National Volunteer Week April 21-27, 2013, is a time to celebrate people doing extraordinary things through service. Established in 1974, National Volunteer Week focuses national attention on the impact and power of volunteerism and service as an integral aspect of our civic leadership. Where do College’s fit into this discussion? Whether you work for an Alumni Organization or an Admissions Office, why does this matter?
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of reading a great article “A Trend that Could Change Everything, Collaborations Across Generations—And What it Means for Causes, Non-Profits and Social Enterprise” by Jeffrey Walker. He writes:
“Here are three facts about Harvard Business School (HBS) that I bet you didn’t know. (1) One quarter of HBS alumni over 50-years-old spend over half of their time working on social enterprise and nonprofit activities. (2) The largest club at HBS is the social enterprise club, and (3) the largest conference at HBS is the social enterprise conference.”
As we take time to recognize people’s efforts and contributions to our many non-profit organizations across the world, have we given any thought to how this trend is impacting the work that we do at our institution?
A significant portion of our prospective students and alumni’s time is invested in volunteerism impacting society and the groups/causes that they are most passionate about. Are we recognizing that? Do we have any inkling of what their interests are? Do we understand that the work that they are doing for other non-profits is a point of connection for us?
This post by Walker reiterates everything we believe at Converge Consulting in regards to next generation communications with alumni and prospective students. The more we know about our prospective students/alumni the easier it will be to connect with them and personalize communications whether asking for a gift or recruiting to our college. Those special pieces of information such as alumni and prospective students passion/interests in relation to volunteerism is a great point of connectivity. By sharing ways in which we deliver on these types of programs we have built an even stronger connection that takes engagement into action.
1.) Use Data to Drive Decisions
Identify what your prospective students and alumni passion/interest areas are (through research, data collection and data-mining). Ask them in an alumni or prospective student survey what other philanthropic activities that they are engaged in.
2.) Customize Communications Based on Data
Take the extra time to customize communications to their specific interests correlating it with offerings at your institution and the experience work that they will have with you.
Emory University does a fantastic job of connecting current students, staff, and alumni through their Emory Cares Day. What a great way to better understand alumni and students passions and to connect/communicate with them through this effort.
Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business does a fantastic job of segmenting alumni who have a passion for service and are considered very philanthropic in nature by including in their communications photos/stories of the current class volunteering at the Houston Food Bank.
3.) Create Segments of Prospects/Alumni
Connecting individuals with strong affinity to the same cause allows for you to serve as the matchmaker and stay a part of the conversation. Ask alumni/prospective students where they spend their time, talent and treasure through research? Review on LinkedIn what non-profit activities/interests are important to them outside of your organization. Record this information so that you can use it when communicating with alumni/prospective students during a prospective student visit day or on a phone call wtih an alum. Connect them to each other based on those interests.
We conducted a national research study of 2,050 alumni of U.S. colleges and universities, exploring segmentation further. Learn more by downloading our white papers.
An amazing opportunity exists for us as communicators/marketers to realize the impact of social enterprise and to use that information to better understand and engage prospective students and alumni. If only we took the time. . .
