“Big data” is a buzzword that has captured the focus of business leaders across nearly every industry. As defined by IBM, “Big data analytics is the use of advanced analytic techniques against immense, diverse data sets.” In the commercial sector, big data has applications in everything from product development and the customer experience to operational efficiency and innovation. According to Intel, “big data analytics is a technology-enabled strategy for gaining richer, deeper, and more accurate insights into customers, partners, and the business.”
Outside of the commercial sector, and across higher education, interest in “big data” is intensifying. Many universities have adopted cloud-based technology and Customer Relationship Management databases (CRMs), marketing automation tools, data analytics technology, and more. That said, the applications of data in alumni relations and alumni engagement are only beginning to be uncovered.
With all the rumblings about “big data,” industry professionals understand the urgency to start making data-driven decisions, but may be unsure of the benefits, the potential challenges, and how to get started..
We sat down with Jay Le Roux Dillon, Executive Director of Alumni Relations at University of California Berkeley and expert alumni relations consultant, to explore this in-depth.
Here, we’ll break down the basics of data analytics, what technology you need to get started, top tips to become more data-driven in alumni relations, and the biggest challenges alumni relations professionals face when trying to leverage data. Let’s get into it!
What does it mean to be data-driven in alumni engagement?
In a November-December 2020 survey of over 150 alumni relations professionals, over 76% listed data analytics as a key technology that “will become more important for my organization and/or the alumni relations sector over the next decade.”
While alumni professionals understand the importance of leveraging data and data tools, what does it mean to become data-driven and data-informed in alumni engagement?
In short, data-driven alumni organizations develop clear ways to measure success, implement solid data collection practices to gather relevant data points, and leverage analytical tools to measure their effectiveness against those metrics. This enables universities to refine their engagement efforts and harness scarce resources towards the most impactful initiatives.
Data is increasingly important to adjacent efforts focused on personalizing alumni communications and content at scale and offering value to alumni. As consumers, alumni are already accustomed to the benefits of big data and analytics. For example, personalized Netflix and Amazon recommendations are data analytics at work!
What problems can data help solve in alumni engagement?
To become data-driven, it’s important to understand what data can help you achieve and what problems it can help you solve. After all, you’re not just collecting data for its own sake!
First of all, as of 2020, 65% of alumni professionals’ report that being under-staffed is either “very” or “somewhat concerning.” When staff resources are limited, data can be the answer to many of your pain points. By making data-driven decisions, you’ll be able to devote limited staff time towards the most effective engagement activities and avoid wasting your resources on projects that aren’t helping you meet your goals.
What’s more, data can help you stay up-to-date on current alumni interests, needs, and desires. Many organizations still exclusively segment their alumni communications based on outdated information, like degree programs or former on-campus affiliations, which may no longer be relevant to where graduates are years down the line!
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, there is a growing trend of breaking down silos in universities - these days, alumni engagement teams are more and more interconnected with development and career services. This means that their success is also correlated. Leveraging data can help align priorities across these units, so that alumni engagement can be working on initiatives that facilitate success in advancement, or career services can support alumni satisfaction. In short, leveraging data can help align different teams and units across campus in ways that benefit the university at large.
What technology do alumni relations teams need to start leveraging data?
To make data-driven decisions in alumni engagement, there are some basic technology tools required. That being said, many universities commonly make the big mistake of believing a new, expensive, and sophisticated “tech stack” is required to get started. Organizations frequently overestimate the barrier to entry when it comes to using data in meaningful ways.
Most universities are already equipped to start leveraging data and can implement more advanced software systems as needed:
“Implementation of new data systems or software in higher education takes two to three years at minimum. So start with what you have, or you’ll be set back before you can get started. Starting with what you have doesn't mean settling. It means discovering the full capability of the many tools that are already at your disposal and deciding how to leverage them, which might mean training. In my experience, every place I've worked in every school and consulted with, there has not been a great understanding of the power of the tools that the school already has.” - Jay Le Roux Dillon, Executive Director of Alumni Relations @ University of California Berkeley
To put it another way, now is the time to start with what you have!
Depending on where you begin, as well as your evolving needs, you may eventually want to enhance your systems. This may include launching:
A more sophisticated database. This can make it easier to collect, store, access, and secure alumni data.
New data analytics tools. This can help you test, measure, visualize, and optimize your engagement efforts.
Data integration tools. This can help bring together data points from other units and departments across the university to develop more holistic insights.
Data visualization dashboards. Intuitive data visualization tools can help illuminate key data points and make important information digestible to colleagues and stakeholders across your team and university.
These days, so many CRMs have increasingly complex storage and reporting capabilities. Plus, so much data analysis can simply be done in Excel. That's why it’s important not to get bogged down by technology prerequisites before you explore what you already have access to in terms of data tools.
How can my alumni engagement decisions become more data-driven?
So, you understand what data can help you do, and you have the basic technology to get started. Where do you go from here?
