alumni futures

And... Back to Alumni Strategy Consulting

I stopped updating this blog when I returned to serve as Vice President for Alumni Relations at my alma mater (see previous post, from 2018!). 

However, I saw that there was still a steady stream of visitors to past articles and to some of the sidebar links, so I kept the site "alive," as a static resource for alumni professionals and others. 

Today I'm offering a very quick update, so at least the most recent posting will be correct.

After about three years back at Brown, as COVID-19 began to loosen its grip, I decided to return to the world of consulting. I love Brown, but professionally, I learned that I am better-suited to consulting work. So I returned in 2022 (as an alumnus) to Grenzebach Glier & Associates (GG+A). And in March of this year GG+A was acquired by Huron Consulting Group.

Now known as Huron | GG+A Global Philanthropy, our firm's experts continue to work with a vast range of non-profit organizations on strategy, analysis, and planning related to institutional advancement. And my consulting work continues to focus on strategy, program assessment, governance, and engagement metrics specific to alumni communities of all kinds, around the globe. 

If you're interested in learning more, send me an email:

 [email protected]

And for now, since this site still sees around 100 web visitors each day, I'll leave Alumni Futures available at this spot on the internet, but will only update it in future if I have a personal/professional announcement to share. 

Thank you!

Big Personal News: Returning to Brown University

Alumni Futures readers who follow me on Twitter, and those connected to me via LinkedIn may already have seen the big personal news I shared last week:

I am thrilled to announce that I am returning to Brown University as Vice President for Alumni Relations.

It's exciting for me not only because I pursued my undergraduate education at Brown, but also because Brown's alumni office is where I started my higher education career almost 30 years ago! As assistant director in 1989, I began learning the basics of alumni engagement, and by the time I moved on to the University of Michigan, seven years later, alumni relations had become a much more professionalized business.

Today the profession is mature, but it continues to change, more rapidly and in more surprising ways than ever. I'm eager for the opportunity to address those challenges at a great university with a proud tradition of alumni outreach.
 

[I am thrilled to return to Brown University as Vice President for Alumni Relations]

I will be wrapping up a few unfinished consulting projects in the coming weeks, and I will take this opportunity to thank my colleagues and clients at Grenzebach Glier & Associates. I've probably learned more from my consulting clients since 2015 than they have learned from me, and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the advancement profession in that role.

I will start my new position at Brown on December 3, 2018. Here's the official announcement:

Class of 1986 graduate Andrew Shaindlin to lead alumni relations at Brown

 

Photo: 1930s postcard of Brown's Van Wickle Gates via Creative Commons & Boston Public Library

 

 

 

Alumni Futures: 11th Anniversary

Hard to believe, but I started this website 11 years ago today, on February 7, 2007. 

Since then, online communication has evolved rapidly. Blogs were declared dead (I never got the memo, obviously), and social media of various types come and go all the time. Just two years after I started blogging, the internet was already littered with failed online platforms, and the count of forgotten "communities" continues to mount every year.

But AlumnI Futures is still here, thanks to all you who are reading this now (whether it's on the website itself, in an email, or – for a small but dedicated number of you – in an RSS reader). And my purpose has not changed: to help my readers "hear and comment" about things that may affect their work.

I also post my articles in LinkedIn's Pulse platform, where they reach an audience outside my core higher education/alumni relations profession audience. And recently, Switchboard has hosted the same articles on the Switchboard blog, among a large number of other pieces designed to stimulate thought and discussion – and understanding – among people who care about the well-being and future of their communities. 

Through it all, I still encourage, and benefit from your feedback and responses. 

Meanwhile, thank you to all who have supported the blog over the years! (And watch this space for a guest-written article in a few days, about starting an alumni Board from the ground up.) 

Happy Birthday, Alumni Futures!

 

Photo by Allen Lorde via Creative Commons

Three Engagement Breakthroughs for 2018

Since joining Switchboard last year, I’ve seen the reaffirmation of three critical principles that drive successful alumni engagement. These golden rules apply to every type of alumni community—schools and universities, other non-profits, and corporate alumni networks alike. I know this from having worked in alumni relations professionally since 1989, blogged about the profession for 11 years, and consulted on it for about 50 organizations in a dozen countries.

