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.

Alumni Masterclass 2011 - Pune

Second Alumni Leadership Masterclass by Saviance Technologies was organized at Le Meridien, Pune; on 12th October 2011. Some of the key participant institutes of the event included Dr. D.Y.Patil Institute of Management Studies, Pune; Armed Forces Medical College, Pune; Fergusson College, Pune; Indira Group of Institutes; Indira School of Business Studies; Institute of Management Development & Research; Symbiosis Centre for Management & Human Resource Development & Vishwakarma Institute of Management.

The focus of this Masterclass was to effectively highlight the benefits of leveraging & engaging with their institute’s alumnus on a day-to-day basis. The objectives of this masterclass comprised of providing 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. Interactive sessions by faculties who are graduates of an Alumni Relations Institute organized in Singapore and who have an in-depth understanding of handling alumni office as well as supporting the technological needs of the office. The faculty tried to explicate on how to better utilize the existing relationship with alumnus and how to engage them actively on a regular basis. The sessions also helped participants gain a holistic view on building a strong and influential alumni network by running a fully functional alumni office in an institute. 

We would give details about the session details in our next blog posting.

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

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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.