Over the course of the past six months, universities and alumni associations of every size have faced significant disruptions to their operations, events, and engagement strategy. Traditionally, alumni organizations have relied on a busy calendar of in-person events - like homecoming, tailgates, class reunions, and local alumni chapter meetups - to keep alumni active. Many of these in-person events are now risky and untenable for the foreseeable future. In response, alumni associations have devoted fresh energy and resources towards producing engaging virtual programs and events, with incredible results.

Join Dan Sullivan (Head of Growth and Partnerships @ Cuseum), Michael Smullen (Executive Director, Alumni Relations @ New Jersey Institute of Technology), Leslie Smith (Executive Director of Alumni Engagement @ Depauw University), Natalie Ross (Senior Director of Alumni Events & Programs @ University of Maryland Alumni Association) & Kelly Beyrer (Assistant Director for Alumni & Advancement Events @ Iona College) for a special webinar on all things virtual events. Over the hour, these experts will dive into the planning, strategy, and creative thinking that goes into producing successful virtual events and programs!

View the full recording here.

Read the highlights below.

Take this Opportunity to Engage New Audiences

Although navigating the new virtual world may have its challenges, there are many silver linings that have resulted from the new digital environment. Kelly from Iona College mentioned that before COVID-19, they did not have any virtual programming for their alumni. Now, they have a robust calendar of virtual events that has been critical in helping them reach new audiences.

“One thing I’d like to say is the biggest silver lining is our alumni and our university is engaged on a whole new level. We do a monthly wine tasting, trivia nights, career development panels. So we’re on both sides of things. You create ongoing programming that we can offer each month and we’re seeing that we’ve got alumni who hadn’t been back on campus in 10, 20 years now engaging with us for the first time.”
– Kelly Beyrer

Michael from the New Jersey Institute of Technology also agreed that the biggest advantage of the new digital programs is the opportunity to meet and connect with people you would have never reached. Leslie at DePauw University agreed - she was able to program a leadership course for their new first year students with prominent alumni, such as Jonn Fortt, the CBNC Co-Anchor for Squawk Alley, Brad Stevens, the Head Coach for Boston Celtics, and Condoleezza Rice, the former Secretary of State. DePauw University also made the decision to move their alumni symposium virtually to serve not only the alumni, but also prospective students and the more geographically widespread community. By leveraging virtual events, they were able to maximize their reach and engage with new audiences.

While the pandemic has brought many challenges, it has also been a forcing function that has caused alumni associations to rethink how they engage with their constituents - for the better!

Tailor Virtual Events to the Need of Your Alumni

Alumni associations typically serve diverse constituents with a range of needs and interests. One of the best ways to ensure success with your virtual events is to be open and receptive to those needs. For example, Natalie from the University of Maryland realized that many of the alumni were working from home and needed programming to entertain their kids over the summer. In response to this need, they were able to create a free, virtual six week summer camp program that could engage children while their parents were occupied at work. She also saw an increase of more social programming to give alumni a chance to relax at the end of the day.

“We’re touching areas we’ve never touched before. Kids were not necessarily an area we would have ever thought of doing and then of course, trivia nights we really weren’t into. Most of our programming now has become highly social, but I think that is in direct response to having to stay on Zoom or your computer for eight hours a day. The last thing you might want is to tag on an extra hour to listen to a speaker. So we find ourselves like a refreshing pool.”
– Natalie Ross

With the new uncertainties in the job market, navigating careers has been one of the main topics alumni organizations have focused on, too. Leslie started a new subscription with Zoom and has launched meetings and webcasts on how to navigate the job market. Michael was also able to partner with his institution’s career services to launch a job board and a series of webinars on utilizing their network, nailing their digital interview, and more tips.

Analyzing popular programs and engagement data can also be key in developing successful events. For example, Michael observed that the most clicked links from their alumni newsletters were related to campus transformations. In response, he crafted the programming according to what their alumni wanted to see, setting up live virtual campus tours where alumni can join and ask questions.

Listen to your audience! By assessing needs, examining data, and encouraging your alumni to offer feedback, you can be well on your way to mastering virtual events.

Develop New Metrics to Measure Success

With all the new virtual events and programming, one thing organizations have had to grapple with is measuring success. Traditionally, alumni associations may have relied on metrics like in-person event attendance to measure the popularity of certain events. Now, many are rethinking this to account for virtual engagement.

After experimenting with different types of events and metrics, Michael has begun measuring alumni engagement with key metrics like virtual event attendance, giving, volunteership, repetitiveness of giving, and contactability with addresses, emails, phone numbers. He then rounds up the data and gets an engagement score to determine what his team should focus on.

“Depending on how long this will last, we may be in a position to recalculate or to reestablish how we’re measuring success. So it’s certainly a learning curve and something that we’re still figuring out as well.”
– Michael Smullen

For Natalie, she has a long history of collecting data on alumni engagement.

“We have a coding nomenclature - we go in and code every single attendee with a special code that is specific to them, the region, the type of event it was, then we’re able to pull reports three months, six months, nine months out, to see the trend of what they’ve been doing.”
– Natalie Ross

Now, they’ve also been recording data such as the event registrants who are coming to look back at content afterwards, click-through rates, and Youtube engagement rates.

Kelly agreed with tracking everything from donations, registrations, and attendees.

“I love looking at registration. And I think that’s something that my own leadership has accepted as a form of success - that if someone registers for an event, but doesn’t necessarily attend an event, that’s still a success metric that we should be measuring.”
– Kelly Beyrer

Although there may be a difference between registrations and attendees, she suggested that registration itself is also a metric to be evaluated. She encouraged the audience to experiment with different success metrics and adjust from the insights you can get from different data.

As the types and formats of events evolve, so do the metrics of success. To understand your alumni base, it will be important to develop a dynamic understanding of what constitutes engagement.

With the new shift to virtual programming, one of the main advantages is connecting with those whom you may never have been able to reach with in-person programming. By offering new types of programming, responding to the needs of your constituents, and rethinking how you measure engagement, you can elevate your virtual events strategy!