alumni futures

AlumniChoose: Direct Funding for Student Groups

[Update June 2012: I posted 20 Examples of Crowdsourced Fundraising Platforms]

Over the years I've seen a couple of online tools that allow alumni and others to contribute directly to university students, their projects, or their organizations. The latest is called AlumniChoose, and is the brainchild of Tom Krieglstein. I talked to him this weekend about his motivation and his plans.

AlumniChoose sits on two well-established building blocks: micro-funding and social media. And it parallels efforts such as MiddSTART and MontereySTART, "a network of microphilanthropy" students at Middblebury College and its California graduate school, the Monterey Institute of International Studies. But because it's not limited to a single institution, AlumniChoose starts out more broadly. 

How It Works
In a phone conversation, Krieglstein summed up his vision for the platform. "AlumniChoose" he said, "will increase the number of donors and the number of donations, and will reduce the institutional cost of getting those donations."

Donations to a specific student project or student organization are held in escrow until the project's financial goal is met. At that point, the institution receives a check for the full amount funded, along with the name, mailing address, email address, and amount given by each donor for the specific project. AlumniChoose verifies that organizers are officially recognized entities on their campus. So donors can presumably feel confident that their contribution is really supporting a service project instead of a keg party. 

Motivation
Krieglstein is frustrated by the transactional nature of annual giving. "Traditional appeals don't fulfill my emotional connection to giving. Instead, they could make my $25 donation feel like a $1 million donation," he told me. So he is trying to connect donors to the meaningful experience they want (and deserve) when funding small projects. This is also the impetus behind platforms like Kickstarter, Kiva and DonorsChoose. 

[Krieglstein is frustrated by the transactional nature of annual giving]

Takeaways

1. The AlumniChoose approach may appeal to donors who don't just want to "fund a project," but who see themselves as part of the growth or evolution of a community – such as a student group – to which they have been connected in the past, or whose values and goals they think they share.

2. Partnership with development will make advancement officers more likely to respond positively to AlumniChoose, if partnership ensures the capture of donor data, which is critical to a robust, stable fundraising operation.

Capturing this data should allow institutions to expand their prospect and donor pools. Students will solicit and attract funding not only from alumni, but from their immediate families, distant relatives, and friends.

3. To succeed, AlumniChoose will require full collaboration among student group leaders, student affairs professionals, and advancement offices.

Institutional fundraisers must recognize and embrace this trend: the move toward relationship-based, meaningful interaction at ever-smaller donation levels. With the help of technology, institutions may: 

- create instant personal interaction between donors and recipients;
- allow contributors to join mini-social networks of like-minded fellow donors;
- push relationship-based interaction down to modest annual gift levels; and
- decrease the impersonal interaction that characterizes mass solicitation.

4. AlumniChoose may, as its founder projects, increase donor numbers and dollars at low relative cost.

However, it will not put a dent in the short-term budgetary needs of universities, and it will not channel funds to campaign priorities or other projects seen as critical to the central administration. Its greatest value may be in creating a long-term pipeline of future repeat donors. 

[Giving will be based not on the institution, 
but on the causes its students pursue]

5. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, the central donor pool across institutions will grow over time.

Donors may be "tagged" according to what kind of effort they support (e.g., social causes, community engagement, musical theater, international exchange, etc.), not according to which institution they support. On the one hand, State U. may see some donors shift support to projects at other institutions. But in theory this will even out as other schools' donors support projects at State U. Their giving will be based, again, not on the institution, but on the causes its students pursue.

Closing Thought
Campus fundraisers have generally avoided partnering with third party platforms, citing reasons ranging from "security concerns" to "controling the message" to "protecting our donor community." Krieglstein says AlumniChoose should be a "partner with the campus development office, to help more students do more." 

If it works out that way, and if advancement professionals can overcome their protective instincts, one result may be a tiny bit more money for student activities, and a wider pipeline of donors in the long-run.

