alumni futures

Lessons for Education from Obama's Re-election

Today's U.S. presidential inauguration reminds me to ask what higher ed advancement might learn from Obama's re-election. It feels a little like dejà vu from Obama's first presidential campaign, when many of us wondered whether Blue State Digital's grassroots tools would transform alumni communities and fundraising online. 

That didn't happen. One reason is that most of our profession sat back and waited for folks like Blue State to show up and teach us their ways. They did show up – sort of – but their solutions seemed expensive relative to our budgets, and it wasn't clear that they could resolve the difference between fundraising for Barack Obama and fundraising for graduate fellowships. Some good came of it though: many of us began to ask how donating to a time-bound, cause-related effort compared with supporting a college annual fund.

In 2013 the lessons aren't about building email lists or solicitation via text message. TIME Magazine's Swampland blog explained that it's all about "the secret world" of "data-crunchers." 

Some simple lessons for us:

Mashup data from disparate sources to gain novel insights
For example, overlay geography with behavioral profiles.  

Limit the number of data sets you use at one time
Related: Correlate and aggregate data sets. 

Rank audience members via predictive modeling
Correlate it to your campaign's priorities. 

Rank likelihood to volunteer
Giving potential isn't the only thing to rate.

Test and measure
This helps assess the best ROI among possible next steps.

Behavioral data comes from many platforms and channels
Examples: Recurring payments; text messaging; email appeals; online donations. 

Finally, there's a key difference between political campaigns and education that is not mentioned:

In political campaigns, candidates make the case for supporting a movement, a cause, or a set of values.

In schools, colleges, and universities, we characterize our needs as those of an organization, a capital project, or a place. 

Is political parties' approach to messaging broadly applicable to a university? If so, how? If not, why not?

 

Whatever the answer, I think we still have much to learn from the so-called secret data crunchers and their insight based on data and analysis.

 

Related articles

Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win

Life after 'Moneyball': Obama campaign vet sees a shift in attitudes in D.C.

Obama campaign to become nonprofit

Obama camp fundraising total: $1.1B

Do You Need Permission to Publish Alumni Notes?

Can you publish any public information about an alumnus in the form of a class note?

An acquaintance recently said he was "mortified" that his alma mater had found some information about him online (probably in another organization's newsletter), and then re-purposed it as class news in the Alumni Notes.

My first thought was, "So what?" If you publish an article, win an award, or keynote a conference, people are going to talk about it, and it will likely be published on someone's website. And if it's on a public site, it will be indexed by Google and will be searchable. Or it will turn up on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, without breaching any privacy policy or Terms of Service. 

My acquaintance explains that "including that note implies that I wrote that in to the office and volunteered that information to be published in those pages." The point, he said, is not whether the information is public – it's whether he would want it broadcast to his alumni community. The answer to that is impossible for the alumni office to know, without asking him.

["It implies that I volunteered that information
to be published in those pages"]

Does your institution have a policy for this? Is it easy for alumni to find and understand that policy? Do you get complaints from alumni whose news you collected elsewhere and re-published (either in print or online)? 

I posed this question on the Alumni Futures Facebook page, where one reader described a combination of approaches:

[We use] news submitted by alumni, news submitted by their employers (usually about promotions, awards, etc.), and news from stories in the press that mention the alumnus/alumna and his or her affiliation with the university.

Another reader said:

The major caveat is that the alumnus/subject must verify and approve before printing.

What's your view?

Leave a comment.

 

Image by Sean MacEntee via Creative Commons.

Preparing Advancement for an Ambiguous Future: Guest Blogger Andrew Gossen

Andrew Gossen (@agossen) is Senior Director for Social Media Strategy in Cornell’s Division of Alumni Affairs & Development, and is a member of the Alumni Futures advisory group. 

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Have times ever been better for advancement in higher education? Stanford University recently wrapped up a $6.23 billion campaign. Princeton’s Aspire Campaign raised $1.88 billion. At Cornell, in the midst of the $4.75 billion Cornell Now campaign, we have just completed the most successful year of fundraising in the university’s history.

