Most institutions use conventional methodologies such as Excel and spreadsheets, Google Forms for sourcing information from alumni registration drives, social media groups like WhatsApp, Facebook groups & LinkedIn, in-house solutions, and static/CMS websites for their alumni engagement needs.
While these solutions are better at what they offer, they can’t be used for complete alumni engagement which is very important for the all-round advancement of institutions. Due to the limitations of these methodologies, alumni relations become dormant and don’t reach their full potential.
Let’s break down each channel into parts and see why they can’t serve your objectives.
Spreadsheets: Just an Electronic Ledger
Spreadsheets and Google Forms are the most typical tools institutions use to collect, store, and manage alumni data. These sheets can deceive you with their grids and columns and trick you into thinking it is easy to organize data. While this is true for managing static data, the information about alumni is often dynamic and changes regularly.
There is no provision for alumni to update the sheet whenever they change companies and gain experiences making the data obsolete by defeating its purpose. Your alumni can’t update the info on Google Forms every time there is a change.
Limitations:
- No Meaningful Insights: While the data on spreadsheets and forms can be helpful if organized properly with effective formats and labels, it can’t give you meaningful and actionable insights about your alumni. Institutions can’t search alumni with multiple search filters. The data becomes tough to leverage.
For example, you can’t search using many filters at once:
Finding Alumni staying in New York from the Batch of 2000 with a Computer Science background - Manual & Tedious: Spreadsheets and forms must be manually updated at every turn eating up the alumni office’s time. There is a lot of room for entering redundant data and errors leading to half-baked, inaccurate information.
It is difficult to clean incomplete data, clear empty spaces, and remove duplicates and errors. It is also tedious for admins to update data as there is no option of updating it automatically. The problem increases as the alumni number grows. - Unidirectional: Only the admin or owner of the sheet can enter new data or make changes to the existing ones. There are heaps of unused data lying everywhere which quickly becomes outdated and obsolete.
- Little to No Security Features: While you can password-protect your file, it is not safe from data theft and cyber-attacks. Your information can be easily manipulated. You can’t enforce access control, the data is entirely visible or completely hidden, there is nothing in between.
Social Media Groups: Patchy & Restricted
Platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook & LinkedIn penetrated every field and alumni relations are no exception. WhatsApp can be used for instant messaging, Facebook groups for social interaction and LinkedIn specializes in professional networking. The catch here is that these are the only things they offer. For holistic alumni engagement, you need a centralized platform. Alumni may be scattered across multiple platforms, you need a cohesive tool to hold it together.
Social media tools are not exclusive to your institution; you cannot access them on your domain and hence it’s not private. Social media platforms are built for different purposes, alumni are just a part of it. It is important to create a sense of belonging for alumni engagement.
Limitations:
- No Full Profile Information: While WhatsApp provides ease of communication, the users are missing out on viewing the complete profile of the people they are interacting with. Your alumni can’t find peers with matching skill sets, and students can’t find the right mentors. Members may talk to each other without knowing that they work in the same company.
- Missed Opportunities: Platforms like LinkedIn & Facebook can’t be used to send periodic newsletters, run email campaigns, testimonials, success stories, and many more such formats. These tools thrive only on short-form content and they fail to serve the alumni based on need.
- Scattered Communication: You don’t have the freedom to share content that is specific to alumni. As the data can’t be filtered and segmented based on your needs, you can’t have targeted communication with your alumni. It skips on features like mass communication for audiences.
- Limited Scope: Social media platforms don’t support integrated event management features such as RSVP, mass mailing the attendees, adding custom questions, and setting up payment for the event. While we are on this, they miss out on integrations with payment gateways. You will have to use multiple tools to achieve your goals.
For instance, if you want to host an event, you will have to use different tools for payments, sending reminders, event statistics, and tracking the attendees. There is no way of knowing if the data is valid. All these bottlenecks result in low attendance for the alumni events. - Missing Export Functionality & Data Ownership Issues: Institutions don’t provide an option to export the critical information of members such as phone numbers, and contact details. You have minimal control over the data and there is a risk of information breach and alumni privacy can be compromised.