 

Related resources

• AlumniChoose (alumnichoose.org)
• Meet AlumniChoose.org (swiftkickonline.com)
• Kickstarter (kickstarter.com)
• Kiva (kiva.org)
• DonorsChoose (donorschoose.org)

See What Your Fellow Alumni Have Done...To Frighten You

Back in November I received the first of what is now an occasional series of automated emails from LinkedIn, pushing out links to the profiles of my graduate school classmates.

I would not know the name of every person listed, so LinkedIn included my fellow alums' profile photos, along with the name of their current employer.

This was a good way to jog my memory and drive some traffic to the LinkedIn site.

But the best thing about it? The photo of the guy in the top row.

That's one way to work your network...

 

 

 

Top 5 Alumni Futures Reader Comments of 2011

One of the best things about blogging is the thoughtful and provocative replies from attentive readers. This kind of engagement keeps me on my toes and, I believe, informs other readers. 

Here are five of the many comments that readers left this year. I selected them because they illuminate larger issues in advancement, while addressing a specific, narrower topic. This gives them both tactical and strategic value.

I hope they spur your own thinking about some of the issues. Note: I've edited the comments for length in a few spots.:  

I asked: "Is Alumni Relations a Form of CRM?" Keith Lue responded:

In the alumni relations profession we tend to compartmentalize our constituents based on demographics versus psychographics. This mistakenly focuses on who is in the database instead of why people might want to stay connected. Any tool which can help you deepen the relationships between the institution and the alumni should be embraced. Yes, as alumni professionals, we manage relationships or what I prefer to describe as facilitate meaningful connections. 

In reply to the same article about CRM, Andrew Gossen said:

I agree with...the goal of having the user experience of transition from student to alumni be as seamless as possible. A significant impediment to this is often not insularity, lack of creativity, or absence of good intention but the long shadow of FERPA. The most elegant and user-friendly system in the world isn't going to help you any if you've got people in your institution arguing that any and all data relating to any aspect of what an individual did as a student is off limits because of FERPA. Sadly, many American institutions seem more worried about CYA than positive, integrated relationship management.

 

[Keith Lue: We mistakenly focus on who is in the database instead of
why people might want to stay connected]

 

Earlier this year I pondered, "How Should a University Build its "Leadership Brand"?", and Andrew Careaga opined:

One of many challenges of brand-building for a university system has to do with creating coherence for the "system" brand among its many distinct campuses. The bigger the system, the more challenging that is....What is the purpose of the system brand as opposed to the campus brand(s)? Maybe the system is the superbrand, a la Procter & Gamble, and the individual campuses a brand unto themselves (a la Tide, Crest, Charmin, Bounty, Luvs and the other various brands that are part of the P&G house). So, yes, universities do have a consumer positioning strategy. But when I'm buying toothpaste, I'm not buying Procter & Gamble. I'm buying Crest or one of its competitors. In the same way, consumers of education aren't buying the superbrand of a system. Not if there is differentiation among their various campuses...

Commenting on Two Ways to Measure Social Media, Matt Lindsay said:

...Negative comments received via social media provide a unique opportunity to change attitudes/perceptions. If people post a "negative" comment on a photo or lodge a complaint on Twitter/Facebook take the time to respond and counter that assumption, if appropriate, or admit it's an area for improvement. In my experience this type of candor is appreciated. Either way, negative responses provide an opportunity to learn something new, and perhaps win over a naysayer in the process.

 

[John Feudo: Alumni Relations is not the end in itself –
it's the means to an end]

 

And last, a philosophical reply to 7 Commonly Missed Opportunities in Alumni Relations, from John Feudo:

One of the issues many alumni associations struggle with is why we exist. It's all too easy to focus on what is best for the alumni association, and not on what is best for the institution. Alumni Relations is not the end in itself – it's the means to an end. The "end" should be the complete and total investment of our alumni in their alma mater. 

That wraps up 2011. Many thanks to the readers of Alumni Futures, followers on Twitter, and Facebook fans. 

 

I look forward to 2012 and a new crop of insights, reactions and ideas from my readers!