But an undercurrent of anxiety runs through higher education; the world is changing rapidly in ways that may make the status quo unsustainable. Can an advancement organization position itself to succeed in an ambiguous future? Cornell’s Division of Alumni Affairs and Development (AA&D) recently embarked on an experiment that we called the Skunkworks, in recognition of the history and spirit of Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs organization. 

Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Charlie Phlegar convened the Skunkworks in Spring 2011. The group included 14 staff from across the Advancement Office – from Major Gifts to Advancement Services; veterans mixed with newcomers. Our charge? Take a broad look at the challenges, opportunities, and trends that will influence institutional advancement in higher education over the next twenty years. We were given complete freedom to explore in whatever manner we chose.

The group met regularly for a full year. Members took turns leading discussions on many topics, such as:

• The Digital Life of Alumni
• Rethinking the Endowment
• Storytelling and the Institutional Website
• Crowdfunding and Microfinance
• Young Alumni Giving
• The Psychology of Happiness in Fundraising, and
• Women and Philanthropy

By the end of the year, our conversations revolved around three main themes.

1. Increasing competition for the attention of our audience.
It is more difficult to connect our audience to Cornell meaningfully. There is rising competition from other non-profits, rapid and dramatic change in communications, and an imbalance between sharing our message and listening to our audience.

2. Changes in the philanthropic environment.
The demographics and behaviors of our audience are making traditional programs and approaches less effective. For instance, women are assuming a greater leadership role in philanthropic decisions. Different generations display different attitudes towards giving. Direct mail and phonathons will become less effective as technology and habits change.  Keeping accurate contact information for alumni has always been a challenge, and will get harder as people abandon land line phones and answer fewer calls, thanks to caller ID and mobile technologies.

3. Organizational agility.
Traditional fundraising and engagement programs have served our institution well over the years, and we are organized to sustain and improve them deliberately and incrementally. However, the world is changing so fast that this deliberate pace is no longer as effective, especially with competition from the “new and nimble” non-profits that are making inroads into our audience and threatening our donor pipeline. 

Overall, we concluded that broad one-size-fits-all fundraising, engagement, and communications strategies will become less and less effective. We need to focus on user experience, personalizing and customizing interactions in ways that meet the audience expectations shaped by companies like Amazon and organizations such as Kiva.org. We must also segment our audience beyond their giving history, and account for generational differences, gender, ethnicity, and other variables that may affect capacity and inclination to engage.

And changing the way that we think about our audience is only one piece of the puzzle. Equally important is adopting an experimental mindset. The only way you will know if something works is to test it. Some experiments will fail and that’s ok, because that’s how you learn. Organizational culture must evolve toward pilot projects and rigorous data analysis, and away from the risk aversion and conservatism that characterizes so much of higher ed advancement.

Our final report to the Vice President recommended a list of pilot projects designed to test specific hypotheses that emerged from our discussion. Among them are experiments with crowdfunding, developing advancement strategies focused on professional cohorts of female alumni, gamification, and enhanced presentation skills training for faculty, senior administrators, and advancement officers. The organization has already incorporated elements of these into broader efforts to raise annual giving participation.

The Skunkworks approach demonstrates that an advancement office faced with change and uncertainty can position itself for the future by mobilizing talent already present in the organization.

 

Skunk Works logo via Wikimedia. Copyright Lockheed-Martin

Focusing on ROI is Selfish

Higher ed communications leader (and Alumni Futures advisory group member) Charlie Melichar periodically speaks about social media's place in advancement. At a conference in 2010, an audience member asked Charlie about "getting more alumni to spend time with our Facebook presence." 

Charlie replied:

Don't worry so much about whether a few more people spend two minutes a day with your Facebook content. Get the people who already spend two minutes to spend a few more minutes a day. Don't focus solely on ROI. Focus on ROA – Return on Attention.

Charlie urged us to make our existing supporters' experience more rewarding, instead of only trying to attract more fans and more followers. 

