Alumni Association - Your Institute’s Best Brand Builder

In recent times alumni associations are receiving due importance that they had not experienced before. Part of the reason for this trend is the realization of its importance in creating a vibrant community that can interact between themselves and mould their professional life. With the advent of computers and cloud computing it is now possible for alumni members to –

• Communicate more effectively
• Collaborate between themselves
• Connect with each other
• Control the association and
• Contribute to society

Managing alumni association within the ambit of your institution is today a complex process. It requires expert knowledge in computers and corporate alumni software to bring together your alumni members and build a brand image for your college and school.

Developing the alumni association of your college or school can be very taxing if you have neglected it all along. In this age of internet it is possible to regain the lost ground by taking recourse to professional training in alumni management. Here are some of the major benefits.

• Identify the alumnus and begin a dialogue with them
• Build a vibrant community to discuss your institution
• Create and implement a software driven alumni portal
• Create a knowledge base that your students can benefit from

Alumni association management training is beneficial for – institution directors, public relations officers, deans, college managers and faculty. With competition between institutions at its zenith, an institution’s alumnus is the best ambassadors to speak in favor of your institute. Many well known institutions are already using their alumni association proactively.

Futuristic Alumni Management Software – What It will be Like..

Managing an alumni association is a complex task these days. Physical endeavours are rapidly being replaced by computerized procedures. The most common tasks being assigned to computers these days are maintaining –

•    Member lists segregated year and discipline wise
•    Region wise mailing lists for newsletters and event notification
•    Periodical updating of lists, member profiles and employment information and
•    Managing communications like mails, emails and SMS

Over the years the process of alumni management has become too complicated. They are today the principal point for exchanging ideas, discussing a wide range of national/international issues, employment, families and deciding career related issues.

Typical software like spread sheets, database managers and document programs are not adequate considering the vast amount of data that has to be handled. What is needed is dedicated alumni software that will perform most functions intuitively. It has to be user friendly so that even those who are not experts at using computers can benefit from it.

Here is what futuristic software for managing alumni will be expected to have –

•    Handle videos and audio file
•    Be cloud use compatible
•    Receive email communication
•    Send automated email to members
•    Chat, forum  and blog post features
•    Likeability with social media like Facebook and LinkedIn
•    Group discussion features
•    Abuse prevention management abilities
•    SMS integration for effective management
•    Newsletter creation features…and others

Software for managing alumni association will be ideal if they are capable of being used for disseminating information and for organizing guest lectures. In addition they should also be capable of creating a large repository of knowledge base in the form of essays, news clips, and more.

Top Five Reasons - Why you should probably join an Alumni Online Community

Have you been recommended by your friends to join an Alumni Online Community? Do you have any questions? Well, we’d like to say, joining an Alumni Association can be really fun and interesting. Given below are a few good reasons why you should probably join an Alumni group:

Networking: An Alumni Association can help you stay connected with friends and colleagues who are members in the same group. Just register yourself in the group and enjoy a range of benefits. Discuss about your academic projects with classmates, get some useful suggestions from your seniors, ask questions to teachers, or plan a reunion with your old buddies.

News: Get instant updates on the recent developments and activities taking place in your institution including news, events, celebrations, and much more.

Creativity: There is no better way to improve one’s creativity than sharing or exchanging ideas. Each member in the group might have a unique idea. By staying hooked on to the Alumni online community, you get to pick the brains of the leaders and experienced faculties in your profession. This way, it helps improve your creativity and enhance your knowledge.

Leadership: Join an Alumni online association and utilize your leadership skills to motivate juniors and volunteers. Encourage them to take part in various events and cultural activities organized by your Alumni Association.

Pride: Being a part of an Alumni Association is a truly a matter of pride. This online community is one place where you can learn about your organization’s achievements and celebrate it with your fellow members. That’s definitely a matter of pride.

Use Alumni Software to Manage Your Groups With Ease

It’s very important that students have a common group to connect with and exchange information in their academic year. It can help them explain and resolve questions relating to their subjects and projects. The group can serve as an influential platform to help students organize events and extracurricular activities, and showcase their talents to their seniors and faculties.

Every school, college and organization has an Alumni. And every major activity that takes place in the community can play a influential role in the decision-making of the management, which heads the Alumni. To keep things organized and optimize the efficiency of the Alumni, it is important that every school, university, and organization has an Alumni Association.

