How to Make Alumni Management a Simpler Process

While social media has made it easier to stay connected with alumni, in many ways the competition for attention has also made it harder than ever to stay connected with them in meaningful ways. A natural response is to expand the number of programs offered to alumni. And with each additional program, an often unexpected expanded workload - including in technology tool expense and management.

This gives an alumni professional a large hill to climb when it comes to keeping the organization relevant in the lives of their alumni.

Sample Alumni Relations Tech Stack

Consider the following tools, each common:

1. Homegrown alumni database with contact update form submission
2. Facebook for groups
3. LinkedIn for finding alumni
4. Blackbaud Raiser's Edge for donor management
5. GiveCampus for campaigns
6. EventBrite for hosting events
7. Constant Contact for email marketing
8. Peoplegrove for Mentorship
9. YourMembership.com for membership

Seeing it "on paper" alone can be overwhelming. Now imagine the complexities of managing and connecting all of these tools to each other.

The key to sustainable management of these tools - making them work for your organization rather than the other way around - is to minimize the number of systems used, by both alumni professionals and those who are members of the community. And in the process, offer a delightful streamlined digital experience for your alumni.

How Can You Engage All Your Alumni In One Place?

Many alumni relations professionals are stretched too thin managing a tech stack that is too tall for their budget and team.

An interactive map and directory, a job board, your own mentorship program, and an easy way for members to donate, along with event management and email marketing tools all in one spot sounds like a dream. But in 360Alumni we bring all the best-in-class tools together in one single platform.

Shorten Your Alumni Tech Stack

As staff comes on board and brings experience with various products with them, many advocate for additional solutions in their toolset. Without careful analysis of what needs to be done and what capabilities are currently available in existing adopted tools, the tech stack grows.

This is why it's important to engage data managers and IT or technology advisors the discussion. Once Alumni Relations provides their business requirements, these contributors can help perform an unbiased analysis of:

1. Features of tools being considered and their ability to meet business requirements (beyond the salesperson's pitch)
2. Unused features and available plugins for current tools
3. Integration capabilities - will the new tool work against you by creating two separate databases?

Get Access to an Alumni Community Sandbox

While many alumni community providers will not provide access to a'sandbox' until you have signed the contract, 360Alumni welcomes all our prospective clients to try out our demo community, both as a user and as an administrator.

Ready to mobilize? To see how 360Alumni can help you cultivate connections among your constituents, schedule a demo here.

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Create the Engaged Alumni Community You’ve Always Wanted:

• The Steps to Building a Successful Fundraising Campaign
• Here’s Why 360Alumni’s Job Board is So Valuable
• This is the Easiest Way to Find Other Members in Your Community

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