alumni futures

Starting an Alumni Board: Guest Blogger Michael Griffin

I'm pleased to provide a guest blog post, from Michael E. Griffin, Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations at Fordham University in New York.

While interviewing to lead the alumni relations team at Fordham University, I learned that Fordham’s president, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., was eager to reconstitute a university-wide alumni association. The former version ceased to exist sometime in the late ’90s or the early 2000s. Depending on whom you spoke with, this previous incarnation—which existed along with several school-based groups—faced various challenges, including setting overall priorities and dealing with financial and legal matters. Simply put, these organizations were not always operating in the best interests of the broader alumni population (of more than 175,000) or of Fordham University. So, as I accepted the role at Fordham, I was excited about the prospect of envisioning and creating a new alumni association.

As I immersed myself in my new job, I carved out the time to learn about the history, people, culture, and nuances of this rich and complex university. And I recognized that I didn’t have to start from scratch—others had recently taken a similar path. For inspiration, I spent time with colleagues from Boston College and the University of Southern California, and I also drew upon my own professional experience at Columbia University.

Three years in, armed with a growing fluency in all things Fordham and a good sense of a way forward, I was missing only one piece—objective and statistically valid data to either support or contradict what I had learned anecdotally. What do alumni think of Fordham? How was their student experience? Their alumni experience? What are we doing well? How can we better serve them, engage them, and bring them closer to the university? For this input, we commissioned PEG Ltd. to administer their Alumni Attitude Study. The results painted a detailed and accurate picture of what Fordham looked and felt like for our alumni.

[We had to articulate clearly why Fordham wanted to create a new alumni association]

Next came crafting the plan. And that had to start with clearly articulating why Fordham wanted to create a new alumni association. And, of course, setting the goals the new group would seek to accomplish. The first part was pretty straightforward: For almost two decades, there had been no formal platform for alumni to express their ideas, opinions, and views, and there had been no volunteer structure to foster and encourage greater alumni involvement with the life of the University. That had to change. As to working goals, we prioritized strengthening institutional identity and pride (a stronger Fordham benefits everyone), promoting alumni and cross-school connections (which would create a richer and more interdependent experience for all), and leveraging resources for the common good of our alumni and nine schools (which would help us become more strategic and efficient in our engagement efforts).

We named our emergent organization the Fordham University Alumni Association (FUAA), an inclusive, dues-free group serving all Fordham alumni worldwide. And drawing upon the work of peer institutions, we determined that the association’s voice to the University would be a 24-person alumni advisory board that would meet several times a year and assist us in informing, shaping, and guiding alumni engagement. There was no magical algorithm that helped us choose 24 as the number of representatives; we just thought it was the right size for an inclusive and diverse advisory board.

How did we compile our initial list of candidates? We made sure to consider all of Fordham’s schools and key constituent groups (such as trustees, athletics, and regional chapters). We looked for alumni with demonstrated and sustained volunteer involvement, a positive outlook, a creative and visionary mindset, and a temperament to engage in board work. We expect board members to attend meetings regularly, serve on task forces, be visible at events, assist with recruitment of new board members, and—as circumstances allow—support Fordham financially. To this end, we engaged in a little reverse engineering—most of those selected for the board were already donors at some level.

[Fordham now has 24 additional, knowledgeable ambassadors to tell the university's story]

We launched the FUAA in January of 2017 as the first university-wide association in more than 15 years. To date, the FUAA Advisory Board has convened three times. I am thoroughly impressed by the group’s thoughtfulness, energy, and commitment to fellow alumni and to Fordham. More specifically, the board already has three task forces—one focused on how alumni can help increase Fordham’s reputation around the world, another looking at ways the University can serve graduates' lifelong learning needs, and a third ensuring that our alumni relations efforts align with our graduates’ desires and expectations. But beyond the work of these task forces, Fordham University now has 24 additional, knowledgeable ambassadors to tell the Fordham story to alumni, prospective students, and the public.