Through it all, these basic tenets have held true.

They’re the kind of things that sound obvious when you hear them. Mentioning these guidelines generates vigorous and sincere agreement from alumni professionals, but scanning the profession, I see that many organizations ignore them in practice.

Embrace the goals described below, and you’ll measurably increase effective alumni engagement in 2018:
 

1. Listen to stakeholders, and shape engagement accordingly

Many alumni teams still see themselves as community Town Criers. They broadcast “one-to-many” messages in a way that worked before the web made everyone a potential publisher.

Don’t just broadcast one-way news. Digital communication is an entirely two-way street. By listening to your audience you will

• be seen as a community partner, not a top-down controller;
• learn what people care about and the problems they are trying to solve; and
• find a rich source of expertise, influence, and support for institutional initiatives that alumni find relevant to their own lives.

Stony Brook University’s approach to alumni relations is a prime example of this strategy. Their alumni relations team gets more done by asking what people need first and acting second, both with other offices on campus and alumni themselves.

2. Support alumni who self-organize

Until very recently, we labeled alumni and student interaction as “official” or “unofficial.” The implication? If the institution didn’t initiate, sponsor, promote and host the activity, it didn’t count.

But the mindset is shifting, and yesterday’s fretful “Not invented here!” is giving way to shouts of “Look! A genuine community!” These grassroots communities are easier than ever for alumni to build, thanks in large part to technologies that connect people wherever they are.

Alumni and students who self-organize deserve

• recognition for their loyalty;
• credit for trying to solve their own problems; and
• resources to enhance their efforts.

We wrote about about this approach to engagement on the Switchboard blog back in August.

3. Balance broader engagement with deeper engagement

Metrics have evolved. We have moved beyond merely “reaching as many alumni as possible.” Why? Because with shrinking staff time and budgets, plus growing alumni populations, reaching more people means engaging them less deeply.

Alumni communities benefit when already-engaged members are engaged even more deeply through follow up communication, volunteer opportunities and other signals that recognize their commitment to the cause.

When you balance deeper engagement with wider engagement, you

• increase the quality of the overall alumni experience;
• acknowledge those who have already raised their hands to say, “I’m in!”; and
• avoid cajoling or begging marginally engaged alumni to deepen their commitment.

Opportunities for deeper engagement will bring out those who truly want to participate. Oakland University’s Leadership OU program, for example, offers motivated students deeper involvement in their community and provides engaged alumni an opportunity to give back to their alma mater.

 

Adding even one more bullet point to your goals for 2018 might be a tall order, but more likely than not, these three points are already present in your list.

Your job now is to be sure you act on them in your work with alumni and student communities.

What Makes Reorganizations Successful?

Over the last few years, I have helped a number of organizations review the way they deploy their advancement teams. I also led the reorganization of a newly combined alumni relations and annual giving team at a leading private university.

Through these experiences I’ve noticed a couple of frequent expectations among the leaders driving the reorganization process. One expectation is that the newly arranged team will be more efficient. The other is that they’ll be more effective.

Below are some thoughts on both these ambitions. And I close with a comment on one key factor that all organizations require, even if they’re not changing their reporting lines.

Efficiency

Resources are scarce! Budgeting is a contact sport, and adding a gift officer might mean shrinking the advancement services or alumni relations teams. So, efficiency matters.

The Efficiency goal drives many reorganization efforts. And it can make sense. I consulted on one such effort that revealed duplication between two large, merging offices. Each organization hosted its own finance, budget, and HR specialists. And with big organizations there might also be a facility manager or an events team whose work would overlap with their colleagues’ in an integrated model. In these cases, combining the functions across teams makes sense. The budget and the staff time spared by integration can create alumni-facing roles that increase audience engagement.

On the flip side, my Switchboard colleague Chelsea Haring points out that it’s critical to factor in up-front financial costs when estimating the ROI of a re-org. If you’re increasing the experience, education, or specialization required to satisfy new job descriptions, don’t expect to hire the new people for the same salaries you paid staff members with less experience, education, or specialized knowledge.

[Resources spared by integration can create alumni-facing roles
that increase engagement]

Effectiveness

This is tougher. Effectiveness is only partially the result of structure. You might say that effective organizational design is “necessary, but not sufficient” for long-term success.

