5 Ways to Show Appreciation to Alumni Volunteers

The pandemic posed a formidable challenge to alumni volunteer program coordinators, complicating the ways in which they were able to engage, communicate, and connect with their alumni. Luckily, constraints for physical gatherings have eased as the crisis has progressed, and we seem to have entered a new and exciting era of hybrid engagement where program coordinators have more agency over their volunteer offerings than ever.

In fact, with in-person events having opened up again and new digital engagement strategies cropping up every day, now is the best time to level up your alumni program in and beyond 2022.
Volunteering is an essential element of any robust alumni program because it can form long-lasting relationships between alumni and your institution and boost donation revenue through volunteer grant funds. Read on to maximize these benefits and increase the success of your alumni volunteer program.

1. Take your messaging to new platforms

With each new generation of alumni more frequently engaging online through using their phones, interacting with social media, and discovering new virtual platforms, your alumni program must adapt to these changes to secure their attention. Add an insightful social media strategy to your current marketing initiatives to create a more effective, multichannel campaign for your volunteer program.
Virtual marketing mediums not only allow you to directly connect with alumni where they live, chat, and play, but they also offer unique opportunities to engage with your audience. You simply need to know how to leverage these platforms to their fullest potential.
Be mindful of these social media best practices to engage alumni and increase interest in your volunteer opportunities:

• Actively engage with followers or commenters who react to your posts.
• Share high-value photos of your volunteers and events in action to reinforce the human side of your volunteer program and attract newcomers.
• Celebrate the achievements of your volunteers with alumni spotlight posts and other displays of appreciation for their service.
• Use hashtags and similar platform-specific tools to spread the word about upcoming events and volunteer positions.

While email, direct mail, and other, more traditional channels are essential to your alumni communications, new mediums like social media will allow you to take your marketing materials to new heights.

2. Target your alumni by interest

Get Connected by Galaxy Digital’s guide to starting a volunteer program cites opportunity matching as one of the most effective methods to recruit and engage volunteers. This strategy allows you to fine-tune your communications by sharing volunteer positions and events with alumni based on their skills, experience, and interests.

The following data metrics can help you tailor your event invitations to the right alumni:

• Area of study and extracurricular involvement. If you have alumni who have yet to build a significant engagement history with your program, their activities as students can inform what volunteer opportunities they may like to be involved in. For example, someone who was involved in your institution’s sustainability program might be interested in an environmental volunteer opportunity.
  

• Career field and post-graduate organizations. Understanding how your alumni’s interests have grown and what special experience they’ve garnered since graduating from your institution are both fundamental to keeping them connected to your program. For instance, an alumnus who has pursued and thrived in a career in corporate advising and management could be a great fit as an alumni mentor for students currently in your business school.
  
  
• Previous engagement history with your alumni program. Pay attention to what events they have previously attended or volunteered for, the number and distribution of volunteer hours, and any special groups or committees alumni may be a part of.

Keep your alumni involved and encourage their participation in volunteering by sharing opportunities that they would be most likely to participate in. Rather than sending out general email blasts describing all of your volunteer experiences, opportunity matching will enable you to personalize all of your alumni communications and thereby increase engagement.

3. Open up two-way communication and get feedback

The number of event registrations, total volunteer hours, and similar key performance indicators (KPIs) should all be automatically logged into your alumni and volunteer databases. However, there’s another important piece of information that too many alumni programs neglect: alumni feedback.

Regular volunteer surveys and polls allow you to gauge opinions, experiences, and reactions that would have been difficult to measure with raw data alone.
Many volunteer or alumni management solutions already exist that can help you create, send, and create reports based on these surveys. But if you’re still struggling to think of how you could make the most of these forms, here are a few of the different kinds of alumni volunteer surveys you should send out:

• Experience satisfaction surveys to share immediately after event participation
• Overall program engagement surveys to be shared annually
• Recruitment surveys to share during registration or onboarding
• Opportunity matching and placement surveys to share during registration or onboarding    

By spacing out these surveys during opportune times in each volunteer’s involvement with your program, you will be able to gather valuable information while it is still fresh in their minds. This information can then be used to directly address the issues raised by volunteers, improve your program, and further personalize your messaging to maximize engagement.

4. Promote community-building activities

Whether your alumni are longtime volunteer program members or they have yet to participate, the promise of being a part of a community is an enticing prospect for any alumni.
The lockdown era of the COVID-19 pandemic left many people feeling more distant than ever, and it’s essential to combat these lingering effects by coming up with opportunities for alumni to connect with one another.