Before setting up Alumni software, you might want to learn how Alumni software can help you simplify your tasks:

• Easy to manage groups - Basically, Alumni software makes it easy to manage your growing list of community members. Any activity or exchange of information is easy to track using the software.
• Saves a lot of time – The moment you enter an information, it will be stored automatically by the Alumni software. Thus, it becomes easy for you to check for details like calendar of events, birthdays of team members etc.
• Improve communication – It’s easy to set up an Alumni website with a customized template. Each Alumni website comprises of some standard sections such as News, Photos, Calendar, comments and more. Alumni website comes with an array of interactive tools to help improve the communication among group members.
• Collect funds – Collect donations, get new sponsorships, and allow volunteers donate for your group events online. Alumni Software helps keep track of who has paid and who has given checks and all of that.
• Alumni members enjoy benefits like confirming their attendance and managing their personal information including their contact details, email address and birthday details.

VIburnix Certified Alumni Adminstrator Program

We are happy to extend an invitation to you for an exclusive Viburnix Certified Alumni Administrator Program on December 8th Saturday, 2012 at Gurgaon.

This Program helps Alumni Administrators and Alumni Cordinators to increase their competitive edge while demonstrating their commitment to advancing their professionalism and interests in the field of Alumni Relations. Additionally, this certification program provides you with access to many resources and benefits, such as the membership on the Alumni Leadership Community Portal and online training updates. Explore the benefits of certification—and start your journey to attaining the dream of gathering your alumni-flock under the wings of your brand Alma Mater! For more info visit : www.Viburnix.com

Viburnix Mobile App helps your Alumni Association grow

Just when alumni associations thought that they had succeeded in their motto of tapping their alumni online, online interaction went to the small screen – MOBILE. If you think that you are alone then let us tell you that there are a number of institutions, who are struggling to offer their alumni easy ways to stay connected irrespective of the technology advances. A recent study revealed that mobile internet usage has surpassed more highly monetized desktop internet usage in May, 2012 in India.

Now, is the Perfect time for your institution to consider the use of mobile apps and technique to get in touch with your alumni where they are. Viburnix Alumni mobile app puts the power of the world-class alumni network in the palm of your hand. The free application is available for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, and it allows your alumni globally to access all kinds of information about your institution and the alumni association. Some of the features that this alumni app offers: 

• Search : Search for your fellow alumni

• Nearby : See which of your fellows are in your vicinity

• Events : Read about the latest happenings at your Alma M@ter

Alumni portal and alumni mobile apps for universities act as a vital element in the branding, communication and reach along with augmenting the alumni engagement. So if you don’t have a mobile app for your college, it is the right time to get it.

Contact us at info@saviance.com for innovative alumni apps that will help your alumni association grow.

Top Management Institutes prefer Saviance’s Viburnix as Alumni Network Solution

Strengthening bonds with alumni results in more and more referrals to your institute, but this alumni management can be costly and time-consuming effort. Understanding the significance of alumni network management, Saviance Technologies brings its flagship product – Viburnix for institutes that wish to leverage their Alumni Network. Viburnix – alumni management software offers the most critical features that your alumni need to be in constant contact with one another, and presents to you a platform to communicate key information to them. This alumni system helps you create value for your institute as well as for your alumni community online.

Social networking, alumni database and donations are amongst some of the numerous benefits that Viburnix has to offer. Some of our successful implementations of Alumni relationship management solution in the past include: Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), The Harvard Club of India, The Global Wharton India Mentoring Network and The British School to name a few. To highlight: Our recent client acquisition includes Premier Management Institutes of India.

All of these institutes had the same yet a unique goal when they came to us and that was, ‘A comprehensive alumni portal to reach out to their entire past and current student community and engage them with the current updates and happenings at their Alma mater.’ We provided all of our clients with many Social Networking features like Blogs, Discussions, Photo Galleries and Events. We created an Alumni Portal design as per their requirements using our Alumni Product – Viburnix. The successful implementation resulted in substantial benefits for both the alumni and the institute.

Many more such success stories have made Viburnix the best solution when it comes to “alumni” and any association with it. 

Alumni Associations: Leveraging Intangible Assets

Saviance Technologies has announced its next Alumni Leadership MasterClass to be held on 23rd August, 2012. This class focuses on various topics that will help the attendees set up an alumni office for their institution and successfully run its operations. The most important thing that these associations must remember is that alumni of an institution are always ready to give back to their almamater but all they need is a right channel to contribute. Taking this into consideration one of the topics to be covered in the MasterClass will showcase how alumni associations can harness the power of “Social media”, as a channel of engagement.

