Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/124472
The key to making those connections is offering alumni a diverse array of opportunities, says Tom Monaghan, executive director of alumni relations at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Following a "six C's" model he borrowed from Notre Dame, he looks for activities that promote careers, continuing education, Catholic spirituality, and community service; that create camaraderie; and that appeal to current students. "The theory is that, at different points in their lives, alumni will react positively to one of these C's," says Monaghan. "Historically, alumni relations would just provide golf outings and happy hours— and you need those for the social piece—but we want relationships that are so much deeper now." Schools with a mostly regional alumni base can concentrate on opportunities close to home; those with a more international student body have to find ways to reach out globally. In either case, their efforts can pay off handily. "An alumni network is one place where there's no competition," says Paul Danos, dean and Laurence F. Whittemore Professor of Business Administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. "Your alumni are yours, and other schools' alumni are theirs, so you have an open field. If you invest in better programs, you get the benefit." Following are an assortment of ideas schools use to win the hearts of their alumni and maintain solid, committed relationships for a lifetime. Create a distinctive educational experience. Danos credits the 34 May/June 2013 BizEd school's high rate of annual giving—typically about 70 percent— to the specific experience students have when they're at Tuck. Classes are small, MBA students all live on campus, and the small hamlet of Hanover doesn't provide many distractions, so students develop a deep sense of community. While larger and more urban schools might not replicate that ambience, any institution can work to create a special experience for its students. To encourage tight- knit communities, the school might maintain small cohorts of students or business-themed dorms; to create a unique brand of business education, it might craft a particular mix of courses and global consulting opportunities. Today's trend toward hybrid and distance learning programs could change the exact quality of the educational experience, Danos observes. If students never or rarely come to campus, how does a school make them feel part of the alumni family? "We're still working out how to deliver a distance program and still maintain that affiliation," Danos says. Make it a priority to get contact information. "Tuck has approximately 10,000 alumni, and we know where virtually all of them are," says Danos. It's key, he notes, to get contact information from students before they graduate and to encourage them to update that information every year. Tuck relies on the help of volunteer class agents to help the school stay in touch. Schools that don't have contact information for all their graduates are using a variety of strategies to fill in the blanks. For instance, Saint Joseph's offers alumni discounted pricing to events and gives them access to online content that no unregistered individuals can see. The school also holds contests for grads who register on the Facebook page. In the past, prizes have included iPads, but the school is looking at bigger rewards, like free trips. "We want to get their attention," says Monaghan. Reach out to younger alums. "We're focusing on new faces and young faces," says Monaghan. "In development, the goal is often to work very deeply with a defined small set of potential benefactors. At alumni relations, we want to cast a wide net. I'd like to get all 59,000 of our alumni engaged in some way, shape, or form." Monaghan notes that it's essential to secure their permanent email addresses, which will probably change less often for young alums than their physical addresses. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia also focuses on young alumni—