alumni futures

The Future (Part II): The Changing Student Experience & Alumni Relations

This is the second of three articles that I have adapted from my alumni relations keynote at CASE V in Chicago, in December 2013. The title of my talk there was Alumni Relations & Advancement's Future: 3 Questions.

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In the first article in this series, I discussed fundraising's relationship with alumni relations. The final article looks at predicting the future of alumni relations. Here in part II we ask: 

How will the changing student experience
affect alumni relationships? 

Observers are buzzing about several so-called disruptive factors in education. Some of these factors influence the student experience, which in turn affects alumni attitudes and engagement. Here are four that we must think about:

1. MOOCs
Massive open online courses, known as MOOCs, are widely touted to be changing the face of traditional education. They are certainly a departure from the traditional face-to-face classroom: students enroll, usually for free or almost free, and pursue their chosen topic alongside 50,000 or 100,000 other learners. And they do it from the comfort of their laptop or their iPad.

MOOCs' short-term impact on the traditional degree is probably overstated, but their evolution is certain to influence our field.

So far, these online students are not earning degree credit. In fact, according to one recent survey, about 80% of MOOC students already have a traditional degree. And MOOCs are being criticized for their students' low completion rates. But MOOCs are a waypoint en route to some more robust future online educational experience. As the successors of MOOCs become the norm for students enrolled in post-secondary education, the students' sense of loyalty, community, or gratitude to a particular institution is going to diminish – or even disappear. So those of us whose work depends heavily on the residential campus experience must anticipate this challenge.

How do we connect meaningfully with alumni whose education took place online – in their office, in a coffee shop, or on an airplane?

[How do we connect with alumni whose
education took place in a coffee shop?]

2. The Changing Student Profile
Second, the typical student's profile is changing. No longer are the majority of university-goers fresh-faced twenty-year olds. Mid-career changers, single parents attending part time, and those just looking for intellectual enrichment may consider themselves alumni of whichever online platform delivered their favorite lectures. In fact, they may consider themselves alumni of the platform itself, and not a particular institution. Will this diverse body of learners want an alumni organization to connect them with job opportunities, with other learners, or with additional instruction? If so, the traditional affinity model of alumni relations has to evolve, or students will abandon it. 

As the student profile changes so must our profession change. Among the services alumni organizations currently provide, career services and access to specialized networks will be the ones most relevant to alumni of non-residential programs. And they are already proving to be among the most relevant services for alumni of traditional institutions.

3. Expectations of Employment
Criticism of higher education is increasing. The most strident voices are those that reject the rising price tag of a college education.

But another group of critics may cause more stress and challenge for alumni professionals. Those are the people who increasingly want our institutions to somehow ensure jobs for graduates. And those people include the parents of many current undergraduates. The parents are footing much of the bill, assuming debt, and staking their family reputations on the extent to which their sons and daughters turn an expensive and time consuming college degree into a lucrative career.

The root of these complaints is an assumption made before a student even selects a university: that the purpose of a college degree is to help the graduate obtain "a good job" that pays well. Increasingly, this is the definition of alumni success, and increasingly it forms the backbone of numerous rankings and reports, which compare college outcomes on how much a new graduate can expect to earn. We hear little about rankings based on a graduate's inherent satisfaction with a college education, or on the extent to which the college experience turns a young and impressionable student into a contributor to her community. (Notably, the Gallup-Purdue Index will combine the "jobs" factor with the "life satisfaction" factor, measuring "great careers and lives that matter.")

If the student's primary concern is with compensation, alumni satisfaction will be at the mercy of the marketplace. However, the sheer number of students enrolled in fields that do not promise lucrative job offers suggests that the humanities, the liberal and fine arts, and the social sciences are not going away soon. And the passion those students have for their topics will continue for many years to give alumni offices the raw material they need to shape newly minted alumni into passionate and generous supporters of our institutions.

[If the student's concern is compensation,
alumni satisfaction is at the mercy of the marketplace]

4. Internationalization
Finally, a fourth dynamic is influencing the future of alumni relations: the diverse national backgrounds of students.

As students find it more appealing and easier to enroll across borders, the student body becomes ever more international. At my institution (all locations), almost 40% of enrolled students came from outside the United States in 2012. Many overseas students in North America have English as a second language, and their language proficiency heavily influences their student experience. They are in an unfamiliar land with strange customs and unexpected influences. In this situation, most of us would prefer the company of classmates whose language, backgrounds, and cultural references match our own.