I am not the only one impressed by the new Fordham University Alumni Association. Reception and feedback both on campus and in the alumni community has been uniformly positive. In fact, a “Meet the Board” reception for January of 2018 reached capacity with more than 300 RSVPs in just a few hours—making it one of our biggest alumni events of the year. I look forward to continuing to work with this group on initiatives that resonate with alumni and that raise Fordham’s profile.

Contact Michael directly at [email protected].

 

Book Review: University Fundraising in Britain by William Squire

University Fundraising in Britain - A Transatlantic Partnership
by William Squire
Matador Books (Troubador Publishing Ltd.), 2012
ISBN  978-1784620-097

I recently read the slim paperback University Fundraising in Britain – A Transatlantic Partnership by William Squire.* Squire, a career diplomat, served a foundational role in both the establishment of CASE Europe (this book was published on the organization's 20th anniversary), and of professionalized university fundraising in the UK. He evolved comfortably into his role as the first head of university development at Cambridge University.

The "transatlantic partnership" of the book's subtitle is appropriately featured, since a major premise of this historical overview is the way in which (and the degree to which) British fundraisers learned from their American counterparts during the formative years of the profession's establishment and growth. The book provides the US context in great detail, but glosses over the prior history of advancement in the UK too easily, covering the period from the 13th century to 1971 in exactly 12 sentences.

However, useful and readable footnotes compensate for the book's uneven pacing in places. 

In examining the US context, Squire provides good data on sources of revenue in American universities. This matters because it led, in part, to awareness in England that fundraising was a source of important revenue to public institutions in the US, not just to the famously wealthy private universities whose philanthropic successes are well-known. The implication of this was that public UK institutions could see fundraising success as well – potentially, at least. Squire also makes the important point that in US institutions, the university president has, from the beginning of formal fundraising here, been an integral participant in development efforts. It was not automatic that UK leaders would be a part of the fundraising effort, and their eventual involvement drove tremendous growth. The book has numerous examples to illustrate specific points like this.

[It was not automatic that UK leaders
would be a part of the fundraising effort]

Along the way toward learning the specific history of the field, the reader also learns the important milestones along the way – many of which follow the British tradition of naming things after leaders or authors (e.g., the Ross Group, the Thomas Report, the Pearce Review, the Woolf Report, and so on). 

The book successfully tells the granular history of the profession's establishment in Britain. But a more useful outcome is illustrating the effective alignment of people at two levels in UK higher education: the working level and the policy level. This mattered in a chicken and egg way. Fundraisers in the trenches had to produce results, to show that they were performing a long-term strategic service that counted. At the same time, however, policy makers had to create structures that enhanced, encouraged and enabled systemic commitment to large-scale development efforts. A failure on either side would have stalled the broader effort.  

To me, this dichotomy mirrors the dual relationship (pointed out in the 2012 Pearce Review) between two of the biggest ongoing issues in UK fundraising: 1) the "availability of professional staff" and 2) higher education's overall commitment to pursue active fundraising policy. Again, there's a push-pull component: without staff to achieve results, policy doesn't matter. But without systemic support (such as matched funding), results will be sub-optimal, no matter how hard-working and savvy gift officers might be.

As for results, Squire amply documents the enterprise's growth, with snapshots of alumni donor numbers, total money raised, and institutions participating in industry-wide meetings and surveys.

In an odd omission, the book provides no index, so finding a specific reference is a little difficult. But the table of contents provides sub-headings that make things somewhat more searchable. 

[Without staff to achieve results, policy doesn't matter]

Summary
This book will be of definite interest to fundraisers working (or thinking about working) in UK schools and universities, as well as those in the charity sector. Those assuming a management or leadership role, in particular, will benefit from the historical background that Squire provides. 

Reading his many specific details can make Squire's content seem almost trivial at times. The agenda of a CASE conference that took place 10 years ago hardly seems "book-worthy." But to use a familiar science metaphor, Squire is relating what happened right after the Big Bang. We know that decisions at the outset of a long-term effort will have effects that last long after the original practitioners are gone. For that reason, this book will be valuable to analysts and historians of European education, though it may seem pedestrian to those toiling in advancement today.   