Review: LinkedIn Alumni

[Updated 28 March, 2012: The service described here now supports searching on any institution. Select the "More schools..." pull-down menu, and type the name of a college or university in the text box labeled "Browse by name"]

Are you logged into LinkedIn right now? If so, go to 

http://www.linkedin.com/college

and look at the business networking site's "Alumni" function.

LinkedIn launched the service in October 2011 under the name LinkedIn Classmates, but quickly changed the name "to more accurately reflect the importance of exchanging insights with your alumni network." It's possible they renamed it because it sounded like the separate third-party website Classmates.com.

Whatever the reason for a name change, here's a quick look at what LinkedIn Alumni does and how it works. 

What it Does
LinkedIn Alumni connects you quickly with fellow alumni. Why? To quote LinkedIn's director of product management, Christina Allen, "Since you have your school in common, you have a natural connection." (This is subject to some debate, which I wrote about almost three years ago.) If we assume that's a good enough reason for most people to network with fellow alumni, we can next look at how it works.

Screenshot: click image to enlarge. My annotations are in red.

How it Works
LinkedIn Alumni searches for LinkedIn members based on information you listed in the Education field of your LinkedIn profile (institution name and years attended). If you listed more than one educational institution, it lets you select which institution to search for. 

First you will see profiles of fellow alumni to whom you're already connected on LinkedIn. After that, the LinkedIn members listed appear to be those who attended during at least part of the time you did (if you've listed a class year in your profile), and with whom you share at least one connection.

You can pull down the "Years Attended" menu to search by "Graduation Year" instead.

[The service connects you quickly with fellow alumni]

You may choose to see profiles of alumni who don't include their attendance years in their profiles. It is worth clicking the plus sign next to the number of alumni found, to show those with no graduation year listed, which increases the number of profiles returned (bottom left in the screenshot shown here).

Switching to this view dramatically increased the number of visible profiles for me:

• by 45% for my graduate degree alma mater,
• by 95% for my undergraduate school, and 
• by 217% for my high school. 

At the very bottom of the Alumni screen is a button that allows you to search for "your alumni group" with one click. It won't necessarily show your institution's official groups at the top of the results, depending on the name and description those groups use.

"Hidden" Features
The service is interesting at first because you can quickly see the names of people you had forgotten about. But LinkedIn has added granular controls that make the service truly useful. However, they are not obvious at first, because of the site's design. They are:

Search by Employer, Job Function, and Location
Those blue horizontal bars at the top are clickable. For example, select "Legal" and your Alumni results are re-sorted to show those connections who work in the legal professions. And the re-sort includes the Employer and Location listings ("Where they work..." and ""Where they live..." in LinkedIn's user-friendly labeling system).

Search by Dates Attended or Graduated
Tiny pulldown menus at the top right of the main window let you set the chronological window in which you're searching for fellow alumni. Or you can click on "Attended" and select "Graduated" instead, to focus on alumni from a single class year. 

One odd, and presumably temporary problem is that the whole Alumni feature itself is hidden. As of this writing, there is no link or other navigation showing you how to find LinkedIn Alumni from the home page or from your profile. 

[It's not the people you know who have
the greatest potential to help you. It's the people they know.]

Summary
You can use LinkedIn Alumni to find people who attended any of your listed educational institutions, and can narrow the search by years attended, class year, current location, industry and company. This suggests that the service is most useful for those with a specific networking need (as is LinkedIn in general). 

But don't forget about the strength of weak ties. Your immediate connection to fellow alumni makes it easy to reach out to them, and it's tempting to narrow your search using the tools described above. But this is only the start of exploring your network.

It's not the people you know who have the greatest potential to help you. It's the people they know.

For more about the strength of weak ties, see some of the past Alumni Futures stories in the "Related resources" list below.

Overall, LinkedIn Alumni is useful for manipulating existing data according to profile characteristics. Increased access to this kind of data makes our searches more powerful. Only when this happens does LinkedIn increase its value to users. For this reason, I'm guessing that we'll see similar functionality for every kind of affiliation you can display in your profile: places you've worked, languages you speak, awards you've won, conferences you've attended, as well as your skills, groups, and associations. 