At the 2012 CASE Summit, I had a moment of clarity about why this made sense. Charlie was on stage again, this time discussing technology with MIT's Sherry Turkle. She had just described how technology can isolate us from one another, hindering genuine interaction. The discussion sparked my memory of Charlie's earlier remarks, and I suddenly realized why I found his advice appealing. In a nutshell:

Measuring ROI means assessing the value we get from our investment in online engagement.

Measuring ROA focuses on the engagement's value to our audience.

You should assess whether your organization is using its resources wisely, and ROI is one way to approach that.

However, "return on attention" puts the audience first. That's a worthwhile goal for those of us trying to connect with our audience in ways that matter to them.

 

Related Link:

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other
by Sherry Turkle

21 Examples of Crowdsourced Fundraising Platforms

[Update July 6, 2012: Add Razoo to the list.]

Fundraising is being crowdsourced.

What It Means
The word "Crowdsourcing" combines "crowd" with "outsourcing." It describes the distribution of a task or process among a large, indeterminate group – such as members of the general public. Ordinarily, the task might otherwise be handled by employees, or people engaged officially as part of an organization. 

Crowdsourcing doesn't necessarily happen online, but the internet makes crowdsourcing much easier. This is true of many kinds of work, including raising funds to support a cause or organization. 

Why It Matters
With individuals and small organizations able to design, promote, and fundraise (or borrow money) for their projects, educational fundraising will inevitably be affected. The list below shows a sampling of the current online crowsourced funding landscape.

Some of the sites listed here support education, some support other (occasionally specific) kinds of activity. This isn't meant to be a complete list, just a way for Alumni Futures readers to see the scope of the sector, and the rate at which it's growing; almost all these sites were established within the last two years.

We need to understand how these sites and services mimic educational institutions' internal processes, and how they differ. Then can we determine whether to

• ignore the trend and continue as we are already doing;
• work with 3rd party providers and buy into the process;
• learn from these examples and build our own versions internally. 

Here are 21 current examples of crowdsourced funding sites, in no particular order.

Education Sector:

DonorsChoose – Public school teachers post projects online, and funders choose a project and contribute any amount. Donors are (optionally) connected to the teacher and other donors.

PetriDish – "World famous researchers" post scientific research projects & expeditions, which are funded if a project reaches its financial goal.  

Sciflies – Another micro-donation funding site supporting scientific research projects, across "medical, environmental, engineering" and other fields.

USeed – The University of Delaware site that funds student-led projects via crowdsourced funding. 

MiddSTART – Middlebury College site soliciting funds for students to "explore their interests through creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative projects." Alumni and friends can "combine a number of gifts to support a project that particularly appeals to them."

Takeashine – "Takeashine is an online crowdfunding platform for underprivileged students who risk missing out on higher education because they cannot meet their college costs."

RaisingSocial – More crowdsourced funding for schools. "Donors are able to become friends with other donors. Donors are able to see what causes their friends are interested in and can donate to those causes as well."

AlumniChoose – Student organizations can use this site to fundraise directly. I profiled the site briefly here. 

 

Business, Non-Profit, Personal, and Other Sectors:

Kickstarter - Funding site that uses an all-or-nothing model. "Projects must be fully funded or no money changes hands." 

Razoo – "Search for and donate to 1 million officially registered non-profit organizations."

Indiegogo – "...a crowdfunding platform where people who want to raise money can create fundraising campaigns to tell their story and get the word out."

Rockethub.org – An online "boot camp" that purports to train people in the practice of crowdsourced fundraising. 

GiveForward – "GiveForward pages empower friends and family to send love and financial support to patients as they navigate a medical crisis."

Mobcaster – A crowdfunding platform crossed with an online television channel, for "original, independent, audience-supported television shows." 

8-Bit Funding – Crowdsourced fundraising for gaming-related projects: video games, board games, card games and more.

HelpersUnite – Combines "creative and entrepreneurial crowdfunding and event ticket sales with charitable giving" to "raise funding, increase awareness, and create an audience for that special event..."

GreenUnite – A site "focused on helping to launch important products, technology and content dedicated to creating a more sustainable world."