I managed an annual fund reorganization that increased efficiency without measurably changing our effectiveness in the first year —as measured by traditional metrics. After the vice president and I had moved on to new roles, our successors decided on yet another model, and reorganized again. Nobody will ever know whether our original work would have improved results—but if it were going to be more effective, it would have needed more time. As I mentioned in a recent commentary on integrating alumni relations and fundraising, re-orgs often affect an organization’s culture. And cultural change requires a lengthy interval before you can accurately judge its effects.

Why can’t the “right” structure guarantee success? Two reasons:

1. “Effectiveness” means successfully achieving your stated goals. You do have stated goals, don't you? That's the first hurdle to address: having a strategic road map. Almost every alumni office and association has a mission statement that describes its purpose. But to fulfill that mission and achieve that purpose, you need to know which few high-level, long-term achievements will get you there. So a strategic plan is the first step, to identify and articulate what will fulfill your mission. Without it, the best organizational structure will still fall short.
2. You must measure and report your success. Therefore, you need metrics that tell you whether you are reaching your goals. Too often, we track inputs instead of outcomes. For example, many alumni communities have a goal of “engaging people through online interaction.” The assumption is that if you’re engaged online, you’re going to be supportive of alma mater. Maybe so. But maybe not. An alumna joining your LinkedIn group or opening your e-newsletter is not “success.” Making a donation, volunteering one’s time or responding to a student’s request for information—those are successful outcomes.

So two necessary steps—identifying priority goals, and tracking outcomes—lead us to the final question: how do you do that? And the top answer is:

[True collaboration means bringing institutional partners
into the planning process at the start]

Collaborative Planning

Every alumni community strategic plan I’ve read or helped to draft in recent years includes multiple mentions of “reaching out across campus,” “partnering with other units,” or “collaborating to break down silos.”

This is certainly a critical means to more effective student and alumni engagement. However, too often, collaboration happens only after the plan is written. The alumni team drafts engagement goals and strategies for the next three years, chooses tactics to get them there, and even sets up some metrics to track their progress. They produce the final document, and only then do they share it with the development office, admissions, career services, and maybe even academic departments.

The problem in this scenario is that it’s already too late for effective partnership. By setting its goals and choosing its strategies in isolation (the familiar silo problem), your team prevents partners from co-owning the plan’s results. A truly collaborative partnership means bringing institutional partners into the planning process at the start—when you’re revisiting your mission statement—to develop goals jointly and ensure that responsibility for success belongs to all those involved.

Hosting a brown bag lunch where you highlight for another office the top three things you included in your plan usually results in exactly one thing: a delicious lunch. You need your colleagues to help you identify what you want to achieve and why, and to plan alongside you exactly how to achieve it.

That’s true collaboration, the secret ingredient to shared success.


A version of this article originally appeared on the Switchboard blog

My New Role: Switchboard

 

I am thrilled to announce that on October 1 I will join Switchboard as Vice President. Switchboard is an award-winning online engagement platform based in Portland, Oregon that works with leading colleges, universities, and independent schools. I have been an advisor to Switchboard for four years, and believe strongly in their approach to community-building, and to student-alumni engagement in particular.

[On October 1 I will join Switchboard as Vice President]

My family and I will continue to make Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania our home.

 

I will continue limited work as an independent consultant for GG+A, with the title of Consulting Vice President. In my two-plus years there, I have been privileged to work with some three dozen diverse institutions across seven countries. Many times, I have seen potentially strong alumni communities under-perform, due to inadequate understanding of the outcomes that effective engagement can create. Working with Switchboard, I will help clients understand what they can achieve for their institutions when they enable alumni, students and families to support each other. I believe that tracking engagement outcomes is the future of alumni relations. And Switchboard is unique among engagement tools in its ability to track and report these outcomes, and their value to alma mater.

[Tracking engagement outcomes is the future of alumni relations]

As I complete my 29th year in advancement, I look forward to approaching the sector’s challenges from this new direction, and to enabling institutions to define, achieve and report their successes. Alumni relations is a wonderful profession, and I’m excited to continue my career in this new role.