Whether you conduct virtual and hybrid alumni events or in-person gatherings, these engaging initiatives will encourage community-building between your alumni volunteers:

• Peer-mentoring programs
• Meet-and-greets and icebreaker events
• Team game nights
• Partnerships with local nonprofits that alumni have indicated shared interest in
• Appreciation events and celebrations

While alumni may be motivated to participate in your volunteer opportunities to support their alma mater or help the less fortunate, it will take more than an altruistic impulse to keep them involved in your program. Offering the opportunity to form a community with like-minded people will ensure that alumni stick with your volunteer program for far more than a single event.

To effectively carry out these volunteer program best practices, you might also consider investing in an alumni or volunteer management solution. From locating qualified nonprofits for partnership opportunities to facilitating social media outreach strategies, the right management software will streamline volunteer recruitment, engagement, and retention.
However, regardless of whatever software solutions you may choose, these strategies should set you up to ensure the future success of your own alumni volunteer program.

If you’re someone handling alumni engagement for your school, you know that engaging recent graduates is one of the most challenging aspects. So, before diving right in, let’s take a closer look at why young alumni need to be engaged and its long-term impact.

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Why is it important to engage young alumni?

Young alumni have the potential to turn into future major donors. But, they must be approached the right way. Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first donation to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, was at the age of 23 and the amount was $5. Since then, he has donated close to $1.8 billion to support research, teaching, and financial aid at the university. 

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Yep, that’s accurate. 

Why should young alumni be approached differently in comparison to older alumni?

Chances are this segment of your alumni population won’t respond to your fundraising asks for the next few years. They are just starting a career and personal financial problems such as paying off student loans or relocating to a new city for college are likely to get prioritized over donating to or engaging with their alma mater.

While young alumni may not be the biggest contributors over the next few years, they can be of great help to your school by offering you their valuable time, in the form of volunteer work and internships. 

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Here’s a look at the 6 most effective strategies employed by schools to engage their young alumni. 

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1. A mobile-responsive alumni website

While this is something that is recommended irrespective of whether or not your school is catering to young alumni, having a responsive alumni website is especially great for capturing the attention of the younger generation. As the younger generation is more inclined towards using mobile devices, being able to easily access all the websites and their resources on their devices helps provide more opportunities for them to engage with their alma mater.

Take a look at Nicholls State University’s up-to-date and easily accessible mobile-friendly website below.

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2. Value in the form of workshops, jobs, and networking events

As recent graduates, your alumni already have a lot to worry about. The key to building a lasting relationship is to address these issues and provide them with valuable support. This could be in the form of workshops, job prospects, mentorships, social networking mixers, or even emotional support. 

3. Alumni surveys

A time-tested technique for finding out what your young alumni would be most interested in, alumni surveys are great at saving time and effort. Creating a short survey asking alumni what they would like to hear about from their alma mater is an effective way of grabbing attention and delivering value. There are various tools such as Typeform and Survey Monkey that can help you create short surveys. For example, The College of Idaho took a short survey that revealed ‘Financial Planning’ as the most pressing concern for a majority of young alumni. Based on the results of this survey, the college organized a free workshop on Saving Money & Paying Off Debts, as a way to support its young alumni.

4. Targeted email campaigns

Instead of the usual marketing email blasts, focused emails targeted at specific segments of alumni are bound to yield better results. The most effective way to keep young alumni engaged with emails is to provide them with consistent value, right from the start. If you are trying to engage alumni who recently graduated, targeting them with emails that showcase relevant job opportunities is the best way to do it. 

Take a look at how T. Howard Foundation, a non-profit organization based out of Silver Spring, Maryland, shares job opportunities with its young alumni via emails.

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5. Creative use of social media

According to a recent study published by Broadband Search, 79% of college graduates use at least one social media site. 

Social media is a great tool for engaging young alumni not just because of its high accessibility and adaptability but also because of the flexibility it provides. There is no limit to how creative you can get and that’s what resonates the most with young alumni. Incorporating more video content and trying to create campaigns that urge alumni to take action are ideal components of a great social media strategy. Here’s how William Peace University drew the attention of its young alumni and got them talking about their upcoming reunion.

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6. Focus on in-person interaction

While having a digital engagement strategy in place is pivotal, completely depending on it is not recommended. In-person interaction is a fundamental part of fostering lasting relationships with young alumni. Here’s how our customer, Charlotte Christian School got this right.

As a way of extending support to young alumni, Charlotte Christian School sent out a video featuring beloved teachers wishing alumni good luck ahead of their exams and conveying to them how much they care. The video also acts as a special appeal for alumni to come back to school for a wonderful time with their teachers and friends.