Crowdtilt – "Pool money with your friends or your community for an objective/event/fundraiser you care about. It could be for a vacation home rental in Hawaii or raising money for a charitable event in your region."

Emphas.is – "An online platform where photojournalists can submit projects for crowdfunding by the   public."

Prosper – Peer-to-peer lending, where borrowers list an amount and purpose, and investors make fixed monthly payments to projects they want to fund. 

Kiva – On the best-known of micro-lending platforms, lenders "combat poverty...by making small loans to borrowers around the world," providing "fair access to affordable capital for people to improve their own lives."

If nothing else, this partial list will help you picture the variety of sites supporting decentralized funding across many sectors.

Is "crowdfunding" the future of annual giving and student support in education?

Leave a comment.

 

Image: "Crowdsourced" by Fernando Weno via Creative Commons.

In Which I Attend My Own Reunion

I just got off the phone with a newspaper reporter from California. She's writing an article (see SacBee.com link below) about the effect of social media on high school and college reunions. I've worked in universities for more than two decades, so I probably should have stuck to that aspect of her topic. But I talked about Facebook and high school reunions instead.

Why?

Because today I am flying to New York for the 30th reunion of my high school graduating class. 

I attended a small public high school about 20 miles from New York City. The high school itself has long since moved to a new building, and there has never been an alumni director or an alumni organization of any kind. But 30 years later my classmates and I are eager to see each other, to make up stories about how cool we were, and to check on those yearbook "superlatives" (Spoiler: "Most likely to succeed" wasn't me!).

What I told the reporter, simply, was this: My high school reunion might not be taking place if it weren't for Facebook. The popular online platform made it easy to find a place where the vast majority of class members spend time on the internet. Facebook members reached most of the non-Facebook users via email.

Despite its reunion, there's no such organization as "the Nyack High School class of '82." But there's a community of friends and acquaintances with that name. And a very small number of dedicated volunteers, over the last several months, orchestrated the weekend of official and unofficial events that form our reunion. Significantly, during the weeks before the reunion, those of us active on Facebook have shared literally thousands of messages, Likes, photos, and comments with each other. 

[Once you're friends with someone,
you want to spend time visiting with them]

Over the last few years, some have said that Facebook's rise would doom physical reunions: "I've already heard everything about this person online – what is there left to talk about when I see them?"

But many realize that they aren't learning everything about people via Facebook. They're just becoming friends (again, or for the first time). And once you're friends with someone, you want to spend time visiting with them.

Social software doesn't complicate alumni activities. Used creatively and persistently, online networks merely enable a predictable, long-standing form of human behavior: hanging out together on the weekend. 

Photo: Vintage postcard of my high school

Related Articles:

Is Facebook cutting demand for high school reunions? (sacbee.com)

Who needs a reunion? I've got Facebook (nytimes.com)

Is Facebook replacing the need for reunions? (allfacebook.com)

Is Facebook good or bad for school reunions? (cnn.com)

Helping Volunteer Leaders Find Successors: 15 Suggestions

I recently had a lively discussion with some of my institution's top alumni volunteer leaders. The topic was volunteer leadership succession – for boards, committees, reunion classes, special interest groups, chapters, and other volunteer-led groups. I believe that a volunteer leader's most important job is to find his or her own replacement. A leader has not completely fulfilled that role until a successor is ready to take over. 

Together, we explored ways to identify and recruit the people who would succeed them in leadership positions. I've distilled here some of the tactics we discussed. 

Volunteer Leadership Succession:

1. Search for your successor right away
   It takes longer than you might think to find a suitable replacement. Begin planning and idenitfying as soon as you take over the group's leadership. 


2. Don’t overstay your own welcome
   If you love the job, you may want to stay in your leadership role as long as possible. Doing so, however, may create the impression that a leader has to serve for years, which can scare away likely successors. See also number 14 below.


3. Don’t try to do every job yourself
   Sometimes it's easier to do things yourself than to recruit helpers to whom you can delegate. But you might send the message to your potential replacements that a leader has to do all the work alone.