 

Read Switchboard's announcement of this news on their blog.

Alumni Networks: Allies for Institutional Reputation

This article is based on a presentation developed for Building Universities’ Reputation 2017, a conference hosted by the Universidad de Navarra in March 2017. Unfortunately, due to travel difficulties, I was unable to participate as a speaker. I am sorry that I was unable to attend, and hope that this article provides conference delegates and others with useful information.

§

Competition is heightened among universities today, as rankings increasingly influence public perception of educational quality. These rankings - sometimes referred to as “league tables,” in a nod to European football standings - have detractors and advocates. But regardless of one’s opinion about them, the rankings clearly have public visibility.

Universities work to improve the various factors that influence rankings, including student achievement, research output, facilities and recognition for teaching. But all universities have a particular army of supporters who often remain underutilized in the effort to promote the institution: their alumni.

Before we look at how alumni can help universities, here are three key points to understand about alumni communities and reputation:

1. Alumni form the largest group of stakeholders at your institution

You may have thousands of students, hundreds of professors and researchers, and just as many staff members… but the number of alumni will always be much larger. There are numerous institutions whose alumni number in the hundreds of thousands.

2. Alumni form the only permanent community at your institution

Students are students for only a few years. Professors and administrators will retire or take new positions elsewhere. But alumni status is lifelong.

3. Alumni are both insiders and outsiders

In Institutions for Future Generations (p. 382) the authors explain that as insiders, alumni have a personal interest in their university’s success. And as outsiders to the daily life of the institution, alumni bring the external perspective of semi-detached observers.

Considered together, these three points form the foundation for engaging alumni to enhance your institution's reputation.

[Alumni form the largest, and only permanent audience within your university's community]

The Benefits for Alumni
As citizens, we trade in “social capital” in our lives, especially for professional purposes. Connection to a respected and known institution can enhance graduates’ professional stature and their employability, and can offer professional prestige among family, friends, co-workers and employers.

This is the concept of “degree equity”: the idea that your diploma can increase in value long after you leave university. Its value will rise as your university’s reputation and stature increase. Alumni are usually judged according to their alma mater’s current reputation – so if you attended many years ago, before the institution was well-known or highly-ranked, others will still regard you in accord with its current reputation.

In addition to social capital, it helps to understand “social identity theory.” In part, this says that one’s personal identity is formed somewhat by the groups to which they belong. A university’s alumni often share a sense of identity or community. If so, the university benefits when those alumni spread the word about the strength of their connection to their alma mater. Over time, this can contribute to an increase in institutional recognition; and with increased recognition comes the opportunity for improved reputation.

Some universities’ names are well-known around the world (these institutions top the league tables, of course). But the quality of an alumni network does not depend on the academic quality of the institution itself. There are smaller, less famous universities whose alumni are active, supportive and helpful in increasing reputation. Any university can harness alumni as allies to improve its public reputation.

The Role of Alumni
There are many ways in which alumni can contribute directly to areas that influence reputation. They can...

·     ...act as academic talent scouts to attract top students for enrollment.

·     ...help with employability and career support for students and fellow graduates. This means providing internships, externships, or speaking in classrooms and on panel discussions at career events for students and alumni.

·     ...serve as “brand ambassadors” for the university. This can include visibly displaying their affiliation, talking about the institution and sharing its social media content with their own networks. Many institutions have formalized these volunteer roles for alumni to spread the good word about alma mater. Among European examples are Radboud University in the Netherlands (click on an ambassador’s photo for full information), the University of London, and Cass Business School.

More specifically, alumni active in online communities can serve as social media (or digital) ambassadors, as described in detail by the University of Reading. This can serve organizations of all types, not just universities. Schools often provide ambassador roles to volunteers, and Chevening, the UK government’s international leadership program, has ambassadors who blog about their experience in more detail than you’d find in a Facebook posting or a Tweet.

These means of promoting the institution illustrate how times have changed. In the past, universities mostly controlled which information the public received about them. Now technology allows all of us to publish anything, at any time, to any audience, and therefore communities of all types can self-organize. The university can still publish its own information, but it is just one of many sources of information. So, instead of dominating what people think and know about it, the institution instead has only limited influence over people’s perceptions and opinions. And this includes correcting incorrect views or “fixing” damaging news stories.