Have you used LinkedIn Alumni (aka LinkedIn Classmates)?

Is it useful?

If so, what for? If not, why not?

Leave a comment.

Related resources

• LinkedIn Alumni (linkedin.com)
• Explore possibilities by connecting with fellow alumni (linkedin.com)
• LinkedIn Feature: "Your College Alumni" (alumnifutures.com)
• Dunbar's Number & the Strength of Weak Ties (alumnifutures.com) 
• All the People You Know Who Know People (alumnifutures.com)

How Do You Build and Sustain a Professional Network?

Recently, in the EAIE Group on LinkedIn, group member Martin Tillman asked a simple question:

How do you build and sustain an effective professional network?

Specifically, he asked to hear from

...those who have been in the field [of international education] at least 5 to 10 years re: successful approaches...to building and sustaining your professional connections. Has it become easier or more difficult over time? Do you think the focus and context of our work creates unique opportunities to build professional connections?

This made me think about my own practice in this area over the past decade or so, and here's my answer:

I don't think there's anything unique about my profession's opportunities for building professional connections.

[This made me think about how to build – and sustain –  
an effective professional network]

For me, network-building and maintenance come mostly from the following channels, methods and sources:

1. Speaking at conferences

Presenting ideas and experiences attracts input and collaboration from people with similar problems and interests. 

2. Publishing in the profession

Writing for my peers in journals, magazines, websites, and blogs (such as Alumni Futures) generates global interaction, brainstorming, and debate around shared interests and challenges.

3. Using tools to connect with others

LinkedIn is a perfect example of a tool that accomplishes a traditional function (professional networking) in a new way (online).

4. Serving the profession

As a volunteer leader or as a contributor via professional organizations such as CASE, EAIE and other groups, on organizing committees for conferences, and in other capacities, I have met countless others who share my interest in developing deeper connections and a broader network.

How do you build and sustain your professional network?

Leave a comment.  

Image: Visual representation of my current LinkedIn network, from LinkedIn Labs. Click to view larger.

Alumni Relations: Upcoming Conferences & Training Events from CASE

Here's a quick summary of some of the upcoming alumni relations professional education opportunities from CASE, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

For a full calendar of opportunities across all of advancement, see CASE's Conference & Training pages.

Social Media, Alumni and the Engagement Cycle (Online Speaker Series, Asia-Pacific)
November 8, 2011

The Power of Volunteers: Leveraging Engagement & Advocacy (Online Speaker Series)
November 15, 2011

Alumni Engagement Strategies: Traditional Communities, New Networks (Savannah, Georgia, USA)
December 5–6, 2011

The Necessity of Developing a Community College Alumni Relations Program (Webinar)
December 13, 2011 

Annual CASE-NAIS Independent Schools Conference (San Francisco, California, USA)
February 5–7, 2012

Workshop for Newcomers to Alumni Relations (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA)
February 29-March 1, 2012

Note that some content on the CASE website is region-specific, so consider selecting América Latina, Asia-Pacific or Europe as a selection when looking at the site.

Of course there are non-CASE offerings as well, too numerous to list here. However, I will mention one specific opportunity in which I've participated in the past, and which will be of interest to some:

Educational Travel Conference (Orlando, Florida, USA)
January 19-22, 2012 

If you work on alumni travel programs and want to see other planners, international destination reps, and tour operators all in one giant place, this is a great conference to attend.

What are your professional development plans for the coming calendar year? 

CASE-NAIS 2012 will be in San Francisco. Photo of Bay Bridge with rainbow by Andy Shaindlin.

6 Online Outcomes & 3 Case Studies: Thunderbird, Part II

In our last article we saw a few of the guidelines the Thunderbird Global School of Management (Arizona, USA) uses to shape its interaction with alumni via Twitter and LinkedIn.

This week they share some specific outcomes from these efforts, as well as a few challenges and success stories.