If the book's outlook can be summed up in one phrase, it would be "Cautiously encouraging." With a strong foundation established, fundraising in UK universities no longer has to prove itself as a worthwhile investment. However, the resources to invest in the first place remain difficult to secure, so the evolutionary road map ahead remains somewhat in question. Watch this space.

Related Links:

University Fundraising in Britain on Amazon.com

University Fundraising in Britain on iTunes (with iBooks preview)

Review by Dale Cooper in the Times Higher Ed
 

* The book was given to attendees at a meeting hosted by the consulting firm GG+A, which is where I obtained my copy. 

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." 

§

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)

Social Technology & the Leadership Volunteer

Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and prominent author and speaker on social media for business, is a candidate for the board of the Harvard Alumni Association. She announced this on her blog recently, and asked Harvard alumni for their support as she seeks to fill one of six elected positions on the board (the majority of members are appointed).

Li's announcement offers at least three lessons regarding the leadership of alumni organizations and their future relevance. There are also good reminders about why busy people volunteer their time and expertise.

[Volunteers want to use their expertise on your behalf.]

1. Just Ask
To explain why she is running for an alumni board position, Li said simply: "I was asked." 

Alumni will often volunteer if you simply ask them to. 

 

2. Make It Relevant
Volunteers don't want to do "just anything." They want to use their expertise on behalf of the institution. Li explains that she might be able to "push the alumni more into using social technologies."

 

3. Let Them Repay a Debt
Finally, volunteers often serve out of a desire to repay the institution. Li writes:

Harvard made a huge difference in my life... [and] continues to wield its influence in my life on a regular basis, from alumni connections to the research the University conducts. I see this as an opportunity to not only pay back my alma mater...but also society and the world in general.

This is an election campaign statement. But it's very valuable when volunteers endorse the organization's positive impact on them and on the world.

[Two critical aspects of alumni service can be hard to balance.]

So Li's election blog post articulates two critical aspects of alumni service that can be hard to balance:

Serving the needs of the institution,

and

Serving the needs of the alumni.

It will be interesting to see how the HAA ramps up its social media effectiveness should Li be elected to its alumni board, and to assess the outcomes of that effort.

Regardless of Li's future as a volunteer leader, non-profit managers should note the nature of this particular call to action, and actively seek out volunteers whose expertise will help them increase member engagement.

Thanks to Alumni Futures reader John Forbes for bringing this topic to my attention.

Related articles

• What is the Ideal Role for Leadership Volunteers? (alumnifutures.com)
• Has Advancement Advanced in Social Media Use? (case.org)
• Elections open for Overseers and HAA Directors (news.harvard.edu)
• What is an Open Leader? (case.org)
• Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform How You Lead (charleneli.com)

What is the Ideal Role for Leadership Volunteers?

Another kind of board leadership
(photo by me, via Flickr)

Last month, when I discussed "missed opportunities for alumni organizations," I mentioned that some volunteer resources go to waste.

This provoked an email from a U.S.-based reader who asked: 

What is the ideal role of a University's alumni board? Is it the governance of volunteer organizations (such as clubs and special interest groups)? If so, what does that mean on a tactical level? What are some tangible examples of appropriate work for alumni boards? Who drives the agenda-setting and structure for committees?

The reader said that her question was aimed at finding "a model structure or set of roles...most likely to result in board members feeling that their time is being well-spent and is delivering value to the University."

This is a lot to cover, but a few thoughts come to mind.

["What is the ideal role of a University's alumni board?"]

For starters, the ideal role of a board depends on the business goals of the organization. They might want a small advisory board that provides guidance and input on ideas. Or they might need a larger, working board that has committees who do hands on work, or who have fiduciary responsibility. Either way, they do something the institution needs to get done.