This blog briefly highlights how various Universities/Institutions are engaging their alumni using social media. There have been various studies and surveys conducted in the past and following are some of the common conclusions drawn, when it came to Universities and use of social media for alumni engagement.

•    Connecting and Collaborating with students
•    Reaching alumni where they are
•    Providing mediums and channels for information distribution
•    Alumni generated content
•    Guiding and helping alumni get jobs
•    Marketing Alumni Associations
•    Fundraising

Ever evolving Technology has definitely changed the way how communicate and social media is one-stop-shop for alumni association that help them connect, communicate and collaborate with their alumni.

Alumni Leadership Masterclass now in New Delhi and Noida

Saviance Technologies, an IT Software and Services company partners with Delhi Management Association (DMA) for India’s first ever masterclass on alumni relations ‘Alumni Leadership Masterclass’. This masterclass is scheduled to be held on 7th and 8th December 2011, in New Delhi and Noida respectively.

This masterclass is an initiative by Saviance to enable educational institutes to understand the importance of engaging the alumni groups across the globe for mutual benefits. This partnership ensures that Saviance reaches out to its target audience effectively and works together with DMA, to empower institutes establish their alumni office in an organized and pro-active manner.
The Alumni Leadership Masterclass programme will begin with a session on the Basics of Alumni Relations by Mr. Joseph John, Advisor – South India & Sri Lanka, Saviance Technologies and Graduate of CASE Alumni Relations, Institute, INSEAD, Singapore will focus predominantly on the importance of alumni relations and what should be considered by an institute to reach out to their alumni network.

He will also emphasize on effective ways to plan future engagement with alumni by maintaining an updated database. Furthermore, sessions by Mr. Subhashish Bharuka, Manager – Corporate Communications & Graduate of CASE Alumni Relations Institute, INSEAD, Singapore will help the participants understand that Alumni engagement involves more than just database management and fund raising; it is a lifelong process for an institute to grow its brand over many years by engaging with its alumni. Besides, there will also be discussions on bridging the gaps between the alumni, current students and staff in order to strengthen ties among each other and channelizing the alumni interaction efficiently.

Alumni Association – 4 steps to start!

Alumni Associations are formed with certain goals to cater to, many times the goals are similar for various associations: To support the achievement of the University’s goals by providing leadership and backing to alumni association that demonstrates the mutually-beneficial engagement for Alumni, the alma mater and the association. In this blog we share some tips with these associations as to how they can build relationships with their alumni.

There are four basic steps to building an alumni association strategy to achieve the goal:

1. Reach Out. To get alumni to reconnect with university, first you have to find them.

2. Reconnect. To get alumni to become involved with the association, you must offer them easy ways and mediums for doing so. For some alumni, the ability to learn the latest about their alma mater in their communities will be enough to interest them to reconnect.

3. Manage Information. From a purely logistical standpoint, you have to track alumni who reconnect. Data management will be a key for long-term success.

4. Build and Sustain Relationships. It is really important to keep alumni involved and engaged once they have reconnected. There should be continuous dialog between the alumni and the alma mater or between alumni and alumni.

After these steps what next? Sky is the limit! There are number of creative ways to empower alumni, whether it is making them mentors, asking them for career advice or inviting them for events. These are couple of strategies that can be useful for start-up associations.

Alumni Relationship Development Program

Saviance Technologies focuses on all aspects of international alumni relations. We aim to assist Alumni Offices setting up a new Alumni Association / Alumni Office, as well as those who wish to develop an existing Programme, by sharing the ideas and knowledge of University members with experience and interest in this field. Keeping in mind alumni development, Saviance has come up with its own alumni software – Viburnix.

Designed specifically to manage alumni development and advancement activity, Viburnix – Alumni Software can help you nurture and control important relationships, reinforce alumni communications, and broaden your constituent reach. This software allows alumni associations to network with alumni more efficiently; identify and generate lists of their relationships; generate and track personalized communication; and follow through with prospects to turn pledges into donations.

Generate the best possible platform for exchange of business strategies, allowing members to network with their peers. Gain insight into your fund-raising progress with in-depth reporting that lets you analyse your results. And, because the module of event organization is part of Saviance’s proprietary web event management software, organizing of events becomes seamless activity. From managing constituent relationships to processing gifts, Viburnix – alumni association system gives you the tools you need to achieve all of your University’s advancement goals.

Alumni Leadership Masterclass in December 2011!

