6 Ways to Increase Engagement With Young Alumni

Giving days

These one-day events, promoted primarily on social media, give alumni a sense of urgency and an awareness that every gift matters because they can see how they are helping the college reach a goal.

Transparency

Connecting to Young Alumni

Elon University and other colleges experiment with ways to keep recent graduates engaged.

Report your figures as quickly as possible. Young donors like to know results. Elon University, for example, releases its giving-day figures (number and amount of gifts, who gave, and number of social-media mentions) the next day. Elon also offers online an annual report so alumni can see how many people volunteered, attended events, and donated, and how much those numbers grew from the year before.

One-year reunions

Instead of waiting for five years to bring alumni back to campus, a one-year reunion brings them back sooner, with the intent of getting them into the practice of returning as alumni. For those who cannot make it to campus for events, live streaming (such as Facebook Live) is an option.

Revamp the alumni office

Elon adapted a major-gift-officer model for young alumni, creating three alumni-engagement-officer positions. The officers keep in contact with young alumni and meet with them much the way a major-gift officer does with prospects.

Postevent promotion

Spend as much time promoting an event on social media after it’s over as you do before it happens. Temple University found from focus-group research that even if young alums weren’t planning on attending an event, they wanted to see who was there and read about what happened. Now the university makes sure it promotes alumni events afterward as well as beforehand.

Stop what doesn’t work

Stanford University recently announced that it was giving up its phone-a-thon fund raiser. Most colleges still hold student phone-a-thons (and most are still profitable). But James W. Dicker, vice president for advancement at Temple, says there will come a time when the costs outweigh the income.

Sources: Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Corporate Insight, Annual Giving Network