When it comes to "board members feeling that their time is...delivering value to the University," it's important to recognize that many volunteers don't have the institution's needs first in mind when they sign on for board service. They are looking for something they will find fun, interesting, or personally rewarding. Stating "support for the institution's needs" as an explicit job responsibility is a good idea when forming or informing your board. 

One risk of volunteers handling tactical work is that it may tempt one or two board members to micromanage day to day details that are better left up to the staff. Staff leaders can craft the agendas and structure for committees in collaboration with board leaders, again keeping in mind what the organization needs. And as mentioned above, some leaders may not be conscious that serving the institution is the board's primary responsibility.

[A brave executive, in partnership with progressive volunteer leadership,
can do away with standing committees...]

A brave executive, in partnership with progressive volunteer leadership, can do away with some or all of a board's standing committees, in favor of more fluid, changeable "task forces" or "working groups." More flexible sub-groups can tackle a current topic of immediate importance, so you might have a group launch a project or address a problem over one or two meetings, and then disperse and re-form around a different, emerging topic. This also allows alumni to volunteer for projects that are of more interest to them, so they are motivated and feel well-deployed.

It's difficult to get the best out of volunteers if you ask them to work on something endless and vague like "Communications" or "Finance." Focus your requests when you can, and structure volunteer leadership around finite, measurable projects if possible. The volunteers will feel more productive and the institution will benefit tangibly. 

Some additional thoughts about volunteer management:

• Volunteer engagement is vulnerable: reliance on a very small number of individuals to fill the vast majority of leadership roles creates a meager pipeline of future leaders. 
• If possible, engage alumni in ways that use their expertise or specialized knowledge. 
• Create clear roles and responsibilities for volunteers, but be sensitive to volunteers' desire to create their own experience along flexible lines. You may have to compromise to get them involved.
• People often seek short-term opportunities; check your list of volunteer roles and see whether you can add more short-term offerings.
• Don't forget past volunteers. Past leaders often disappear from the radar when they still have ideas, energy and time to contribute.
• If alumni are helping manage your online presence (e.g., moderating LinkedIn Groups, tweeting in a semi-official capacity, or responding to Facebook content on behalf of the institution), include them in your volunteer recognition just as you include traditional volunteers (such as reunion chairs, club or chapter presidents, and alumni board members).

Related articles

• 7 Commonly Missed Opportunities in Alumni Relations (alumnifutures.com)
• Association of Governing Boards of Universities & Colleges (www.agb.org)
• Harvard on the Map: An Example of Alumni Service in Action (alumnifutures.com)
• Global Citizenship: What Role for Alumni (alumnifutures.com)

English Universities After the "Browne Report"

 

An independent higher education review panel in England published its recommendations in October 2010. The adoption of the panel's findings engendered (among other things) large-scale protests by English university students. The dramatic response centered primarily on the cost implications of the proposed reforms. The review itself, known familiarly as the Browne Report, is about 60 pages long – but its most noted suggestions included the following:

• No cap on university fees (tuition).
• Limited government underwriting. 
• Limits to the portion of student fees that universities can keep.
• Government funding only for "strategically important" subjects and courses (e.g., in sciences and technology).
• A not-so-simple system of partial- and maximum-maintenance-grants. 
• Proportional tuition grant repayment by alumni, depending on their income level once they leave university.
• A single Higher Education Council to replace four existing high-level offices, to set quality levels, enforce academic quality standards, scrutinize student access, and with authority to bail out struggling institutions.
• An 80% cut in the government's "block grant" to universities (to be offset by student tuition fees).

That last item is certainly among the most radical on the Report's long list. The current grant is almost US$6 billion.

The summary above is admittedly an over-simplified snapshot of just a handful of the Report's proposals. With that in mind, here are a few brief observations about points in the Browne Report that I think deserve further appraisal.

The Report shifts higher education from being a publicly funded good to being a free market commodity, subject to competition. It's hard to argue for or against specific levels of funding or targets for cuts when what is changing is the very philosophy behind an entire nation's higher education system.  

