While reading my daily briefing on alumni relations discussions I came upon this Q&A that I thought was just perfect to share with you.

Q. How do you prove the value of alumni relations on your campus and within the advancement department? With tighter budgets these days you may find yourself having to justify alumni relations expenses to your boss.

A. From Michael Wall, Director of Alumni Relations, Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Coon Rapids, MN:

I think you will get four answers or types of answers:

1) You can’t. (I would ignore this, as it does not help and we all know administrators and trustees who hold purse string do not often fund based on faith.)

2) Everyone knows that alumni relations is necessary; all the big universities and privates have them. (Again, no help here. If everyone knew this to be true then there would not be a need for us to justify through data.

Two left, one cold, hard science and one warm, fuzzy, and perhaps no less true.

3) Alumni Relations is valuable because we have the data to prove it. (This is, of course, on the heels of your work collecting and analyzing data, and finding that in your case it is true.) Data points for involvement, attendance, communication, and other indicators of engagement can certainly be tracked and compared to giving for the individual and group. The more engaged, we may show with data, the more likely to give and perhaps give more generously. (And, it goes without saying, and yet here I go saying it, that stewardship of the relationship, matching alumni with efforts, projects, needs, etc. that match that person’s interests/concerns have a large role to play in the direction and intensity of giving.)

4) Alumni Relations is an investment in the future of the institution. Results will not show monetarily in the near term, as our alumni are still in school or paying for it and getting adjusted to the ‘real world.’ But the things we do in Alumni Relations- engaging them on campus as students, maintaining contact once they leave, updating pertinent life information in their record, inviting and encouraging them to return, utilizing them in substantive, productive ways to help the institution and the students through their gifts of time and expertise (volunteering), exposing them to the giving of others and the impact those donations made (on their costs as a student and on the costs for current and future students- these things set alumni up to be donors. Giving back is so, so often not a reflex, not a product of attendance. Giving back is a matter of feeling invested and invested in, and a part of the life of the institution.

That last one is my pitch because we have only paid attention to our alumni for the past five or six years. Go decades through the life of an institution without any education about what it is to be alumni and without any ongoing connection, and when you start your alumni program it is going to take time for the money to begin to roll in, if it will at all. If we knew who would give what there would be a lot fewer of us and a lot more psychics in Advancement.

That’s my two cents.

Free Webinar :: Social and Mobile Media for Nonprofit Executive Staff

Date: February 15, 2012
Time: 1-1:45pm EST
Presenter: Heather Mansfield of DIOSA Communications & Nonprofit Tech 2.0
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So how can you help ensure people receive the emails you send them? To find out, we talked to a few experts with considerable experience in the area of bulk email delivery. We also created an email deliverability study. What we learned—and what we didn’t—surprised us.

Understanding and Improving Email Deliverability | Idealware.

From Nell Edgington for Social Velocity. . .

November was another great month in the world of social innovation.

http://www.socialvelocity.net/2011/12/10-great-social-innovation-reads-november/

Here’s a great example of a school reaching out to alumni.  Recently Egg Harbor Township High School offered a tour to alumni to see the new school.  Here’s a copy of their e-mail blast announcing the event:

Egg Harbor Township High School Alumni – Egg Harbor Township, NJ

Please consider attending our Alumni Open House and Tour of the new High School from 3 – 5 p.m.,  Wednesday, November 23, 2011.

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Have you looked at your alumni and giving data?  You might just notice two patterns that sum it all up.  Review this paper by Peter B. Wylie to see the two patterns that every major giving professional should see  . . .

via Where the Alumni Money Is.

All words beginning with alumn …

alumnaholics – Those alumni who judge the success of an event solely on the amount of free beer provided.

alumnanchu – Alumni from the Fourth Ming Dynasty.

alumnaplomb – Pomp surrounding special alumni events.

alumnarcs – Our security guards at reunions.

alumnaroo – (foreign) Female jumping alumna.

via Alumni Dictionary.

According to a number of dictionaries, the word Alumni means a former student, or pupil, and comes from the Latin alere, to nourish a foster-son or pupil. Because Latin is such a structured language, we can define which gender each word refers to.

Make sure you always use the proper definition when writing, using as report headings and when using in other communications.

via Word on the Word Alumni.

Finding lost alumni is one of the hallmarks of a successful records tracing strategy.

Here are some ideas to use to increase your effectiveness in this activity.

via Finding Lost Alumni.

With more than 750 million people signed up for Facebook alone, there’s little doubt that social media can be a powerful part of most organizations’ communications mix. But what can it be used for—outreach and engagement? Event management? Advocacy? How about fundraising? For many nonprofits, it’s far more obvious that such tools can be useful than how to use them.

Idealware created the Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide to help organizations like yours determine what results and benefits you can reasonably expect from social media, and to guide you through the process of identifying the right channels for different goals.

The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide | Idealware.