Before you start setting specific goals and objectives, have a clear idea of why you are doing alumni relations and what you want to achieve in the long run. What is your institution's mission and vision, and how does alumni relations align with them? What are the core values and principles that guide your alumni relations work? How do you communicate your purpose and vision to your alumni and stakeholders? Having a strong sense of purpose and vision will help you define your overall direction and priorities, and inspire your alumni to get involved and support your institution.
Your institution's mission and vision should be the North Star guiding alumni relations. By effectively communicating this purpose and vision to your alumni, you can rally support and participation. A strong sense of purpose not only directs your strategy but also inspires alumni to contribute to the community that benefits both alums and the institution. There needs to be targeted, segmented and personal communications to alumni to make the connection meaningful. Get regular feedback from your alumni to adapt and improve your outreach. Their opinions are important! And measure and track every interaction and everything you do, and all the alumni initiatives and events, so you can make data-driven decisions.
Consider how your alumni can have a positive impact on your institution's mission. Where do alumni wants and needs align with institutional priorities? For example, do you alumni report that the pride in the university's reputation is important to them? Then, think about ways alumni can be enlisted to enhance that reputation!
Antes de establecer las metas y objetivos que quieres conseguir en tu trabajo con alumni, debes tener claro cuál es el destino de todo el trabajo que vas a realizar. La primera pregunta a la que debes responder es: ?Qué quiero conseguir? Pero esta pregunta no puede responderse si no tienes claro cuáles son los valores y el propósito de tu institución. Para que los objetivos más específicos puedan cumplirse, todo el plan estratégico debe estar en sintonía con la parte estratégica de tu institución. De esta manera, vas a establecer el punto de partida para desarrollar acciones exitosas a nivel micro, que te ayuden a cumplir el objetivo macro.
I stress the importance of establishing a clear purpose and vision before setting specific goals in alumni relations. Understanding how alumni relations align with your institution's mission and vision ensures that your efforts are cohesive and strategic. Defining the core values and principles guiding your work provides a strong foundation for your initiatives. Effectively communicating this purpose and vision to alumni and stakeholders inspires engagement and support, driving a unified effort towards shared goals. A well-articulated sense of direction and priorities not only motivates alumni but also fosters a deep, lasting connection to your institution.
It's about enhancing the experience of alumni after their college days. While it may not be common, alumni do reach out to the college for various needs. The turnaround time (TAT) for addressing their queries and interests should be highly efficient, ensuring quick resolutions that also align with the college's vision.
Once you have established your purpose and vision, assess your current situation and needs. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your alumni relations program? What are the opportunities and threats in your external environment? What are the needs and expectations of your alumni and your institution? How do you collect and use data and feedback to inform your decisions and actions? Conducting a SWOT analysis and a stakeholder analysis can help you identify the gaps and challenges that you need to address, and the resources and assets that you can leverage.
An important aspect of alumni relations that is often overlooked is the amount of non-fundraising communication that is outbound from your institution. Colleges, universities and private secondary schools earn credibility by keeping alums informed about the state of the school and the lives of current students. Making it easier for alums to connect with each other and inviting updates from alums of a variety of decades and degree programs can also help build loyalty and a deeper sense of connection and community.
It's important to track engagement in your CRM. If someone joins a board, attends and event, HOSTS an event, advocates, mentors, makes a gift, etc., that should be noted in the database. This is so you can cross-reference actual INTEREST in making a gift versus just a wealth screening. It's easier said than done, but if there's a consensus that tracking is important, go for it! It's totally worth the effort.
I emphasize the importance of a thorough assessment after establishing your purpose and vision. Conducting a SWOT analysis—evaluating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats—and a stakeholder analysis provides crucial insights into your current alumni relations program. Understanding gaps, challenges, and the needs and expectations of both alumni and your institution helps in refining strategies and optimizing resources. Utilizing data and feedback to inform decisions ensures that your actions are responsive and effective, leading to a more impactful and aligned alumni relations effort. This strategic approach enables you to build on strengths, address weaknesses, seize opportunities, and mitigate threats.
Based on your purpose, vision, and situation analysis, you can now set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals and objectives for your alumni relations work. Goals are broad statements of what you want to accomplish, while objectives are more detailed and quantifiable steps that you will take to reach your goals. For example, a goal could be to increase alumni engagement, and an objective could be to increase the number of alumni who attend events by 10% in the next year. Setting SMART goals and objectives will help you focus your efforts and resources, and track your progress and results.
Remember, you get what you measure. So, be thoughtful in developing your goals. Think about them as nuanced, not only as a total number or percent of engagement; but also, as deepening engagement. For example, finding ways to track alumni engaged in both giving and volunteering. Setting goals to increase those engaged in multiple ways. And, think about making these SMARTR goals. That last step? Rewarded. Set goals, strive and achieve. And, then, celebrate.
I advocate for setting SMART goals and objectives to drive effective alumni relations. Goals provide a broad vision of what you want to achieve, while objectives break these goals into specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound steps. For example, aiming to increase alumni engagement is a broad goal, but setting an objective to boost event attendance by 10% within a year offers clear, actionable targets. This structured approach not only sharpens focus and optimizes resource allocation but also facilitates tracking progress and assessing outcomes, ensuring your alumni relations efforts are both strategic and impactful.
After setting your SMART goals and objectives, develop strategies and action plans to achieve them. Strategies are the overall approaches that you will use to reach your objectives, while action plans are the specific tasks and activities that you will implement to execute your strategies. For example, a strategy could be to use social media to promote alumni events, and an action plan could be to create and share engaging content, invite alumni to join groups and pages, and monitor and respond to comments and messages. Developing strategies and action plans will help you organize and coordinate your work, and assign roles and responsibilities.
It is important to remember that strategic goals and tactical action plans are two distinct but interconnected elements in the realm of organizational planning. While strategic goals emphasize the "what" and the long-term vision, tactical action plans concentrate on the "how" and the immediate actions needed to move closer to achieving the strategic goals. Strategic goals set the overall direction, while tactical action plans provide the detailed roadmap to reach the desired destination. Both elements are critical in effective organizational planning, as strategic goals without tactical action plans may remain as lofty aspirations, while tactical action plans without clear strategic goals may lack direction and purpose.
Outcomes are the immediate results that you achieve from your objectives, while impact is the long-term effect that you have on your alumni and your institution. For example, an outcome could be the number of alumni who registered for an event, and an impact could be the amount of donations that they made after the event. Monitoring and evaluating your outcomes and impact will help you measure and report your success, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your goals and strategies as needed.
Larger higher-ed organizations should learn from corporates and start considering using the alumni platform to manage Staff-alumni. Companies save money, expand their networks, gain visibility and increase business by connecting with former employees. Universities should do the same.