History’s long standing camaraderie or rivalry comes with sports or sporting events. Sports fans have their psychological selves uplifted when their team wins. Be it sports fanaticism or an evening of casual playing, it is no doubt that roughing it out together, builds bonds that last a lifetime. There is something about running behind a ball, or hitting one with a bat that builds friendships and nurtures loyalty. 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.
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.
Two-year colleges are typically not known for their alumni relations. But as state cutbacks leave many of them with major shortfalls, more community colleges are turning to alumni outreach to make up the difference.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/06/community-colleges-expand-outreach-alumni#ixzz2a4aTEkIG
Inside Higher Ed
Relationship-building doesn’t scale. As the number of relationships increases, converting them into traditional, mutually beneficial outcomes becomes more difficult.
via Relationship-Building Doesn’t Scale – alumni futures.
(Alumni Futures does not endorse any commercial sites or services.)
Have you ever thought of your alumni relations activities as the preeminent part of your school’s advancement effort? Or do your colleague have an “I-suppose-it’s-important-but-I’m-not-really-sure-what-they-do” mentality about your staff? Far too often, alumni relations is seen as a second-class citizen in development, sort of a simple minded cousin that the family lets hang around.
A Fresh Look at Alumni Relations: Connect to improve fund raising.
– http://fundraisingcoach.com/free-articles/a-fresh-look-at-alumni-relations/
Here’s a great example of a school reaching out to alumni. Recently Egg Harbor Township High School offered a tour to alumni to see the new school. Here’s a copy of their e-mail blast announcing the event:
Please consider attending our Alumni Open House and Tour of the new High School from 3 – 5 p.m., Wednesday, November 23, 2011.
Continue reading
Have you looked at your alumni and giving data? You might just notice two patterns that sum it all up. Review this paper by Peter B. Wylie to see the two patterns that every major giving professional should see . . .
As budget cuts strain schools across the country, more districts are looking for ways to bring in the big bucks on their own. PTAs, PTOs, and booster clubs may make cash from car washes and catalog sales, but as an administrator, it’s time to think on a grander scale. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a million dollars for a technology initiative? How about half a mil for an arts program? This doesn’t have to be wishful thinking.
Alumni e-Networks:
Using Technology to Engage Net Generation Alumni
by Holly Peterson
If I want to find my college or study abroad classmates, what do I do? I don’t call them or write them letters. I log into my email, type their names (not their email addresses—the technology does that for me) into the address line of a [blank] email message and send it off. Usually it’s less than four lines, and often it includes a smiley ☺ somewhere in the message. Does this mean I have less meaningful, in-depth conversation with my friends than if I wrote them a letter or called them? Maybe. But it means that I keep in touch with friends I would have long lost were it not for the ease of communication. And I’m not even a member of the millennium generation. (Peterson and Roberts 2006, ¶1)
As educators and their institutions ponder the effect of technology on their ability to teach the Net Generation, they must also examine how technology changes the ways in which they interact with other constituents, including alumni. This article examines one organization’s use of technology to reach alumni by presenting a case study of how World Learning is strengthening alumni relationships via Web-based technologies. These efforts have been especially targeted towards younger, Net Generation alumni, whom the organization had the hardest time engaging. These are new alumni, almost all of whom are under 25, who use Internet technologies frequently, if not invariably, for communication.