Third Alumni Leadership Masterclass by Saviance Technologies is in association with Delhi Management Association. This masterclass is scheduled for Wednesday 7^th December, 2011 @ DMA – DLF Conference Hall, India Habitat Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi. The fees for this event is Rs. 1,000/- only per delegate. This unique masterclass aims at providing alumni associations with descriptive sessions on managing the alumni, engaging with alumnus, planning alumni engagement activities and benefiting from technology in communicating with global alumni of an institute. The focus of this masterclass is to effectively highlight the benefits of leveraging & engaging with an institute’s alumnus on a day-to-day basis.

The faculties for the sessions are experienced professionals, who are graduates of an Alumni Relations Institute organized in Singapore. They have an in-depth understanding of handling alumni office as well as supporting the technological needs of the office. The sessions of the class provide a holistic view on building a strong and influential alumni network by running a fully functional alumni office in an institute.

The Alumni masterclass is for anyone involved with alumni relationship activities, whether Alumni officers / faculty facing challenges in engaging their alumni on a routine basis; or university / College / School faculty planning an Alumni Association in the near future; alumni relations staff who would like to maximize their relationship with the alumnus but are facing challenges in engaging them actively.

For registrations, & details please contact:

Tanya Bhatnagar, Programme Executive

Delhi Management Association, dmadelhi@sify.com / +91-11-2646-9552

Aditi Sharma, Business Development Executive

Saviance Technologies, aditi@saviance.com / +91-98-7147-6971

NOTE: Registration fee can be paid through online payment gateway available on the registration page on http://www.saviance.com/events  or a cheque in favour of Delhi Management Association.

Benefits of alumni engagement

In today’s global scenario, development and alumni relations activities are a very important part in the life and future of universities. An alumni association draws the strategy to seek, ‘To establish, build and maintain positive relationships between alumni and the university, and within the alumni association, in order to generate good will, develop institute’s repute, and encourage all alumni to give in whatever way they can to reinforce the future well-being of their alma mater. Reinforcing the growth of an active alumni association proves to be mutually-beneficial, both to the University and to alumni.

Alumni have the capacity to:

• Highlight the strengths of the university and reflect its commitment to excellence in education, research and lifelong learning;
• Be brand ambassadors, thereby inspiring and counseling others who wish to be a part of the university.
• Help each other and current students through networking, organizing guest lectures, mentoring and friendship;
• Assist each other and current students by sharing with them Job Opportunities / Career options.
• Foster global relationships to help promote networking opportunities.
• Contribute significant financial support to their alma mater.

 

It is important to understand that a successful alumni engagement strategy depends critically on having a strong body of alumni engaged with and committed to their alma mater.

Alumni involvement in Alumni Association

Alumni are one of the most vital stake holders of a university. They are a part of it for life. Hence, it is important for the universities to maintain an ongoing relationship with alumni, and seek their participation in achieving excellence. Alumnus are often interested to play their role of assisting alumni association not just because the improved brand name of the university helps them in their career, but also because they have memories and feel emotionally connected to the place. One reason for non-involvement or non-engagement of alumni is that they not aware of the ways in which they can be of help to their alma mater. There are many ways alumni can provide meaningful service and active involvement in the Alumni Association.

So here are a couple of strategies and ways in which alumni can get involved with alumni associations, to build mutually beneficial relationship. Alumni are the best brand ambassadors of a university; they can share their experiences with prospective students. They can provide career guidance and share opportunities with alumni associations to help career development and management of existing students and other alumnus. Alumni network helps entrepreneurial alumni build their businesses while strengthening alumni involvement with the University. Alumni can also get involved with events and activities on-campus.

Engaging Aumni Oline through Social Media

Our vision is to encourage alumni online to share a lifelong commitment, pride and passion for their alma mater. We build up solutions that act as catalyst for building a vigorous alumni network and a lifelong relationship among alumni associations and its constituents, including students and graduates, and for supporting the University’s mission globally.
We understand the 3 C’s of winning Alumni Online Relations – Communicate, Connect & Cultivate.  By communicate, we refer to information that is conveyed professionally and is consistently shared. The communication should be timely as too much information at one go also irritates the readers. Alumni are always interested in the happenings and news of alma mater. Communication also means recognizing outstanding efforts of alumni volunteers who assist in mentoring programs, donations or guest lectures.
We help alumni association connect to their alumni by helping them to maintain current contact information and other detailed records of alumni and their batchmates. The real interest of alumni lies in staying connected with their classmates, and social networking features of our product prove to be a ‘winner’ here. We act as a medium and translate technology advances to make it easy for alumni associations to stay connected with its members, as well as allow alums to be connected to each other.
We recognize that every event, each communication is probability to further reinforce relationships. We assist associations to cultivate a feeling of belongingness amongst its alumni with event management. Our designed product helps provide opportunities for contribution and support of alumni.