But in fact, there isn't really a university "system" in England, any more than we have one in the United States. The wide range of institutions represents a decentralized, unsystematized diversity of educational options that defies the application of a single "model" to govern the entire collection. 

Lord Browne has said that "student choice" must influence "academic quality." But "quality" is hard to measure, so the proposed proxy is "student satisfaction." A nod toward measuring university effectiveness would be welcome here, but that's hard to measure too – especially as educational goals vary widely from student to student. Taking into account the sliding re-payment system for student bursaries, Browne's system may channel many students' goals toward making the most money, so they can pay off their loans. This, in turn would limit the range of professional fields which they might enter. With more students going after degrees in business, finance and technology (or wherever the higher paying jobs will be), fewer would pursue the arts, "non-strategic" languages, and the humanities.

And the proposed free market would dictate that those unpopular courses, therefore, no longer be offered. The institutions that want to offer them would close, or shut down those departments entirely.

Stefan Collini has described this as a "disguised voucher scheme":

Students will be able to borrow the cost of the fees...and they are then expected to go and spend them on the 'service provider' of their choice. The [Browne] report proposes that what universities teach will henceforth be determined by their anticipation of consumer demand.

When all the nit-picking about specific issues is done, the question remains: should a national government abdicate responsibility for judging the long-term value of the academic subjects it supports? Letting "the market" choose which departments survive is a high-level cop-out. I'm not sure that a group of "experts" on high would make good decisions, but I do think the education community would benefit from an honest appraisal of which disciplines the population needs, in what way, and for what ultimate purpose.

Facility with languages, in-depth exposure to the visual or performing arts and literature, awareness of cultural and historical trends – all these things deserve careful assessment before being turned over to free-market decision-making, especially when that decision will be influenced by constraints such as the student's ability to pay back a loan.

Universities should offer the academic subjects that contribute to the financial well-being of the country and the individual; but the less lucrative academic subjects can and should be measured against a standard other than their economic by-products.

A final thought: the slow-moving gears of shared governance in education aren't adjusted for the relatively brusque decision-making in this case. England's education sector has been hit not only by the content of the Browne Report, but by its urgency, which makes its impact all the more dramatic. The relative speed with which the Report was issued and its proposals adopted adds to the impression within higher education that the government's decision-makers are out of touch with "how we do things" inside the academy.

Related articles

• The "Browne Report": Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education in England  (independent.gov.uk)
• At a glance: Browne report (bbc.co.uk)
• Browne [report] drew on a single opinion survey (timeshighereducation.co.uk)
• Browne's Gamble by Stefan Collini (lrb.co.uk)
• Tuition fees and why as a Liberal Democrat I would vote against them | Evan Harris (guardian.co.uk)
• British Universities See Magnitude of Budget Cuts (insidehighered.com)
• New Plan for Irish Higher Ed (insidehighered.com)

Photos: 'Save EMA' by Chris Beckett via Creative Commons. 'Student Protests – Parliament Square' by bobaliciouslondon via Creative Commons.

Crisis Communication with Alumni: Reed College

[Updated: with link to blog post about "why crisis management and social media must co-exist," and interview with Cindy Lawson. See resource list at bottom of posting.]

How can engaging alumni through social media and email help an institution during a media crisis? The alumni & parent relations staff at Reed College believes that doing so is beneficial, perhaps integral. 

This article was written by Mike Teskey, director of alumni & parent relations at Reed College in Portland, OR (USA), and Robin Tovey, Reed's assistant director of alumni & parent relations.

 

This past spring, two Reed College students died. While the circumstances of the deaths differed from one another, the college found itself the focus of local, then national media attention. The story had numerous twists and turns, and lasted for several news cycles.

