Engaging Alumni: 6 Steps For Getting Started
This article is related to a recently completed custom research project ABA conducted on behalf of a member. ABA members receive access to the complete report with our full findings and recommendations. Our research team is always delighted to speak with members about tailoring research projects to your organization. To learn more or submit a custom research request, simply contact your member advisor or email us at info@advisoryarts.com.
As arts leaders consider the best strategies for engaging their many stakeholders, from donors to audiences to community partners, organizations with educational or student-focused branches have a unique stakeholder opportunity: their alumni. Students who spent their formative years pursuing their artistic passions in your halls can have an especially rewarding connection with your institution. For organizations without an existing structure around alumni engagement, figuring out where to start can be a daunting task.
ABA interviewed a variety of ballet academies, youth orchestras, and festivals to understand their challenges, advice, and best practices for building a strong alumni effort. Below, we’ve outlined six of the key steps an organization should take when planning to engage former students.
1. Determine the roles your alumni can play
Alumni can contribute to your organization in a range of ways. They can provide career mentorship to current students, donate financially to your institution, or act as ambassadors of your brand. Identifying productive roles your former students can play at your organization today will allow you to set clear, measurable objectives for your alumni engagement strategy.
Keep in mind, not all roles are appropriate from the start: every organization who participated in our study reinforced the need to build a relationship with alumni over time before asking them to become donors to the institution.
2. Clarify internal ownership
In our conversations with managers of alumni engagement programs, it became clear that alumni relations are often one part of many individuals’ job descriptions. While it is crucial to have a combination of departments involved in building a seamless engagement experience — particularly in marketing and development — identifying one team as the owner of alumni relations will ensure that the work gets done.
Several organizations took the additional step of changing job titles to reflect responsibility over alumni affairs, which not only provides internal clarity but also ensures a known point of contact for alumni themselves.
3. Find strong ambassadors
Once your internal structure is in place, it’s time to identify alumni who can champion your program. Look at your existing engaged audiences, donors, and volunteers for former students who have stayed involved with your organization or have increased excitement for your organization, and approach them to see what types of initiatives would appeal to them. Be sure to provide opportunities for these alumni to get involved more deeply in the planning process — several of the alumni relations managers we interviewed reported that some of their earliest efforts were championed by alumni who expressed interest in having deeper involvement with the organization.
4. Organize your data
One of the biggest challenges we heard in our research was how to organize contact information for past students. First, it is crucial to have a data management system that connects your alumni’s activities with those they may take as audience members, donors, and more — having a separate alumni database could lead to missed opportunities to integrate them into the various ways they can interact with your organization.
Then, there is the issue of missing contact information. Many students change emails or physical addresses as they become working professionals and artists. Here once more is a place where your engaged alumni can be helpful. Having them reach out to their social and professional networks about the opportunity to re engage with your organization can help you reach lost alumni contacts in a personal and genuine way.
5. Gather feedback early and often
Above all else, your alumni engagement activities must be mutually beneficial. You should be giving as much value to them as they can to you. To ensure that the events and programs you offer are of genuine interest, survey the alumni that are currently in your system about what they would like to engage in, and use this data to shape opportunities that resonate. This process should be continual as you add new past students to your database.
These same feedback mechanisms can also act as another chance to get alumni more involved. One organization we spoke to included a question on their feedback form to ask if alumni would be interested in a more active role on a committee. The result? Over 30 former students now form a group to help shape the alumni experience.
6. Engage emotionally
Once you have gathered a strong base of alumni who are interested in returning to your organization, you can begin planning events that speak to what they value. One of the best ways to do so is to build an emotional connection during your events.
In our conversations with arts leaders who have planned alumni engagement initiatives, many shared the power of photos and videos from years past. Including these at events — or even using them as a way to connect digitally with your alumni on social media — reminds them of and reinforces the lasting bond they feel with your institution.
Find more insights on how to enhance your approach to contributed income in our Donor & Government Engagement Center.