These students often travel back to their home country as new alumni, without having truly joined our institutions' broader community. As alumni, they are much less likely to respond to the same messages and images that generate engagement with so many "traditional" alumni.

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The challenges and changes I've listed here are only a few of the forces guiding the evolution of alumni relations. Other trends, such as the demographics of younger generations, will add additional fuel and data to future discussios.

Many of us may not feel like we have time to think about the futures these trends are creating. But observing the profiles and experiences of current students may determine our success at engaging the attention and enjoying the support of these students during their lives as alumni.

 

The third and final part of this series will ask, "Can we predict the future of alumni relations?"

Related articles

The Future (Part I): Fundraising's Relationship to Alumni Relations

Alumni as Volunteer Course Facilitators: 7 Reasons it Makes Sense

The future of MOOCs

3 More Questions (and Answers) on Alumni Engagement

During our Higher Ed Live online discussion about alumni engagement, we answered a few questions from readers and viewers. But we didn't get to all of them. Here are answers from Charlie Melichar and Andrew Gossen to some additional comments and questions.

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Question:
How can our offices become proactive and future-thinking, versus playing catch-up (e.g., LinkedIn replacing alumni directories)?

Charlie:
Start with a clean slate. We still view problems through the lens of old solutions. Look at the news business, for example. The industry was so entrenched in papers as the delivery vehicle, they were slow to adapt to a new model to do what was ultimately most important – deliver information in the most timely way possible. We need to focus on the need, the opportunity, or the problem – and be open to changing our ways. People want a network, not a directory. People want a job, not a careers program. People want to make an impact, not a gift. How can we facilitate all of this?

Andrew:
You can’t do this unless there’s someone in your shop whose job is to pay attention to how the world is changing. They need the time to do this, and they need the experience and perspective to recognize emerging opportunities. In Cornell Alumni Affairs & Development, we ask two questions when new opportunities present themselves:

1.       Does the opportunity enable us to pursue an existing strategic goal more efficiently or effectively than we are doing now?; and

2.       Is there an emerging critical mass of alumni activity that warrants our involvement? 

Charlie’s focus on value from the user’s perspective is also essential. We aren’t employed to perpetuate ourselves and our programs; we’re employed to engage our audience. Focusing on our alumni and their evolving needs will make it much less likely that we’ll be left behind.

[Melichar: "People want a network, not a directory. People want a job, not a careers program. People want to make an impact, not a gift."]

Question:
Most donors engage without having to "be present." They send a check whenever they want. What are some non-financial analogs to this?

Charlie:
Social media is a great example of asynchronous engagement. People pick and choose the content that is meaningful them, from the sources they care about, and then do “something” with it. They like it, share it, mash it up. We need to get away from only counting engagement when it happens on our own terms (e.g., events we organize, conversations we convene) and find mutually beneficial ways to join with our constituents.

Andrew:
As Charlie suggests, it’s content. Social media. Archived video. Asynchronous games. Infographics. Memes. High-quality, on-demand engagement is a great fit with today’s highly digital lifestyle.

We could also focus on the convener role, trying to connect alumni so that they can engage with each other when it’s convenient for them, around their priorities. We make the introduction and get out of the way.

[Gossen: "Emerging platforms & techniques blur the distinction between giving and other modes of engagement – the boundaries start to collapse."]

Question:
In fundraising, should we just count donors and not worry about dollars? It's much easier to measure...

Charlie:
It depends on what you’re counting and why, but both are critical. There are engagement models that would take size of gift, whether it is a first-time gift, renewal at a higher level, and so on, as engagement measures. This underscores that there is no "one-size fits all" model. We need to tie these measures to institutional and program-level goals. That’s the way to stay relevant and nimble.

Andrew:
Emerging platforms and techniques blur the distinction between giving and other modes of engagement so thoroughly that the boundaries start to collapse. Take crowdfunding, for example. A $25 donation is definitely "giving." But receiving an almost-instant thank you from someone involved with the project is both stewardship and person-to-person engagement. The frequent, informal updates sent to donors by the project team are stewardship, but they’re also communication that fits well with culture of the social web. This may complicate measurement, but it almost certainly will better engage the donor. 

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Related articles

Online Discussion: Higher Ed Live Explores Alumni Engagement

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

What Makes That App So Great?