 

Background

• During spring break, 2010, a student was found dead in her dorm. The coroner did not immediately list a cause of death, but ruled out illegal drugs or alcohol.
• Shortly after spring break ended, a student living off campus died of an accidental heroin overdose.
• Prior to the annual year-end student party (known as Renn Fayre), Reed College president Colin Diver was called into a meeting by the County district attorney and the U.S. attorney for Oregon, and was told that undercover law enforcement agents would likely be present at the upcoming party.
• The first death generated local news coverage. The second death resulted in local as well as national attention. The action of the U.S. attorney and the County DA created national headlines (see links at the end of this article).

 

Commentary
There are many nuances and additional elements to this story, but here we're focusing on the role of social media and alumni relations in the crisis-communication process.

 

We believe that informing alumni promptly through email, Facebook, and Twitter and getting ahead of the mainstream news media aided the college in managing the message and the public discourse online. 

Key elements included:

Access to Information: In situations like ours, what is known and what can be shared are often different. Student privacy is paramount, and the college cannot (appear to) be insensitive to this. Still, as soon as a death occurs and the coroner is called, it becomes a public story. And as soon as the public relations staff become involved, the alumni relations team needs to be brought in to help disseminate information.

Delegation: It can be challenging when, in the institution at large, there is a lack of consensus about how to respond to the crisis, along with widely divergent levels of comfort with digital communications. In a small college, no single office is equipped to handle all the related issues, so the alumni office must be empowered to share information (with appropriate approvals) and respond to alumni questions.

Empowerment: By the same token, it helps to empower the alumni as well, arming them with invaluable information to use in their own conversations with others. Our alumni added salient comments to the online mix, becoming our best advocates, and we believe they benefited from having the full spectrum of documentation available via our news feed.

Timeliness: Getting ahead of the news cycle is hard, but sharing information promptly engenders good will, provides context, and creates an "information posse" that can work to your favor when the inevitable online comments appear following a story.

Persistent monitoring: As the stories are posted and reposted, it is important to monitor what is said and, to the extent possible, who is saying it. It was quite validating to see loyal alumni chiming in and sharing a perspective that staff cannot offer. In fact, the most popular link we reposted was a letter from two young alumnae to the New York Times, that served as an astute rebuttal to an earlier article.

From the first publication through the last related posting from us, this crisis communications effort occupied nearly four weeks. It was rewarding to know, to arm, to answer, and finally to trust our alumni audience, so that they could engage others and be the institution's best advocates in the larger community – online, as well as face to face.

 

Related Links

An Intervention at Reed (from Inside Higher Ed, 26 April, 2010)

Reed College's President Is Told to Crack Down on Campus Drug Use (NY Times, 26 April, 2010)

Drug Use at Reed College (Letter to Editor, NY Times, 4 May, 2010)

Confronting Drug Abuse at Reed (by the editor of Reed College Magazine)

U.S. Attorney's Letter to Reed College... (from The Oregonian, 4 May, 2010)

Favorite Traditions (from Reed College Admission Office web site)

Reed College Alumni website

Why Crisis Management and Social Media Must Co-Exist

Interview with Crisis Communications Expert Cindy Lawson (from Academic Impressions)

Photo of sign on Reed College campus by Flickr member Major Clanger, via Creative Commons.

Three Models for Alumni Membership: Pros and Cons

Paul Prewitt asked recently whether the membership dues-based association model is hurting alumni organizations, instead of helping them. Having recently stepped down from the leadership of a membership association, I exchanged some ideas with him via email. I've boiled down my thoughts to some simple pros and cons of the various association membership models.

The two alumni-centric models I mention here are 

1. The Membership Dues Model: Alumni choose to pay annual or life member dues, in exchange for a set of benefits and privileges not available to non-members.
2. The Inclusive Model: All alumni have equal access to the same set of programs and services provided by alma mater via the alumni office.
   
   There is also a fundraising-focused offshoot of this:
    
3. The Donor Benefits Model: Individuals (including non-alumni) who donate at least a specified amount of money to the institution receive exclusive benefits for their contribution.