Inhouse Solutions: A DIY Nightmare
When it comes to alumni engagement, many institutions often prefer in-house solutions as they seem cost-effective. You have complete control over design, layout, and structure. It may feel like a walk in the park at first, but your opinions change when things start to unravel. Maintaining an in-house solution is a lot of work, as you need to monitor all technical and creative aspects, and it soon becomes overwhelming for you.
Limitations:
- High Maintenance & Lack of Expertise: For an in-house solution to work seamlessly, you should have a dedicated team working continuously. It means heavy initial and ongoing investment into servers, IT professionals, designers, and a support team. The cost just keeps on increasing. Your institution can’t afford to splurge money as you have other priorities.
- Not Worth the Risk: In-house solutions are too rigid for your dynamic alumni data. They often struggle to adapt as they require costly upgrades and heavy, time-consuming overhauling.
- Hampers Outcome: You tend to concentrate more on maintaining the website and gradually deviate from the value you want to generate. The ROI diminishes and the website becomes redundant.
WordPress/CMS Websites: Generic Approach
Content Management Systems like WordPress are exclusively designed for posting various types of content like posts, and videos. They can also be used as forums to discuss topics. But, tools like WordPress and Blogger are not made for alumni engagement. They are completely content-oriented and skip on other features that are integral to nurturing alumni.
Limitations:
- Outdated Formats: CMS websites offer outdated communication options such as comments, and forums. Your alumni can’t have real-time interactions, hence sparse networking and engagement.
- Zero Alumni Engagement: Platforms like WordPress don’t offer features like posting events, job/internship listings for students and alumni, or career services like mentoring and project guidance. It gives zero incentive for alumni to register on the site.
- Data Organization & Management Issues: CMS sites suffer from incomplete data organization methods. You can’t filter the data based on metrics such as class, year, department, etc. The data can’t be tracked and analyzed. There is no way of finding out if there are any gaps in the information.
Alumni Database Management Software: The Complete Package
The Alumni Database is the solution for all your alumni engagement pitfalls. It is a full-fledged, comprehensive software that is scalable and secure, catering to the specific needs of each institution. It can be customized according to the courses, and departments each institution offers. The data is filtered and adjusted using basic and advanced filters.
Top 8 Features of Alumni Database Software:
- Alumni database is a feature-rich platform offering deep, actionable insights into where your alumni are placed, their professional details and designations, and previous engagement histories with the institution.
- It is a user-friendly platform that can seamlessly import data from your existing tools like spreadsheets, and registration forms. It reduces the burden of signing up for your alumni.
- The information on the database can be leveraged for mentoring, placements, and internships for students and recent graduates. It can be used to reach out to your alumni for fundraising as well.
- The database contains a comprehensive view of alumni in the form of profiles. This data transparency can help alumni have real, active interactions and build long-lasting connections.
- It can help in targeted communication for your alumni. Based on their interests, you can send content via newsletters, articles, emails, and video snippets that are specifically tailored to their tastes.
- A robust alumni database runs smoothly with guaranteed uptime, ongoing support, and updates ensuring the network runs smoothly without you having to worry about technical snags and downtime issues.
- The alumni database comes with access control. Multiple roles can be assigned to users with specific actions along with an admin with complete access to the system. Changes being made can be tracked as well.
- The alumni database prioritizes security and compliance. It can be modified to comply with the guidelines established by data protection regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and others.
Read to learn how Vaave’s alumni management solution adds better value to your institution!
Vaave helps institutions and corporate entities across the globe in realizing the power of alumni and offers strategies for engaging them. We offer a full-fledged alumni management ecosystem that helps you to leverage alumni to its fullest.
Drop in your details at hello@vaave.com & +91 91006 88850, we will get in touch with you at the drop of a hat!