Alumni Relations in Community Colleges is a new CASE white paper analyzing the results of the survey. It is CASE’s first comprehensive look at the state of community college alumni relations programs, many of which are nascent and remain small in scope.
via CASE.org.