 

Key Outcomes from LinkedIn
Thunderbird counts 25% of its 40,000 alumni among its LinkedIn Group. Here are key results, with "how to" tips:

Outcome 1: Countered the impression that Thunderbird didn't do enough to help alumni obtain jobs
Katie Mayer, alumni relations coordinator, says: "Complaints about this issue have decreased from several per week to virtually none." How did they do it?

• Posting jobs and career tips regularly
• Giving real-time access to Career Management Center staff
• Encouraging alumni to post job openings
• Actively matching alumni with one another for networking

Outcome 2: Identified and tested a new giving opportunity
How did they do it?

• A Campaign appeal via LinkedIn, through a Group notification (which hits e-mail boxes and posts automatically as a "Discussion"). The appeal was a direct ask from Mayer, their community manager. 
• "This was the second-most successful appeal of any kind all year, resulting in more than 100 gifts in a few days, plus numerous comments – all positive." 
• Not over-reaching. Mayer: "This tool is powerful, so we’ve decided to use it only once per year. There was something about asking as a person, instead of as the institution, that touched this group."

Outcome 3: Created a closer relationship with alumni
Thunderbird now communicates with alumni more via LinkedIn than via e-mail. Mayer: "There's a more personal connection because of the profile photo and bio. Alumni feel that they already know us when we meet in person."

Outcome 4: Generated more balanced Group conversations
A larger number of members means more diverse viewpoints, instead of a handful of vocal alumni.

 

[Thunderbird communicates with alumni more via LinkedIn than via e-mail]

 

Key Outcomes from Twitter
Half of Thunderbird's content is purely informative and focused on international business – it is a global management school after all. Thunderbird's Mayer and colleague Samantha Novick subscribe to various digital news outlets to get timely content to share with followers. 

For fun sometimes they'll post trivia questions from The Economist Book of Facts. Novick: "Since more than half our students are international, we Tweet holidays around the world. We schedule Tweets for certain times to take care of our alumni who are in time zones throughout Europe and Asia."

Outcome 5: Positioned Thunderbird on Twitter as a source of insight on relevant, important issues
"It bolsters our credibility and fosters lifelong learning," says Novick.

Outcome 6: Increased alumni engagement
Fast responses, retweets, favoriting their tweets, lists, mentioning them when they mention Thunderbird, and remaining transparent – even in controversial issues – all these factors increase interaction.

 

But what about Facebook?
Mayer: "We are focusing our Facebook presence toward prospective students, and haven’t generated as much interest with our alumni via Facebook." In other words, they have chosen specific channels and are pursuing an intentional strategy that fits their communication and engagement goals. 

["It was an honest – and at times upsetting – discussion"]

Case Studies: Experiments Good and Bad

Mayer mentions two controversial experiments that generated mixed responses.

• A rap video (with student callers and Thunderbird's president dancing) generated negative student comments on YouTube. "They felt it looked unprofessional for an MBA school. Alumni mostly found it humorous, but the project was time-consuming and we couldn't measure its impact, beyond a brief increase in web traffic."
• Thunderbird's Director of Annual Giving asked the LinkedIn Alumni Group, “Why wouldn’t you give?” This generated more than 100 comments, some criticizing the school and others defending it. Mayer says it was "an honest – and at times upsetting – discussion that resulted in institutional changes as well as some online gifts."

Finally, Mayer tells a cross-platform success story:

• Thunderbird launched a Global Giving Competition during the last months of its Campaign:

"We divided alumni globally into geographic regions and pitted them against one another. Some regions were very competitive – there was a buzz about it across platforms. The best aspect is that it allowed us to discuss giving every day without angering or upsetting anyone. A tweet might say, “D.C. knocked New York out of first place this week! Who will win it in the end?” We updated a leaderboard every week and the winning region's donors' names were published in Thunderbird Magazine, they got a letter signed by the school’s president, and formal recognition at Homecoming. And little prizes along the way kept it fun."

These tangible examples show that online channels can drive meaningful, measurable engagement with alumni around the world. I found the lessons useful – did you?

Add to these ideas, or react to them, by leaving a comment.

