Your alumni volunteers put in plenty of work to help your programs thrive. Here are five ways to show your appreciation for their hard work and dedication.
As a higher education fundraising professional or alumni volunteer coordinator, you know how important your alumni are to the success of your fundraising and volunteer efforts. Your alumni support your institution by contributing donations as well as volunteering to support your charitable events. They deserve recognition for the hard work they put in to support your institution.
Showing appreciation to alumni volunteers helps boost their engagement in your programs and initiatives, making them feel like their efforts are valued. If you’re looking for guidance when deciding how to show gratitude to your alumni volunteers, these five ideas can help get you started:
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These ideas just scrape the surface of the volunteer appreciation strategies you might choose to adopt. But they offer a great starting point if you’re creating your volunteer appreciation approach from scratch.
Your volunteers donate many hours of their time and skills to support your institution, and in return, you can send them a personalized thank-you note as a form of appreciation. You can send a letter straight from your volunteer coordinator or even handwritten cards from current students. As a volunteer, nothing feels better than words of gratitude coming from those they served or the program leaders.
Your volunteer management system can help you keep track of volunteers’ personal information to reference in your communications with them. Use your software platform to keep track of volunteers’ preferred names, volunteer history, graduation year, and donation history. You can use all of these details to personalize your thank-you messages. You can also personalize your thank-you note by highlighting one of their major accomplishments and how much of an impact it brought to your institution!
For instance, perhaps a certain volunteer won a state championship as a student-athlete while attending your institution. In your volunteer appreciation letter, you can include a shout-out to that amazing accomplishment while thanking the alum for their continued support and involvement.
Consider planning an appreciation event as a fun way to get together and show appreciation to your alumni. This can be a great opportunity to allow all your alumni volunteers to connect and get to know one another outside of their volunteer hours! Invite them to events such as:
These ideas help create a good experience for your volunteers, encouraging them to stay involved with your future volunteering or fundraising opportunities.
You don’t want your volunteers to miss out on any new upcoming opportunities! Keep your alumni involved by highlighting upcoming events and opportunities on your calendar. These opportunities might include:
Be sure to highlight these opportunities on your alumni website so volunteers can view them at any time.
Think of a thank-you gift that will remind your volunteers of their time spent attending your university. For example, you can offer merchandise that’s branded to your university, such as a t-shirt, coffee mug, or framed wall art. These can be branded with your university’s colors and logo. You can also offer tickets to a university sporting event, such as a basketball or soccer game.
Make things exciting by asking your alumni to participate in t-shirt designing contests and send out a poll to decide on the winning design! This is a fun way to get your volunteers engaged, and whenever they wear their t-shirts, they will be reminded of their fun experience.
These volunteer gifts will surely make your volunteers feel special and will strengthen their bonds with your institution. Remember to get creative and make your gift stand out from any other generic gift.
One of the most important aspects of volunteer engagement is making volunteers feel like their opinions are valued. Ask what they enjoyed most and least about the volunteer opportunity and any suggestions they have to improve the volunteer experience in the future.
Volunteer surveys are one of the best ways to determine how effective your volunteer program was and whether or not your volunteers were satisfied with their experience. Ensure you ask the right questions to receive the best feedback possible. This includes questions about whether they felt the volunteer experience truly made a difference or whether they would recommend your program to fellow alumni.
Remember to leave a section at the end of your survey to allow your alumni to leave any additional comments to help you understand what to improve for next time.
Since your volunteers are dedicated and passionate about volunteering with you, ensuring they have a positive experience is crucial! This shows your volunteers that you care about their experience and also helps you enhance your future volunteers’ experience.
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Now that you’ve learned several ways to show appreciation to alumni volunteers, it’s time to start planning accordingly and put your ideas into action! Showing gratitude to your volunteers comes with many benefits, helping you increase your university’s volunteer program retention. Remember to personalize your appreciation gifts to make them special and stand out, and choose your gifts according to the preferences of your volunteers. Good luck!
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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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
4 Ideas to Boost Alumni Engagement in Volunteering
Encouraging alumni volunteerism can be a challenge for any alumni coordinator. Follow these simple tips to raise volunteer recruitment for your own program!
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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.
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.
Yep, that’s accurate.
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.
Here’s a look at the 6 most effective strategies employed by schools to engage their young alumni.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
6 strategies for increasing engagement from young alumni
Engaging recent graduates of alumni engagement can be a challenging aspect. Here’s a look at the 6 effective strategies peers use to engage their young alumni.
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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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Alumni Engagement: 3 Ways to Keep Former Students Involved
Most fundraising campaigns and engagement events were held virtually in the wake of the pandemic last year, and have continued to leverage the virtual platform ever since. Have a look at three key strategies that can help you improve your virtual alumni engagement in 2022.
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June 8, 2021
12 minutes
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