How to Make a Plan for Your Alumni Community

Making a plan is an opportunity to collaborate with your team to align them on a shared vision of what your community and a successful launch should look like. We recommend that you share the planning and the Plan broadly within your organization so that different constituencies support and understand the expectations and the process. 

If you have a Strategic Plan for your organization, this would be the guiding document for implementing the platform. 

To begin, review your existing plan or take a few minutes to document:

• Your community priorities and goals.
• An outline of the community structure.
• Any existing strategy for engagement and impacts.

Next, consider the organization’s planned use of each platform feature.

Addressing some key questions early will help provide a clear understanding of the lead times needed for each component of your plan and will streamline the launch. 

Answer this series of questions to generate critical information as it pertains to launch.

• Who will be part of the community such as alumni, students, administration, paid members, etc.?
• What member/alumni data would be helpful for your planning and of interest to members such as employment history, hobbies, extracurriculars, and educational history?
• What affinity groups are important to the organization now and which might start in the near future?
• What events are held every year?
• What are the priorities for career strategies and support for your members such as job postings and mentoring?
• What are your on-going fundraising efforts?
• What information can be shared on the platform to make it an Information hub through Headlines, RSS feed, and social media?
• What are standard communications that have a template such as a Newsletter? Which departments are responsible for email and other communications?

Use the answers to the questions to draft a ‘roadmap’ for year one. 

Include the goals you’ve identified as an organization and ideal metrics. Your Strategic Plan will help you determine which features to make available to members from the beginning and which should be introduced later. Feel free to discuss the possibilities with our team.

Action Items:

• Review Your Organization’s Strategic Plan. If one does not yet exist, use the guiding questions above to draft a Strategic Plan.
• Answer and document the questions listed above about the planned use of each platform feature
• Draft a Roadmap for your organization's first year using the community site