Alumni & Social Media - Connecting with Folks Made Easier

Institutions for higher education are striving hard to revive and reinforce strong relations with their alumni. This bond-building with alumni is important for establishing brand-loyalty, increasing engagement and encouraging ongoing giving and support. Alumni relations are growing in importance in for a number of reasons. Saviance team believes in sharing information about the market trends as to what is working and what is not can help them become more successful in this discipline.

Saviance Technologies helps alumni association leverage a number of emerging internet technologies to achieve their mission of connecting back to their alumnus. We offer consulting, development and infrastructure services that: Develop and manage alumni relations; provide them with a new conceptual and structural framework for leading alumni association’s activities to attract and retain its alumnus; helps alumnus, members of the association and institution to access and update information from any web-enabled device. All these and many more along with flexible, robust, scalable solution with rich user interface.

Alumni management solutions by Saviance Technologies help the institutions as well associations save on their time and money without any drastic transition in terms of technology use. They can connect with their community in no time, improving relationships leading to increased fundraising.

Social Media Integration and Alumni Associations

Various alumni associations are leveraging social media to strengthen the bonds between the alumni; and between the alma mater and its alumnus. This has been possible with the sudden rise, in the options for digital communications tools that are available in the market. These tools provide a base for collaborating, connecting and communicating with the alums. At the same time, social media is the most cost-effective and effective way to reach out to alumnae. Some of the major social media integration seen in the alumni sites is discussed in this blog.

Realizing the opportunity, many associations have started designing portals for its members; that provide them one window access to various options for connecting and communicating with each other. There has been an increase in the number of tools used for initiating conversations with its users. This is done with the integration of tools for discussion boards, forums, notes etc. Aggregation tools are used for blogs that add to the content of the site as well as it gives a chance to the members to contribute. Event management tools are used to facilitate events for members.

The opportunities are great for alumni association, these same tools that risk their existence can be used to increase user base, cut costs, and a wealth of content being created by their own members.

Reconnecting, Recapturing and Reliving – Alumni Association of BIMTECH

Alumni association of Birla Institute of Management Technology wanted to design a more innovative, engaging and modern online center for its alums. They were able to launch their alumni online network with Saviance Technologies robust Viburnix solution to create cutting edge alumni software. This software included alumni online directory, association pages, event and reunion pages etc.

Some of the engagement options offered by the solution for alumni association include: Events – alums can search for various upcoming events as well as create new events. Careers – Alumni can search and post various jobs. Online Giving – Options to contribute and donate online is another highlight of the system, they can also give back to their alma mater by opting in for Guest Lecturer or by signing in for a Mentorship program. Different options for Group Networks allow alumni to connect not only to their peers but also to their seniors as well as juniors who share same interest. Members can look out for their peers by a variety of descriptors. And many more such features are available.

All these with centralized login for all alumni, to update their information as well as connect with their institution. Viburnix provided BIMTECH with an alumni software that presented them with some key online technology features such as CMS to maintain and update information about the institute; Advanced Email option that makes communication with members easier; events registration and calendar to schedule and invite alumnus for events.

Journey to Viburnix – Alumni Portal

A recent alumni study reveals that 83% of members prefer to be contacted about general alumni matters via interactive methods such as email, social networks, and alumni websites & blogs. So alumni association, who want to keep a tap on their pool of alumnae should learn to harness the power of social media to engage them.

Many of our clients had the system of e-newsletters in place when they approached us; and based on the success of it they wanted a more comprehensive online community solution that would allow them to reach large numbers of alumni efficiently. There were also a number of other internal objectives, which comprised of re-engaging lost or disengaged alumni, combining existing online services (here there was e-newsletter), and implementing an easy online fundraising component.

Our development team was also pressured from a number of external factors; it included a great rise in the e-communications-based model. Members of alumni association now expected e-communications and online communities. They required tools that were Web-based with advanced e-mail and directory components, and they had to possess knowledge sharing forum, blog, and content management capability. They also had to be affordable.

With our consistent efforts, we were able to meet many of the challenges, discovered new opportunities and alumni engagement with Viburnix.