There's a fairly frequent discussion about mobile apps taking place among alumni professionals. I've seen it on listservs and in LinkedIn Groups, and I've heard it in hallways at conferences. It goes something like this:

"We're considering launching a mobile app for alumni, and I'm curious whether your school has one, and if so, are you happy with it?"

Most of the replies come from people who say they are "very satisfied" with their app. Others say that a particular app is "great."

But I almost never hear anyone say why their app satisfies them, or what makes it great.

In other words, I'm wondering: which metrics indicate a successful app? And how do those metrics fit into the context of a particular institution?

[Which metrics indicate a successful app?]

What would be useful to know? Anything that explains what your goal was in creating an app, and how you know those goals have (or haven't) been met.

I made up these hypothetical examples that might illustrate useful information (these examples are not necessarily going to be relevant for you):

You decide that it would be useful to learn how many alumni click through to your alumni website from within the app. You further decide that a 1:10 "click through-to-download" ratio is your arbitrary goal for the first 6 months. You get 1,000 app-driven web visits from your 10,000 downloads. Success.

Or....

You decide to correlate new Facebook "Likes" with use of the app. You check the last 3 months as a baseline (using Facebook Insights), and discover 10% of monthly Likes are from mobile devices. Then you launch your app. Six months after launching the app you see a doubling of mobile-based Likes. You have a useful proxy for the effect of the app on a specific kind of interaction with your page.

[Which metrics characterize your app's success?]

Even numbers like these aren't that useful, because the goals must be somewhat arbitrary, and you can't yet attribute many outcomes to the use of your mobile app. For example, did it generate increased giving? Greater brand awareness for your institution? More applicants for admission? Higher event attendance or volunteerism? It's hard to know.

But one thing we do know is that counting downloads doesn't tell us much. Sharing interaction metrics will provide context for satisfaction with the app. And others can then assess your results for relevance to their own institution.

What metrics are you using to characterize your alumni app's success?

Related articles

• Alma Mater Going Mobile: 5 Quick Takeaways (alumnifutures.com)

Include Alumni in Institutional Governance

"Should former students be involved in running a university?"

That's the question posed by a headline in the Guardian (UK) today.

At first, I didn't understand the question, because it seemed so obvious to me that the answer is "Yes." Sure, guidance and input from non-institutional representatives is critical to a university's governance. But there are many benefits to having alumni voices heard around the table when strategy and direction are on the agenda.

The article (which one commenter calls "under-researched") focuses extensively on one oddly specific example: Canada's Dalhousie University in the 19th century. It's not a bad example: alumni became "an integral part of university finance" when Dal hit hard budgetary times, about 50 years after the school's 1818 founding. Furthermore, says author Tamson Pietsch, alumni later received tangible benefits from their affiliation, such as library and gym access and of course, invitations to university-hosted reunions. And before 1900, Dalhousie alumni were represented on the university's governing board.

Fast-forward to the early 21st century. Around the globe, but especially in North America, it has long been standard to include graduates in governance. Not only boards of trustees, but visiting committees and a diverse assortment of Deans' councils, advisory panels, assemblies, groups of overseers, and alumni convocations, all provide alumni input.

[Why would alumni be less concerned than complete outsiders
with their alma mater's 'genuine interests'?]

Why this is beneficial? The following reasons come to mind instantly:

• Alumni are the largest institutional constituency in almost every case. As such their potential influence outside the institution is disproportionate to the influence of current "insiders" such as faculty, students, and staff.
• Alumni are the only permanent stakeholders in the success of the institution; one cannot shed alumni status.
• Alumni benefit from the institution's ongoing success and reputation; the value of your diploma increases when your alma mater's prominence rises through its achievements in research and teaching, and its graduates' accomplishments. This is "degree equity."
• Alumni are most likely to argue for rigorous admission standards, disciplined financial management, and high academic quality. 
• Alumni have almost always been the first and most effective fundraisers for universities, and have pursued all these goals as volunteers. 

In fact, alumni associations and university fundraising offices preceded by more than a century the creation of the corresponding modern professions.

Pietsch quotes London Metropolitan University's vice chancellor Gillies as saying that alumni are

exactly the kind of people universities should seek to fill their boards, because they have the "greatest lifelong stake in the institution's reputation and its protection".

