What does it mean to offer valuable alumni benefits in the twenty-first century? This is a big question that organizations are grappling with.
As graduate needs and expectations change, so does the traditional role and value proposition of the alumni association. With the rise of social media, new modes of connection, and novel technologies, many alumni professionals may be struggling to demonstrate value to universities and alumni alike! Many alumni associations may fear redundancy, as former students turn to LinkedIn and Facebook to connect before their alma mater.
That said, alumni relations is far from expendable. To remain relevant, serve constituents effectively, and support their universities, alumni professionals are reframing engagement as an iterative, evolving process.
Alumni relations has changed and it will continue to change. To survive and thrive into the future, alumni professionals must continuously reassess not only what benefits they offer, but how to improve access to these.
In light of this, let’s examine five tips to offer value to alumni today:
1. Assess the Value of Current Benefits
Historically, alumni associations have provided value to their constituents by offering resources like an alumni directory and special offers on services like insurance, travel, and more. However, with the maturation of social media in the last decade, it has become increasingly difficult for alumni organizations to offer unique value with such services. As a result, many universities are tasked with reassessing the value of current benefits.
→ “There’s been a big shift in how people communicate and how they want to connect. One of the biggest things is that they don't necessarily need us for an alumni directory, which used to be a big source of value. Now they can go Google somebody, they can go get on LinkedIn and find another alum. So how do we add value?” - Kim Larson, Associate Vice President of Alumni Engagement @ Utah State University
In other words, social media has diluted the value of alumni associations’ long-standing benefits.
Additionally, with the rise of companies like Travelocity, Expedia, and Insurify, which make it easier to shop, travel, and compare insurance rates, alumni discount codes don’t hold the value they once did. Today, comparable discounts and deals are easily accessible online. This means that the types of benefits that were once the exclusive purview of alumni associations have been superseded by digital modes of connection and commerce.
As a result, many alumni professionals are rethinking what it means to offer value.
→ “We have our own set of people that have unique talents and experiences. So what we’re really diving into is how can our alumni help each other? What people really value is connection. How can we help make those connections earlier, and easier, and deeper?” - Kim Larson, Associate Vice President of Alumni Engagement @ Utah State University
While LinkedIn might offer the opportunity to connect online, the alma mater is uniquely poised to foster community and meaningful relationships. As Kim noted, by focusing on establishing strong, resilient, and resourceful communities of graduates, alumni associations can create longer term value and avoid becoming reduced to a “coupon club.”
2. Demonstrate Value Early
As alumni organizations work to stay relevant, it’s also becoming increasingly important to demonstrate value early, when future alumni are still students. Universities that are able to position themselves as a resource for students can set themselves up for success in creating a community of active and engaged graduates down the road.
As Ryan Catherwood, Assistant Vice President of Alumni and Career Services at Longwood University noted, “Alumni relations is all about the students. Students become alumni. So, what can you do to add value? How can you add value while they're in your own backyard?”
→ Anita Brothers, Director, Alumni Relations & Engagement at Dayton University has deployed a similar model which views student and alumni engagement as both holistic and interrelated: “At Dayton, think in terms of value propositions. How can alumni add value to the enrollment process? How can alumni add value in the student-to-alumni journey? And then, how do we provide services and benefits for life to our alumni?”
Many universities have even begun rethinking what ‘alumni engagement’ and ‘alumni relations’ encompass in order to facilitate a more seamless student-to-alumni transition that nurtures active alumni. For example, in her role as Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement at Northwestern University, Imani Davis focuses specifically on student-to-alumni transition. In supporting graduating seniors and arming students with the tools needed to succeed in post-graduation life, Imani works to demonstrate value while students are still enrolled!
Moving forward, alumni relations is likely to place heightened importance on students and young alumni as they seek to add value and remain in touch with the changing needs of their constituents.
3. Improve Access & Communication About Existing Benefits
When seeking to add value, one of the biggest hurdles alumni associations face is sharing what benefits, services, and opportunities they offer. This means that in addition to reassessing their value, alumni associations are also working to improve communication about their value.
In particular, many universities offer lifelong career services to their alumni. However, most graduates do not make the most of these benefits. In the 2020 VAESE Alumni Relations Benchmarking Study, 44% of respondents cited “career services” as the “most valuable but under-utilized service” offered by their organization. Coming in second, another 39% of respondents cited “networking events.”
This indicates that alumni organizations must strongly consider how they communicate alumni benefits, since this impacts their perceived relevance. Ultimately, this will require a number of new measures: in addition to working closely with students and young alumni, colleges may need to do a more comprehensive assessment of how they share and present benefits. For example, COVID-19 spurred a growing trend of making career resources available online through virtual events, online networking sessions, virtual mentorship opportunities, and more.
Going forward, the channels you leverage to share and serve resources will increasingly affect how alumni weigh their value.
4. Consider Adding More Virtual Benefits and Access
In the same vein, as alumni professionals reimagine how they deliver value to their constituents, it’s imperative to consider how accessible these benefits are in today’s virtual world. In the past, much of alumni relations remained attached to physical campuses and regional alumni chapters. Now, alumni benefits are trending towards the digital realm.
In Cuseum’s November-December 2020 survey of over 150 alumni relations professionals, over 85% either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they need to “update the technology solutions and/or digital benefits we offer our alumni.”
In 2021 and beyond, a surge of universities are turning their attention to launching virtual communities, digital alumni cards, and online programs in order to offer more digitally accessible value that can be accessed remotely.
5. Innovate Programming to Respond to Alumni Needs
Times are changing faster than ever, and priorities once outside the scope of alumni relations are being reconsidered. Nothing illuminated this more than COVID-19, when alumni associations had to think critically and act quickly to serve their constituents in the midst of a crisis. Offering value to graduates requires that universities think outside the box to truly meet the needs of the twenty-first century alumna.
For example, the University of Maryland Alumni Association never considered offering a summer camp before 2020. However, with the onset of the pandemic, it became clear that childcare and in-home child entertainment were the most urgent needs for much of their constituency, and they responded accordingly.
→ “Due to the pandemic, a lot of their kids were home and our alumni parents were struggling. So we decided to start a virtual summer camp. We called it Camp Diamondback and we ran that for six weeks with the programming that we worked on with our fellow schools and colleges. We had an engineering week, a music week, and a dance week. So everything was themed out for the campers and they received personalized boxes with activity booklets. We had to adjust to meet the new and unprecedented needs for our alumni” - Natalie Ross, Senior Director of Alumni Events & Programs @ University of Maryland Alumni Association
This type of agility and responsiveness will become increasingly necessary as alumni demands continue to shift. Moving forward, alumni professionals may need to step outside their traditional wheelhouse to truly deliver value to their constituents.
Let’s revisit the question we started with: what does it mean to offer value in the twenty-first century? More than ever before, offering value requires agility, creative thinking, and digital savvy from alumni associations. Additionally, it’s important to note that revamping alumni benefits may not be enough. Indeed, how those benefits are shared and accessed may be even more important.
With these tips in mind, alumni professionals can be well on their way to delivering incredible value to their constituents!
Let’s get in touch! Request a demo or reach out to hello@cuseum.com to learn how Cuseum can help you supercharge alumni engagement.