1. Start analyzing the data you already have. Just as alumni organizations may not realize the extent of their existing technology capabilities, you may not fully comprehend how much data you have to work with. For example, Chastise Smith, Development Officer at the University of Georgia, executed one of the most personalized alumni campaigns to date using existing, but untapped, data in their system:
“We realized that we have so much alumni data. We know so many things, we capture so much information from these people, whether it be their interests, their participation in surveys, their involvement. So the question was, how do we use this data to get our constituents to respond?” - Chatise Smith, Development Officer @ UGA
2. Survey your alumni - and survey them effectively! As of 2020, only 48% of alumni organizations survey their alumni at all. This leaves huge room for improvement! Surveying consumers is the backbone of the booming retail economy, and alumni professionals can emulate the survey models employed by major brands to achieve success:
“Retailers always want people to post reviews. They're constantly asking you to review things and to rate things. And that's a feedback loop that is necessary for those companies to get better and better at engaging their constituents - their consumers. And in higher ed, we don't have that yet as a business practice. But this is a feedback loop that is necessary for these companies to get better and better.” - Jay Le Roux Dillon, Executive Director of Alumni Relations at University of California Berkeley
Surveying alumni is particularly important to understanding your alumni now, as compared to who they were as students. In today’s world, when the average person changes careers 5-7 times, the degree program that alumni graduated from 20 years ago may not be relevant! Surveying can help you keep updated records of alumni career paths, interests, affiliations, and more!
3. Refine your data collection practices. In addition to collecting survey data, there are many ways to compile meaningful data points. In 2019, the The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) launched a new Alumni Engagement Metrics (AEM) survey, which focuses on collecting alumni engagement across four “modes”: Philanthropic, Volunteer, Experiential, and Communications. These recommendations by CASE can offer a strong foundation to guide alumni data collections practices! Read CASE recommendations and study.
4. Develop metrics of success, and a ‘North Star KPI’
Again, being data-driven doesn’t just mean collecting data for its own sake. As Madeline Goldfischer, Assistant Director, Regional Alumni Chapters at Sarah Lawrence College note, the key to becoming data driven is to “start with making sure your organization is aligned on what metrics will best represent success.”
Jay Le Roux Dillon, Executive Director of Alumni Relations at University of California Berkeley, agreed. In his work, he has identified “Alumni Identity” as the key metric of success for alumni relations. In his words, “Alumni identity scoring offers a reliable and valid quantitative measure of a graduate’s feeling of connection towards their alma mater that requires no pre-existing wealth screening or giving data.” In his extensive research, he has also pinpointed “alumni identity” as the most important indicator of an alum’s inclination to give. Because alumni identity is an engagement metric that corresponds with propensity to donate, tracking this as a key performance indicator (KPI) can be a successful way to align alumni relations and development activities at a university. This is one example of a powerful “North Star metric” that can drive a data-driven culture:
“I encourage my colleagues in higher education to develop some type of North Star metric for engagement. If you are going to go about the business of becoming more data-driven in alumni relations, you need that one metric for engagement that mirrors the dollar sign on the philanthropy side. The bottom line engagement in philanthropy is: how much money did you raise last year? If you're going to be data-driven in alumni engagement, you have to answer the question: what is our bottom line metric?” - Jay Le Roux Dillon, Executive Director of Alumni Relations at University of California Berkeley
While the North Star metric might vary by institution, aligning priorities, establishing clear metrics of success, and measuring engagement activities against these goals is key to becoming data-informed at any alumni organization.
Alumni Organizations Want to Be More Data-Driven - ‘Tradition’ Might Be Getting in the Way
Despite the clear benefits of making data-driven decisions, many alumni organizations may still come up against challenges as they attempt to reorient their activities based on evidence. More so than businesses and commercial brands, universities have long-standing and weighty historical traditions that continue to guide alumni relations activities, even when the data says otherwise.
“The reason that data-driven decisions and data analysis are not really driving engagement the way that we say they should be is because data always runs up against very, very strong contemporary or historical anecdotes about what works. This is not any different than using data to make decisions at a retail brand or consumer brand, but it carries with it the weight of the institution and the culture of the place.” - Jay Le Roux Dillon, Executive Director of Alumni Relations at University of California Berkeley
For example, data almost universally indicates that soliciting young alumni for donations leads to higher “unsubscribe” rates. Yet, in 2020, 78% of universities still engaged in this practice. As alumni relations teams work to become more data-driven, they often have to contend with “traditional” modes of doing things, and may need to work hard to create updated and iterative best practices that correspond with the latest evidence.
Alumni engagement professionals are only just beginning to explore the transformative potential of alumni data. By understanding the purpose, technological 101, best practices, and common barriers to becoming more data-driven, alumni organizations can be well positioned to begin the basics of making more informed decisions that make alumni relations such a critical asset for universities.
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.