How to Build an Alumni Engagement Strategy for Your School
Maintaining affinity with alumni after graduation provides invaluable, lifelong support to your institution.
Engaged alumni can continue to support their school in many meaningful ways:
Volunteering on committees and boards.
Mentoring current students.
Supporting recent graduates as they start their career.
These are very important benefits for schools and we are here to help you improve your alumni engagement strategy to have an ever-lasting connection with them!
1-) Cultivate Your Connection Early On
It is relatively easy for students to lose their attachment to the school, but it is challenging to develop it after they leave if they did not have a positive experience. To cultivate lifelong relationships, you should make current students feel valued and convey that their journey with the school does not end with graduation which means that you should lay the foundation for a meaningful bond with alumni while they are still students.
2-) Invest in Your Alumni
You should create an effective alumni support strategy which may include various resources such as job placement assistance, workshops for personal or professional growth, and access to campus facilities. A school’s dedication to aiding students should extend beyond graduation. If done effectively, the benefits of this investment will be significant, as alumni will contribute their skills, resources, and time back to the school.
3-) Ask For Their Feedback
Your alumni engagement program should actively get feedback from alumni on a regular basis, ideally doing a survey at least once a year. Their results will help to measure the effectiveness of existing strategies so that your alumni engagement programs can improve throughout time. You can keep these tips in mind while preparing your survey:
Keep it short and simple (they don’t have time to write an essay)
Ask a mix of open-ended and qualitative questions
Make sure the survey is mobile-friendly
4-) Involve Your Alumni in Student Life
Wherever possible, invite alumni to meet prospective students as well as current students. There are countless ways to do this including seminars, speeches, retreats, mentoring or student events. In this way, alumni can provide valuable insights into their career paths and offer guidance to current students. Also, they can serve as role models and inspire current students to achieve their goals.
5-) Give Your Alumni a Reason to Engage with You
Don’t take alumni engagement for granted. Remember, your alumni are actively choosing to stay connected to their alma mater. And strong alumni engagement means a strong community in your institution. You should be actively searching for ways and giving them reasons and opportunities to keep them engaged with you. For example, you can start by providing them professional network opportunities, access to resources and other mentorship opportunities.
If you want to know more about alumni engagement strategies and how we can help you with that, you can directly book a call with us here and our marketing team will be happy to help you!