4. Consider a structured "order of succession"
   For medium and large volunteer groups, structuring succession (e.g., with a "president-elect" or a vice president who always succeeds the president) can stabilize succession further into the future. 


5. Seek guidance from past volunteers and current staff
   Don't do the searching by yourself. You have valuable, experienced resources who can provide eyes and ears, as well as names of likely future leaders. Use these resources.


6. Add – don't merely "replace"
   If you have someone ready and able to step up and contribute, you don't have to wait until the leadership role is vacant. Add them to the leadership ranks, creating a role if necessary. 


7. Consider co-leader roles
   Related to the the "add, don't just replace" idea is the option of having co-leaders. You don't need just a single person at the helm, especially if you have two people with complementary characteristics (e.g., a charismatic public speaker paired with a behind the scenes organizer).


8. Document your plans and achievements
   A listing of what the group has accomplished, and a road map showing a vision for the near future conveys a sense of structure. This makes new leaders more confident in their own prospects for success.


9. Have a back up candidate when possible
   Smaller groups may not have many volunteers to choose from, but if possible, identify second and even third choices (but don't necessarily let them know they're backups!). Plans change, and people can be transferred away, end up with family responsibilities, or face other unexpected demands that will cut into their volunteer time.


10. Thank and recognize volunteers
    Reinforcing the value and importance of volunteers' efforts is a key to making them feel that volunteerism is a privilege, not an obligation. Thank all levels of volunteers (not just leaders) publicly and sincerely. 


11. Create clear and finite roles
    Simple job descriptions can make volunteers feel like their roles are manageable. Ending dates, or task-based finish lines will reinforce this feeling. If volunteers feel that their jobs are too open-ended, they will worry about whether they can ever step down – and won't necessarily know when they have succeeded.


12. Attend as many alumni events as possible
    Volunteer leaders are usually front and center at their own group's events. But not always. Working a room to meet new people is a valuable way to identify people with an interest in volunteering. 


13. Remember the power of peer-to-peer relationships 
    People are more likely to donate financially when asked by a friend or other person they know personally. The same is true of volunteering. If comfortable doing so, a leader who asks a friend or acquaintance for volunteer help is more likely to get a "yes" than when asking a relative stranger. Volunteers can reach out to friends and classmates when seeking successors.


14. Be willing to stay during a transition
    Volunteers are often so relieved (and sometimes, burnt out) that when they step down they can disappear completely for a while. A volunteer leader should offer to be accessible to a successor, so that the new leader has a source of information, history, advice and – perhaps most importantly – encouragement. 


15. Use the Golden Rule
    Treat other volunteers the way you want to be treated. Did you get the support and aid you needed from other alumni and from staff? Were you treated with respect and professionalism? These are things to emulate in all your interactions with other volunteers.  

What other advice and guidance do you provide to leaders regarding leadership succession? 

Tell us by leaving a comment.

Thank you to members of the PCUAD group, to some of my university's volunteer leaders, and to members of the Alumni & Advancement Professionals' group on LinkedIn for providing some of these suggestions.

 

CASE 2012 Asia-Pacific Institute in Alumni Relations

This year I will be joining the CASE Asia-Pacific Institute in Alumni Relations (APIAR) again as a faculty member. I was privileged to be part of the inaugural event last year, and am honored to be invited back. It's a great introduction to alumni relations for those relatively new to the profession, and a strong networking and learning opportunity for new and experienced participants.

The full conference takes place over three days this year, from 7 to 9 August, at the Nanyang Executive Centre in Singapore. Full details are here:

http://www.case.org/Conferences_and_Training/APIAR12.html

Last year's was the first-ever alumni relations institute in Asia, and it received great reviews from participants. This year, we've updated the schedule and content to reflect attendees' needs. The Institute is more compact, so you'll spend less time away from the office. Among other topics, we'll explore

• using digital tools for generating alumni engagement
• the relationship between alumni relations and fundraising, and 
• working with students and alumni volunteers. 