[In the past, universities controlled which information the public received...]

The Fine Print About Alumni
I believe that the student experience is the single most influential factor affecting a graduate’s relationship to alma mater. Alumni who had a poor student experience can harm your reputation, just as those who support the university can improve its reputation. Having a good alumni website, nice events, or a strong social media presence cannot “fix” negative alumni attitudes created by lackluster student experiences. This is why more than ever, alumni professionals, academics, communications professionals and student affairs leaders must work closely together. They need to support the student during their brief tenure as students, and accompany the student during the gradual transition from student to alumnus.

There are limits to the benefit a good reputation can provide. Recent research confirms that alumni financial support for high-reputation institutions declines with negative news coverage. In other words, a good reputation cannot provide permanent or total protection to your brand. In fact, a good reputation may create a more negative impression when bad news surfaces, because alumni expect better from an institution that is highly ranked and well-known.

Professionals interested in alumni support of institutional reputation must also explore the meaning and role of an organization’s brand. Brand works alongside reputation to contribute to long-term university success. However, university brand and alumni relations are usually managed from different departments inside the university. Success requires active collaboration by all involved. This means sharing information and partnering to plan and execute public-facing projects, as well as sharing strategic goals and jointly measuring their outcomes.

Leave a comment with your thoughts about reputation and the roles of alumni.

Photo: Bibliotèque de la Sorbonne by John Towner, via Unsplash

Three Trends in Global Community Engagement

I am privileged to work with a diverse array of alumni communities: institutions from different countries; public and private universities; independent schools; and even non-governmental organizations, public agencies, and foundations. This year, I have noticed several themes emerge across all of these types of organizations. Below, I share my year-end thoughts about three of the most prominent themes - related to volunteerism, engagement structures and strategy - that should be of interest to any non-profit organization, large or small.

1.    Volunteers expect to see their impact.

Over the past several years, the motivation behind philanthropic donations has steadily shifted from supporting an organization to supporting a cause. This trend has now moved beyond donating money; we are also seeing it where people donate their time. I see this in my work with regional chapter presidents to members of national boards and every volunteer in between.

Committees, boards and councils have historically had a largely honorary or advisory role. But today volunteers expect that the time they are giving, and the work they are doing, is something the organization needs in order to accomplish its mission, as well as something with a tangible outcome for the institution.

For alumni communities in particular, this can go beyond volunteering time with the institution. Alumni don’t only work to support the parent institution; they also support other alumni. For example, graduates provide career support and access to professional networks for students and for fellow alumni. They can also recruit high-quality students, who raise the academic quality of the institution. Over time, this increases “degree equity,” the long-term value of the credentials of all alumni whom the institution has graduated in the past.

The relationship between the institution and its alumni is mutually supportive – a “two-way street.” Volunteer leaders represent the needs and desires of members at large, while promoting the institution’s overarching mission to other community members and to the outside community as well.

2.    Non-profit organizations are investing less in “permanent structures.”

There are generational differences in community engagement. For example, younger members expect to engage with organizations on their own terms – when, how, and as much (or as little) as they wish. This conflicts with the long tradition of formal, permanent structures as the primary portal for connecting with one’s shared community.

My colleague J T. Forbes, Chief Executive Officer of the Indiana University Alumni Association and GG+A consulting vice president, is articulate on this in the context of alumni communities. He notes, for example, how more fluid and informal alumni networks are replacing many traditional regional chapters. Many younger professionals see “joining” a club as an old-fashioned idea; they want to participate in communities, but on their own terms. The result is looser and more adaptable group formation. Small groups can convene on short notice and without official approval for every meeting. This activity is driven by grassroots interest and not by corporate mandate, financial resources, institutional policies, or professional staff. Many groups exist without the knowledge of the parent organization, using online tools and individuals’ interests to drive their activity.

This means the organization must shift its scarce staff time and financial support away from permanent structures and toward more responsive answers to audience needs and expectations. This is challenging for institutions wedded to long-standing, bureaucratic arrangements; but for rising generations, those structures inhibit the creativity, flexibility, and responsiveness they need when working via social or professional networks.

