How to Make Time for Alumni Engagement

Alumni engagement should be a key aspect of the work of any alumni association. However, it’s understandable for it to be difficult to make time for it with everything else your organization has to accomplish, especially for people working with these organizations in volunteer roles.

The good news is there are ways you can make it easier to accomplish. It all comes down to having the right tools.

Here are a few examples of some of the tools and strategies you can use to enhance your alumni engagement to keep alumni plugged in and active in your organization.

• Database: Having an up-to-date alumni database that allows your alumni to both update their own records and also reach out to fellow alumni. It makes it easy for people to find and catch up with each other, which is more likely to build engagement with the organization and events you hold. The databases Alumni Nations develops for all of our Nations are often considered one of the most beneficial features of our websites!

• Email: Get in the habit of using regular email communication with your alumni. These messages don’t have to be extensive. In fact, short and sweet is probably your best bet. This way you still keep your alumni organization top of mind with members, but you don’t have to take the time to write overly long messages. Short messages are ideal for encouraging them to take some sort of action, such as visiting your blog or registering for an upcoming event.

• Managing expectations: It becomes much easier to make time for alumni engagement if you don’t pressure yourself into doing too much throughout the year. A single large alumni event and one large newsletter per year might be sufficient for you to get started with. You can add more from there if you are able. Setting and sticking to manageable goals like this will help you feel more accomplished and also make the task of alumni engagement much less intimidating.

Remember: we at Alumnipad are here to help you do all the heavy lifting with your alumni engagement efforts. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your organization.