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It’s no secret that keeping alumni engaged in the post-pandemic landscape will present unique challenges, considering most events and fundraising efforts have moved online. Fortunately, many educational institutions have risen to meet those challenges and sharpened their abilities to maintain and even increase alumni engagement in the past year.

If you’re wondering what are some key strategies your organization can utilize to keep that momentum going and continue peaking alumni engagement in 2022 - we have got you covered. Let’s dive into some of the best approaches to keep your alumni virtually engaged with your institution going forward this year.

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Create Community with Virtual Events

Nothing encourages former students to stay plugged-in with their alma mater like the opportunity to create a community with other alumni. Many people have struggled with a lack of social interaction during the pandemic, and virtual community-building events are the perfect remedy for this situation.

In order to plan a successful virtual event be sure to nail down key logistics beforehand like an event agenda, promotional efforts, and setting up a plan to analyze post-event feedback. Let your alumni know in advance what the event has to offer and make sign-up as seamless as possible by offering quick registration supported on a variety of devices.

When it comes to promoting the event, use multiple channels to maximize your outreach. For example, you could create Facebook pages alongside email invitations to reach alumni no matter how they prefer to communicate. A good way to increase engagement would be to make your promotional efforts interactive. Ask your alumni to RSVP using a hashtag or commenting on a Facebook post - this will ensure better reach and engagement on your social media handles.

Finally, you can create opportunities for post-event feedback to tailor your approach for future events and increase alumni turnout. You want your former students to know that their opinions matter to you, so make sure you ask them to share it! This will also make planning your next event simple since you can build on the feedback and experience that your alumni share.

Check out how various institutions have leveraged the virtual space for innovative online events like virtual happy-hours, book clubs, and flagship events.

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Leverage Social Media for Targeted Alumni Outreach

A good social media presence can undoubtedly do wonders for your engagement goals. You likely already have a social media strategy in place, but how tailored is it to empower alumni to interact with one another and the institution? A simple way to get alumni engaged is to interact with their posts and to invite them to interact with yours!

One option is to create content that invites alumni to post photos of them at college events or even happy memories from their time at the school, college, or university. This is a great method to evoke nostalgia in your alumni and encourage them to remember the positive impact that your institution had on their academic experience.

You can even personalize these calls-to-action by tailoring them to specific programs or organizations involved within your school. For example, you could ask all journalism students to post a memory of why they chose to pursue journalism - or maybe ask all of the students involved in your athletics program to post a photo of their team. These specific calls-to-action are more likely to fetch responses from the targeted group of alumni.

Ensure social media calls-to-action remain engaging and personal by applauding donor efforts and the impact their gifts have on opportunities for future students. You can even share narratives of these impact stories by showcasing the effect their donations have made on a particular student or program. This is a great way to remind them that they are a part of the good change which will surely translate to donor engagement and retention.

Finally, you can encourage peer-to-peer giving campaigns through social media, so that alumni feel more directly involved with their community fundraising. By encouraging students to fundraise directly with their peers, you ensure an organic giving environment that fosters the sense of community that many alumni might associate with your school - making it a win for everyone involved!

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Engage Alumni with Matching Gift Fundraising Opportunities

When it comes to finding new ways to keep alumni engaged with your giving campaigns, matching gifts is a valuable giving option to consider. Matching gifts are a form of corporate philanthropy in which companies financially match the individual donations their employees make to charitable organizations - sometimes even at a 2:1, 3:1, and even 4:1 ratio.

Donors love to discover their eligibility for these programs as it allows them to instantly double the impact their donation can have on causes they care about, without having to reach back into their wallets. Informing donors of their eligibility can encourage higher donations; 84% of donors are more likely to give a donation in the first place if they know their gift will be matched and 1 in 3 donors indicate that they would donate a larger amount if their gift will be matched.

Many donors are actually unaware that they qualify for a matching gift program - in fact, 78% of match-eligible donors don’t know about their employer’s matching gift program. That’s why we recommend marketing matching gifts to your former students to help them discover eligibility and submit their matching request. This is a great way to add value to their donation experience while boosting revenue for your fundraising campaign. You can utilize a variety of avenues for this outreach, such as on a “Ways-to-Give” page, via social media, and through email outreach.

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Wrapping up

Moving forward into 2022 with these alumni engagement strategies in your toolbox, you can ensure your alumni remain not only plugged-in, but also well engaged, which is sure to reflect in your fundraising campaigns.