Photo: Thunderbird campus (Glendale, AZ, USA) by Kristen Jarchow. Used with permission.

Related articles

• 16 Tips for Engaging Your Alumni Online: Thunderbird, Part I (alumnifutures.com)
• Video: Thunderbird Gift Rap (youtube.com)
• Thunderbird's Global Giving Competition summary (knowledgenetwork.thunderbird.edu)
• Thunderbird on Twitter (twitter.com)

16 Tips for Engaging Your Alumni Online: Thunderbird, Part I

I recently noticed that the Thunderbird School of Global Management (Arizona, USA) was generating steady, relevant interaction and growth in its LinkedIn Alumni Group and its Twitter feed. I asked Thunderbird's alumni relations coordinator Katie Mayer for insight into their approach. She and Samantha Novick (T-bird's PR & new media specialist) generously provided the following tips:

Driving Engagement on LinkedIn

1. Don't wait for alumni to join your LinkedIn Group: go get them. Use your alumni database to target alumni to join, en masse. "We invite 200 alumni per day to join," says Mayer.

2. Try to understand graduates' needs. Then actively fulfill those needs. "Form a relationship with your Group and put your members' needs first."

3. Listen closely, respond only when necessary, and be brief. 

4. Find and share valuable content, and develop a distinctive online voice for doing so.

5. Run interference for your Group. Set up clear rules for online channels. Don't just post press releases, and don't let a small number of Group members dominate the discussion.

6. Don't censor."We prohibit profanity, personal attacks and hate speech." Anything else is potentially in play.

7. Once you've earned members' trust and attention, you will start to see returns, and can ask for gifts and involvement.

8. When a group trusts and likes its manager, it brings a return on your time investment. "They'll support you, defend you and become your allies in return for your commitment to them." 

["Alumni will support you, defend you and become your allies 
in return for your commitment to them."]

Driving Engagement with Twitter

9. Alumni expect immediate responses on Twitter.

10. Twitter puts you on people's radar frequently, so choose content carefully.

11. Retweet and favorite alumni followers' tweets regularly.

12. Build Twitter lists of alumni to help them find each other on Twitter.

13. If someone mentions T-bird by name, Thunderbird mentions them in return.

14. Diverse groups of stakeholders follow Thunderbird on Twitter. So "we diversify our content, and try to be inclusive."

15. "We're in the education business, so we regularly provide valuable educational content to followers."

16. Stay transparent and don't shy away from all controversy. "We post information even if we know it will generate negative comments."

 

Next Up: Real Life Examples
Next week, we'll learn about six real-world outcomes from online engagement at Thunderbird. And Katie and Samantha will share some difficulties and success stories from the online world. 

 

Related content

• Thunderbird on Twitter (twitter.com)
• Thunderbird on Social Media (knowledgenetwork.thunderbird.edu)
• LinkedIn Discussions: Best Practice (alumnifutures.com)
• 11 LinkedIn Group Management Best Practices for Nonprofits (nonprofitorgs.wordpress.com)

The Bucky Challenge: Case Study in Social Media Fundraising

Kris Olds (co-author of the outstanding Global Higher Ed blog) recently posted a link on the Alumni Futures Facebook wall: 

    The Bucky Challenge 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is using social media interaction to generate incremental fundraising for student scholarships.

For a limited period, an alumni donor will contribute $1 per click for each of the following four actions:

• a new "Like" on the University Facebook Page
• a new "Like" on the Alumni Association Facebook Page
• a new follower of the University Twitter feed
• a new follower of the Alumni Association Twitter feed

In an email exchange with Chronicle of Higher Ed reporter Josh Keller (who blogged about the topic), I mentioned the following pros and cons of this approach:

 

Potentially Positive Aspects

Creatively combines university fundraising priorities with online engagement. 

In alumni relations in general, and in online interaction especially, we cannot easily see clear connections between individual interactions and measurable outcomes. Do Facebook likes lead to volunteerism? Do Tweets lead to giving? This makes limited inroads with that problem.

Provides additional visibility for fundraising among key audiences. 