Some Advantages of the Membership Dues Model    

• Generates revenue in the form of dues. 
• Life dues can be placed into endowment for 1) growth and 2) long-term higher return (life members pass away and no longer use benefits, but the association retains and reinvests their dues). 
• Helps you identify who really is a more active than passive supporter (ie, they bothered to join, which is a form of engagement). 
• Members feel privileged to some extent ("first class citizen").
• Places the school in front of constituents through cyclical marketing and renewal process.

Some Disadvantages of the Membership Dues Model

• Members may think that they are donating to the institution when they join an autonomous ("independent") alumni association. 
• There's overhead associated with maintaining dues programs (benefits administration, renewals, payment processing, marketing) so, generally, only larger organizations can justify the relative opportunity cost. Most small shops will do better to allocate their membership management position to events or programs instead.
• Non-members resent the paying for things they think should be free (e.g., library access, publications, discounts, merchandise...).
• Marketing can leave non-joiners with a negative feeling toward the institution.

The primary alternative to due-based associations are so-called "inclusive associations," where all alumni automatically are welcome to participate in activities without regard to having actively joined an association or other alumni organization.

Some Advantages of the Inclusive Model

• Saves on overhead of marketing and administering a separate membership and benefits program. 
• Reduced marketing and sales aspect to alumni relations.
• Helps creates the impression that the association has something of relevance to all alumni.

Some Disadvantages of the Inclusive Model

• Alumni are not aware of the alumni association (or, they're not aware of their "membership" in it).
• All benefits potentially accrue to all alumni, which is a cost ineffective way to model service and product delivery. 
• Removes a potentially significant revenue stream from the balance sheet.

In our brief exchange, Paul also mentioned an off-shoot of the dues model, the Donor Benefits Model. This is a system where benefits accrue to individuals who contribute to the institution above a specified financial threshold. 

Some Advantages of the Donor Benefits Model

• Allows you to identify, cultivate, steward and reward those who support the institution financially. 
• Helps identify prospects for future giving, increased giving, and more diversified giving.
• Can generate attention and gifts from people who otherwise wouldn't bother (for example, they like having access to the institution's president or senior administrators and professors).
• Creates a framework for "more equal than others" outreach, which reinforces the culture of giving at higher levels (e.g., travel programs for President's Circle).

Some Disadvantages of the Donor Benefits Model

• Alienates people who feel their non-financial contributions (e.g., career expertise, volunteer time at events, service on boards) is not valued at same level or in the same way as financial donations.
• Reinforces stereotype that only people who give money are "important" to the school.
• Distracts people from seeing relative value of volunteerism, and may discourage people from engaging non-financially. 

Additional Thoughts

I think that many alumni offices tend to program for a mythical average alumnus who, all things being equal, is 1) interested in alma mater, 2) prepared to engage or join, and 3) willing to donate. 

But there is no such thing as the "average alumnus." The fact is that the vast majority of alumni 1) don't have an active interest in the school, 2) don't join local or comprehensive alumni groups, and 3) don't contribute financially. 

Some associations are already programming more for the minority of alumni who are predisposed toward engagement, while largely ignoring the rest of the constituents. Of course, there will be periodic efforts to attract newly-interested or available alumni as volunteers and donors as well, but alumni who have exhibited low or no engagement over some length of time will be dropped from mailing and invitation lists. 

Bottom Line

Dues-based associations are not "bad" for alumni relations. So long as an association has the scale to justify the overhead cost, dues structures are still justified. But to thrive, membership associations must deliver real benefits that people truly need or want, and that they cannot get elsewhere.

Photo of a members only chair at the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews, Scotland, from Flickr member Son of Groucho via Creative Commons.

2010 HERS Institute: For Women in Higher Ed Administration

Each year I post an announcement of the Bryn Mawr Summer Institute presented by Higher Education Resource Services (HERS). This year's information is now online, and open for applications. 

The application deadline is coming up (1 March, 2010) so if you're a mid- or senior-level manager in higher education, check it out now. The program is in depth (12 days long, beginning 18 June) but there is nothing comparable for female administrators in higher ed. 

