The Guide to Building a Powerful Alumni Network for Your Institution

There have been many instances where the expertise of alumni has come in handy for the overall development of the institutions. The whole education sector is adapting new practices that enhance students’ skills and increase their exposure to the industries by prioritizing practical learning. The experience and expertise of alumni are needed now more than ever to amplify the efforts of the institutions.

The cooperation between the institution and its alumni also facilitates academic-industry connections, enabling the exchange of experiences and knowledge sharing and affirming the relationship between alumni engagement and institution building. Alumni with a stronger sense of belonging to their alma mater are more likely to give back to their alma mater. A steady engagement with alumni is valuable to the strategic growth of the institution.

Here are 8 key benefits of having a strong alumni network!

Having realized the expansive worth, institutions are now exploring innovative and effective avenues for alumni network building and engagement that go much beyond the conventional routes. With the experience of helping 1000+ institutions foster alumni relations, we’ve come up with the best guide to building a strong, sustainable alumni community.

Step 1: Building an Alumni Database

The fundamental step to start with is building a comprehensive database for alumni networks. A well-built alumni database is crucial for maintaining connections and provides a centralized repository of contact information, allowing you to reach out to alumni. It serves as an investment in establishing and nurturing long-term relationships.

Here are 3 methods for database building, all of them related to how you can reach the critical mass and sustain:

Branding Alumni Method – Every institution takes pride in acknowledging its alumni across the globe, tracking down their alumni who are scaling up, branding them as distinguishable and notable alumni, and allowing them to share on their social media handles by running a campaign. This helps generate awareness and ensure successful alumni with a knack for being branded get registered with the platform.
Mentor Program Method – Alumni can offer valuable mentorship to current students, and this can help with database building as well. People who are valuable/ have relevant experience help current students by mentoring, finding 4-5 Alumni from each department who could be mentors, and getting students signed up in their pre-final years. This mentor list keeps adding and is a valuable data asset that attracts more alumni to become mentors.
Champions Network Method – A personalized invitation, people they know asking to sign up works better than the institution. Find champions from each batch/chapter/department and run an Alumni Ambassador Program, making them the admins of social media groups. Also called the Batch Captains Program, this method will help improve connectedness since you’re building more owners in the community, streamlines communication, and encourages alumni to sign up.

Collecting alumni’s information might seem cumbersome now, but it will be rewarding in the future. We’ve come up with alumni database building techniques that will help you speed up the process.

Step 2: Structuring an Alumni Association

Most of the thriving institutions follow a pattern of the Alumni Association. Here are a few insights about how you can structure yours to leverage value from it.

This is a typical structure that can be followed. However, the specific organization can vary significantly based on the institution, the goals of the association, and the preferences of its members.

Here’s a detailed guide on setting up an alumni association for the first-timers!

Step 3: Engaging Your Alumni

Once the structure is established, the next step is to engage them. Due to the networking landscape and communications shifts, maintaining a perfect relationship has become challenging these days. Here are 3 key factors that can help you drive meaningful engagement:

Interactive Platform: A dedicated space for Alumni would encourage them to share their stories, discuss current happenings, and make connections, fostering a sense of community and aiding a better engagement. This enables peer-to-peer interaction as well. Also, an exclusive platform would be a starting point for a strong online presence.
Social Media Engagement: Create and utilize social media handles such as WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to connect with alumni. Publish posts that amp up the nostalgia, conduct interesting polls about alumni’s time at the institution, tag alumni in posts, and ask them to share their memorable experiences.
Focused Engagement: Identify interests to bring out the real value of alumni engagement and building designated groups. Your institution can set up Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on the alumni portal where like-minded alumni can share their ideas and collaborate with others for professional and personal ventures.

Encourage alumni to set up chapters (location-based alumni communities) where alumni of a city/town can come together and organize engagement activities like get-togethers and family picnics.

Alumni can help build the institutional brand, and the institutions are in pursuit of devising their own strategies for alumni engagement. Here are a few alumni engagement best practices to take note of.

Configure an Engagement Framework

As the engagement is initiated, the future task is to continue improving the same by creating a culture. This helps in building a competent Alumni Network, which can be done by reinforcing the value to your Alumni and staying committed to certain practices like :

Reunions, Webinars, and Workshops: Organize reunions chapter-wise or batch-wise, as well as sessions and virtual conferences tailored for the alumni, giving them more networking opportunities and helping them make informed decisions about their future.

Encourage alumni to engage in conversations and showcase the power of joining the alumni community by helping them leverage the benefits of networking, career advancement, and alumni services through these professional events.
Alumni Services: Provide long-term benefits to the alumni, such as higher education discounts and lifelong learning. Encourage the continued use of campus services like Library access, Alumni cards, etc.
Career Growth: Offer career support and mentorship opportunities to alumni. Establish career services that provide job postings, career counselling, resume reviews, and networking assistance. Encourage alumni to volunteer as mentors for current students or recent graduates.

Measure the Progress

Assessing the performance and outcomes of strategies implemented through the process is as important as building a strategy. Identify measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like alumni registered for an event, engagement through reunions/mentoring sessions, job postings, etc., and analyze them. Regularly review and adapt your strategies as needed and ensure that the measurement process aligns with your institution’s goals.

Here are some of the effective alumni engagement metrics institutions use to analyze their alumni engagement strategies.

Wrapping It Up!

Building a powerful Alumni Network for any institution is definitely not a one-day task; it takes continuous efforts, but it comes with better returns on time and investment. Involves mammoth work, and when broken down into stages, it becomes simple to understand and adopt. These steps provide a basic outline on which you can start working and can be followed despite diverse factors like the size of the Alumni/Alumni Team/Institution.