Even if I don't click to support the Bucky Challenge, I still hear that funding student scholarships is an institutional priority. This generates awareness for development.

Produces a few more Followers and Fans on Twitter and Facebook. 

If you believe that having more is good, then this helps. 

Generates scholarship funds from a donor match for Internet clicks (which are "free"). 

 

[If you believe that having more Fans and Followers is good, then this helps]

 

Potentially Negative Aspects

Leaves some money on the table. 

I might be prepared to donate $100, but then discover that clicking the Like button triggers a donation from someone else. Some donors may think this gets them off the hook for further giving. 

Reinforces common complaint that "You only contact me when you're asking for money." 

Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are among the few places where most universities don't ask alumni to contribute. That will change eventually anyway, but for now the school is in uncharted waters with fundraising on third party sites. In this instance, alumni aren't being asked to give directly. They're just being asked to click a button, something most of them will do anyway.

More Followers and Fans: not necessarily beneficial.

Doubling your Twitter count can give a false sense of "increased engagement." But what is the outcome of having all those additional people click that button? Do they see our tweets? Do they like them? Do they read our Facebook updates? Do they think the updates are relevant? If they do, does this lead to a specific result (giving, advocacy, event attendance, volunteerism)? We have almost no idea. And almost none of us is committing resources to find out the answer. We're just telling people to "please click."

 

[What is the outcome of having all those additional people click that button?]

 

Summary

UW-Madison deserves credit for a simple, understandable way to increase scholarship funding incrementally (they're at $14,000 as of this writing). However, we can't measure the effort's financial success without knowing their dollar goals and their "engagement" goal for Likes and Follows.

Smart move: Limiting the time period in which people can click to have their participation count. The sense of urgency this creates may increase an individual's willingness to participate, even if the urgency is manufactured.

Biggest risk: Equating the instant gratification of a new fan or follower with the long-term value of a truly engaged alumnus, who donates up to their potential, attends events, volunteers, and promotes the institution. It doesn't hurt to have people clicking on social content, unless you rest on your laurels and declare success simply because you have bigger numbers on Facebook and Twitter. 

What's next?: With the recent announcement of Facebook "Gestures," (such as Listened to, Read, and Watched) doesn't it make sense for Donated to join the list? Not a bad idea. You heard it here first! 

 

Meanwhile, what do you think of the Bucky Challenge? Is it generating genuine engagement, or one-time donations below the donors' potential?

Leave a comment.

Related articles

• University of Wisconsin Launches Social Media Challenge (mediabistro.com)
• U. of Wisconsin donor offers $1 for each new Twitter followed (chronicle.com)
• For University of Wisconsin, New Facebook Fans Pay Off (thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com)
• How Facebook Will Fix its Like Button Problem (mashable.com)
• Digital connections to alumni: a fundraising campaign via social media (guardian.co.uk)

LinkedIn Feature: "Your College Alumni"

LinkedIn has quietly launched its "Your College Alumni" feature (click image to enlarge).

What is it?

Search for a company when you are logged in to LinkedIn, and you'll see a page showing

• the company's profile on LinkedIn;
• a tab showing employees in your LinkedIn network;
• a tab listing employees who are your fellow alumni, and
• a tab with new hires, if any, at that company. 

"Your College Alumni" pulls alumni of all institutions from which you list an undergradaute or graduate degree in your profile. It won't tell you which institutional connection you share with company employees (but you can find out by looking at an individual employee's LinkedIn profile).

You can see how you are linked to each individual as well (1st, 2nd or 3rd degree connection, or shared LinkedIn Group membership).

The assumption seems to be that your fellow alumni will be more approachable and ready to network with you because of your alumni connection. By revealing your network within that company, LinkedIn may make it easier for you to gain inroads for business development, job hunting, information interviewing and more.

Have you noticed this feature? Have you used it?

Will you promote it to your own alumni?

Leave a comment.

Thank you to Alumni Futures advisory group member Liz Allen of Adaptivate who tipped me off that this function was up and running on LinkedIn.