It is not a conference. It is a leadership training institute with a proven track record and a unique focus on the following broad themes:

• Understanding the Higher Education Environment (trends, technology, cultures & constituencies);
• Planning & Leading Change (strategy, negotiation, conflict resolution);
• Managing & Investing Strategic Resources (higher ed finance, budgeting, and advancement); and
• Leadership Development (leadership styles, career stages, and finding or being a mentor).

Enrollment is capped at 70 participants.

More information is available at www.hersnet.org, or call Judith White directly at 1+303/871-6866. Tell her you heard it from Alumni Futures!

The Bologna Process and Alumni Relations, Part II

[Updated 18 February, 2010: InsideHigherEd interview with Paul Gaston, author of The Challenge of Bologna: What United States Higher Education Has to Learn from Europe, and Why It Matters That We Learn It.]

Back in November of 2009, I looked at the Bologna Process of European higher education standardization and how it might affect alumni relations in Europe. In this second and final post on the topic, I'm sharing a few more comments from Dr. Daniel Guhr and Simon Lange of Illuminate Consulting Group. Illuminate's consulting practice focuses on international strategic development in higher education.*  

In this post Guhr and Lange address:

 

• Threats and challenges to alumni engagement under Bologna
• The prospects for alumni loyalty to a specific institution
• The most likely time frame for changes to appear

Will threats or challenges to engagement make it harder for institutions to maintain already tenuous connections with alumni?

Daniel Guhr: Yes, but this is independent of the Bologna Process. If institutions ignore alumni demand patterns, the alumni will walk away. Down the road, having effective alumni networks will be a recruiting benefit, and it already works this way for small, elite private institutions (primarily business schools). It will be more than three years before we see concrete examples emerge – once the first full cohort of Europe-wide "Bologna System" alumni leave universities.

 

 

How does this relate to traditional "study abroad" experiences?

 

Daniel Guhr: It will have a negative effect on intra-European mobility, as fewer students can move around. This is being hotly debated however.

Simon Lange: Dan is right. Though the process encourages mobility when obtaining your degree abroad, the reforms have significantly increased students' workloads, and introduced the element of time pressure. In the end, this discourages students from spending a desirable semester in Sevilla, or elsewhere.

 

 

Will alumni be likely to transfer their affinity or loyalty to a university, a country, an academic program or perhaps a host institution in their target country?

 

Daniel Guhr: I would ask this differently. What makes alumni more loyal in the European context? First, the presence of effective alumni relations to begin with. Second, the impact of the international experience on the alumnus's life. Third, the brand effect. You can create a matrix that displays these factors and put in the respective values. We'll see very different dynamics emerge. In short, we should ask, "What works for the alumni?"

Simon Lange: It is likely that the European Union's goal of fostering a European identity among future professionals will succeed. For scholarship recipients, loyalty to the donating country or organization, or to the EU, is likely to be higher. ICG recently conducted a nationwide survey of alumni from all eight universities in New Zealand, and found that non-New Zealand citizen alumni felt more closely connected to New Zealand if they received a New Zealand-sponsored scholarship. We compared their affiliation levels with those of alumni who received funding from other sources, and those who received no scholarship funds.

Based on both ICG's research and my personal experience in Europe, I'd say that students who go abroad feel a strong connection to their host institution, either for an exchange or for an entire program. For example, there are two Facebook groups for Erasmus students at the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain), each with more than 1,300 members. This is anecdotal evidence, but worth looking into more systematically. 

Over what time scale will changes play out?

Daniel Guhr: Some changes are already taking place. It will be three years or more before we have early examples to use as case studies. In 5 to 10 years we'll see major initiatives that will produce good results. Some will come earlier, but will likely not be well-conceived. It will be more than ten years however before mainstream European universities will see any benefits – and only if they commit to building alumni networks.

* I serve as a volunteer member of ICG's Academic Advisory Board.