We'll also explore metrics and benchmarking, connecting with international alumni, branding for alumni associations, ethics, and how to keep in touch with recent alumni.

CASE is also providing a discount for 2 or more delegates from the same institution who register together.

Here's the full schedule:

APIAR 2012 Full Schedule

As a bonus, the event ends just as Singapore gears up for its National Day celebrations (9 August), so if you're coming to Singapore, stay for the holiday weekend, and enjoy parades, concerts, and fireworks. A lot of fireworks. 

Here's a short (< 2 minutes) video welcome from Institute chair Marie Earl (note that after the video was recorded, the end date for the conference was changed to 9 August):

CASE APIAR 2012 – Come Join Us in Singapore!

Photo: Fireworks on Singapore's National Day, by Lip Jin Lee via Creative Commons.

New Publication: Internationalisation of European Higher Education

I recently had the honor of contributing to a newly-published handbook, Internationalisation of European Higher Education.

My contribution is a section on Challenges in Global Alumni Relations.

The book consists of a hard copy (loose-leaf) physical edition, supplemented three times a year with digital updates that reflect new developments, best-practice examples from across Europe, and hands-on advice. The target audience is European education professionals navigating an increasingly international landscape.

Subscribers to the volume get online access to digital versions of all the Handbook's articles – useful for those who are constantly traveling because of the international role they play.

A description, full table of contents, and pricing information are available from the Handbook website:

Internationalisation of European Higher Education

The book is edited by the European Association for International Education.

I don't make any money from people purchasing the volume; but I'll gain great satisfaction if it helps a few Alumni Futures readers with their everyday professional challenges.

 

Do Events Have a Social Graph?

In a recent article titled The Next Big Thing, social network analyst Valdis Krebs pointed out that just as a person has a "social graph" that depicts how they connect and interact with others, a book can have a social graph too. His network map displays connections between the purchasing behaviors of individuals who bought a specific book on Amazon.com: 

Below is a network map of a very interesting new book – Too Big to Know [2B2K] by internet scholar David Weinberger. David's book is shown by the magenta node in the center of the network. Directly connected to his book are the books that Amazon mentions that customers also bought [green nodes], in addition to 2B2K. These books are probably more similar than different to 2B2K. The blue nodes are books that are 2 steps away from 2B2K, they are probably more different than 2B2K, but retain similarities also. The arrows show the direction of the majority of also-bought activity. 

His conclusion? Amazon is building an "Interests & Passions network...under the radar."

"Social Graph" of the book Too Big to Know on Amazon.com, via The Network Thinkers - Click to enlarge

It occurs to me that if a thing (like a book) can have a social graph, so can some of the "things" we use to engage alumni and donors. For example:

Events can have a social graph.

Is someone who attends a particular event more or less likely to attend certain other events? The answer could improve our target marketing for events.

Volunteerism can have a social graph.

Is someone who volunteers for a specific role more or less likely to fulfill another, specific role? The answer could improve volunteer recruitment.

[If a book can have a social graph, why can't an event?]

And directionality matters here too. For example, arrows would show which volunteer roles lead to future activities.

This is hardly a new idea. Overlay behavior onto a social graph and you're creating an interest graph. That's how several popular online services work, in a general way: Zappos, Netflix, and of course Amazon. But these sites mostly aggregate past users' behaviors to influence the next user's behavior, without those users being connected otherwise. A true "interest graph"–based system would interpret your behavior to help organizations understand why you attended that additional event, or how you felt about your volunteer experience.

Intrigued by this idea? Then see this article by Derrick Harris: The personalized web is just an interest graph away.

Do events, volunteer roles, and other engagement tools have social graphs?

If they do, should we be capturing and analyzing them?

Why – or why not? 

Related articles

• Amazon is building a social graph under the radar (thenetworkthinkers.com)
• [2b2k] Too Big to Know's network (hyperorg.com)
• Looking Beyond the Social Graph, Capsule Aims To Map the 'Experience Graph' (prweb.com)
• The personalized web is just an interest graph away (gigaom.com)