[Alumni argue for rigorous admission standards, 
disciplined financial management,and high academic quality]

There are contrary arguments. In the first reader comment about this topic on the Guardian's site, an anonymous naysayer describes alumni involvement as "difficult to achieve." The commenter's views are off-base, and therefore entertaining to quote here. Alumni, s/he says, will be

more concerned with their own standing than any real desire to help. Alumni governance would not be able to avoid this issue and the danger of passing decision making powers to those with agendas outside of the institution's genuine interests would be too great. Alumni participation in HE governance is misleading. It sounds good, but is nothing more than another example of the 'big society' trying to get something for nothing, at the expense of already hard pressed graduates. Instead universities should be looking closely at their own finances and questioning why they exist in the first place

It's hard to know where to begin critiquing this diatribe, but my immediate thought was, "Why would alumni be less concerned than complete outsiders with their alma mater's 'genuine interests'?" In fact, I left a longer version of that comment on the site.

It's not all kittens and unicorns, of course. There are instances of alumni undermining their alma mater's image (usually unintentionally). Baylor and Dartmouth a few years ago, for example. But they come to mind so readily because they are prominent exceptions to the many cases where alumni input has kept institutions stable and secure over time. A 2010 report [login required] called into question the conventional wisdom behind alumni representation, but provided the somewhat paradoxical suggestion that "the best preparation for trustees is having served on another college board." 

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What do you think?

Should alumni contribute to institutional governance? Are the risks too great? Or is the situation different at each institution? 

Please share your views in the comments. 

Photo of a skylight reflecting concrete on the Dalhousie campus, by Walter A. Aue via Creative Commons

Related articles

• Should former students be involved in running a university? (guardian.co.uk)
• Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (agb.org)

Is Alumni Relations a Form of CRM?

A few weeks ago a colleague casually mentioned that he thinks of alumni relations "as a form of customer relationship management," also called CRM. At first I agreed, but later I felt less certain – and realized that I don't know enough about CRM to argue one way or the other. That same day I repeated my colleague's comment on Twitter and asked what others thought.

I received responses from several @alumnifutures Twitter followers. Some of them agreed with the idea, while others rejected it. It was also clear that people are using slightly different definitions of CRM.

Here's sampling of reactions from each side:

Some who agreed (or seemed to):

"The alumni relations business needs to spend more effort on data management. Track everything and (important) use it."

This person continued with a follow up tweet:

"'CRM thinking'" adds structure to data capture so that institutional knowledge outlasts the office inhabitants." 

"Read Ultimate Question 2.0 by @rgmarkey for a great answer to why we need to treat alums as customers." 

"It's very much like (if not exactly) CRM."

"AR is very similar to CRM. Deeper, though: Client/Rep, not Customer/Sales (ongoing, not one-time relationship)."

Some who disagreed: 

"Not sure I like the comparison. Relationships, sure, but CRM feels so...automated, not personal."

"Disagree...you can't reduce the alumni to experience to a transactional one (which is a customer experience)."

"That would be like saying Apple should stay in touch with everyone who's ever owned a Mac..."

Elsewhere, meanwhile, CRM is being pronounced "dead" (along with every other popular online tool and service, from email to Facebook).

What do you think are the differences or similarities between alumni relations and CRM – customer relationship management?

Leave a comment.

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)

Valuing Volunteer Leaders

Not all volunteer work is equally valuable to your organization.

A question posted on the ALUMNI-L listserv this week said, in part:

...Our alumni office has been asked to provide a monetary value for alumni volunteer service using $21.36 as the value of an hour of service as reported by the Independent Sector. We are estimating how many hours of volunteer service alumni provide. 

A few years ago I almost fell into the same trap. I had read the same report, which says:

The value of volunteer time is based on the average hourly earnings of all production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls (as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Independent Sector takes this figure and increases it by 12 percent to estimate for fringe benefits.

Based on this, I mentioned a rough valuation of alumni board members' hours in an email to my board's executive committee. The volunteer president of the board pointed out that he had recently facilitated our all-day alumni staff retreat, a consulting function for which he would have been paid more than $500 per hour in his private sector position.

Extreme example? Maybe. But the point is that you should go with $21.36 per hour only for estimating the value of "production and nonsupervisory" volunteer output (such as handing out nametags or sticking labels on envelopes).

To honor the professional expertise and high-level insight that successful professionals bring to volunteer leadership roles, assess their contributions as well, but do it at the appropriate level of value.

If they're truly leading the organization, their time is worth much more than $21 per hour.