Benefits of Alumni Engagement

Saviance Technologies followed by various alumni networks, are active in providing opportunities and solutions to alumni to reconnect with their alma mater, to recognize the contributions of students to industry and the wider community, and to encourage them to support their University in a number of ways. Alumni clubs have also played a pivotal role in providing these opportunities through various engagement activities. Saviance team acknowledged the growing importance of alumni engagement programs in the overall achievement of any Organizations goals. They recognized the need for a more focused and coordinated approach to alumni relations to maximize the opportunities for alumni networks and the University.
The identified areas of benefits by alumni engagement include:

Alumni Clubs:
• Opportunities to reconnect with batchmates and others and to give back to their alma mater in a meaningful way.
• Opportunities for career development through continuous learning, access to business networks, mentoring programs and employment opportunities.
• Access to a global alumni community where membership provides unique benefits and services.

University:
• Support for the University’s recruitment, marketing and charitable initiatives
• Branding University both locally and globally as a leader in teaching and research
• Seeking feedback and advice to develop more successful and mutually beneficial relationships with industry, students and the wider community and to ensure relevance of curriculum and research.

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.

Technology, Alumni Associations and Batchmates

In technology arena, many institutes that approach us have a baseline of service available but not adequately maintained and updated. Their alumni have turned to other resources for networking and communications. More robust and scalable solutions have become available for helping alumnus maintain connections with the University and with each other, and the Institute and the Alumni Association should work together to harness the capabilities now available in the technology marketplace.

This area offers a number of opportunities to the Universities to reinforce their relations with their alumnus. Some of them include:

• Improved alumni reach, improved alumni engagement: As we use technology to build online alumni relationships and communities, we will promote stronger and deeper alumni loyalty.
• Advanced information about alumni: Via technology, the University would be able to capture alumni interests. It also provides a platform for alumnus to give back to their alma mater by participating in mentor programs.
• More effective communication: Technology provides a cost-effective medium for coordinated, targeted, and high-impact communication with alumni.
• Valued services: Collaborative Platform provides alumni with valued services such as news about alma mater, opportunities to maintain ties with old and new batchmates, and networking for career and business.
• Increased ROI
• Better brand management

·       

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.