The shift away from permanence is also visible in governance structures, such as boards and their committees. I often advise clients to let standing committees give way to task forces or temporary ad hoc working groups that form and disperse more easily and more frequently. There are still important roles for permanent committees: an executive committee for strategic decision-making; an awards committee for recognizing individuals’ service or achievements; and a nominating committee to select new board members. But for communications, career services, and events, it is more common than ever to have project-based, impermanent groups.

3.    We're trading breadth of engagement in exchange for depth of engagement.

Traditionally, community-based organizations (including alumni associations) have tried to appeal to as many people as possible. The goal was broad participation, even if many participants were only minimally engaged. As times have changed – and due in part to the increasing importance of fundraising for many organizations – the focus has shifted. Now, there is greater acknowledgment and acceptance of reaching fewer, but more selected people, and thereby engaging more deeply with each person we reach.

In this tradeoff, organizational staff must decide at every stage whether to continue trying to reach as many people as possible, or to reach a smaller fraction of stakeholders, more deeply. Think of it in terms of “opportunity cost:” every minute or dollar spent reaching one additional person could instead be spent making an existing supporter even more committed. Over time an organization must do both, but also needs to strike a balance and maintain it through a combination of strategic planning and outcome measurement.

§

These are not the only issues facing our organizations today, but they are ones that bear careful consideration and periodic reassessment. Are they relevant for you? What additional trends or shifts will you be watching in 2017?

Leave a comment. 

Photo by Andy Shaindlin: St. George's College, University of Western Australia

9th Anniversary for Alumni Futures

Today is the 9th anniversary of my first post on Alumni Futures.

The blogging is less frequent than ever, but the blog lives on as a resource to alumni community professionals of all kinds. I can tell from the analytics that people find it, search it and read it at a consistent clip, so I'm happy it still holds relevance for so many.

You will find all my articles since March 2014 on LinkedIn as well: Alumni Futures on LinkedIn.

About a year ago, my own career shifted from leadership of a single alumni program to (again) consulting for many programs worldwide, and to speaking and presenting globally as well. It's been a rewarding transition. I hope to assist many more alumni communities as they improve and grow in the coming year.

As ever, thank you to my readers and followers for your interest and support - and Happy Birthday to us!

Note: I'm on Twitter as @alumnifutures, and you can (of course!) "Like" Alumni Futures on Facebook.

 

Prove, or Improve? The First Goal of Alumni Engagement

Over on LinkedIn, Daniel Cohen asked, "Is it possible to prove the value of alumni relations?"

This is a fundamentally important question for advancement professionals.

I'm sharing my comment to Daniel here as a standalone idea for further consideration. It's about the reasons for measuring the value of alumni outreach.

[There's a strange dynamic in almost every conversation
about 'the value of alumni relations']

There's a strange dynamic in almost every conversation about "the value of alumni relations." This week marks my 27th year in the alumni profession, so I've been privy to thousands of these discussions over the decades. 

Almost every one of these conversations begins with the assumption that alumni engagement at institution X certainly has enough value to warrant further investment, and that the alumni team's role is to prove that to their colleagues.

We should recognize that in the eyes of their audiences, not every alumni team delivers real value to its respective organizations and communities. For underperforming teams, perhaps the focus should shift from "proving our value" to "improving our effectiveness." It's risky to start by assuming:

• that alumni love the program,
• that your job is to prove that, and
• that you will inevitably prove your value, if only you sift through the data for long enough.

[Perhaps the focus should shift from "proving our value"
to "improving our effectiveness"]

This matters, because the opportunity cost of tracking, recording, reporting and analyzing data can be relatively high, especially in small shops. You must also improve outreach, enhance your engagement targeting and customize your communications and interaction.

You need a balance, and some teams don't update or improve outdated offerings, but instead use the increased availability of data to select measurements that will influence leadership to provide continued or additional resources. 

Daniel asks what you'll say when, going around the leadership table, it's your turn to "make the case" for investment in alumni engagement. "If you have no data," he points out, "it is very difficult to justify your value."

That's right. Having no data is a big problem. But if you have the data, and they say you're failing, you have a bigger problem. 

Establishing a benchmark for your effectiveness is not only for proving how good you are. It's for improving how good you are too.