Are you frittering away your most valuable resource?
Every organisation has ‘alumni’: graduates, previous beneficiaries, and people for whom you have played an important role.
The vast majority, once they finish their time with you, move on without a backward glance. In many ways that’s what you want for them: to move on from what brought them to your door, and to flourish without you.
BUT equally, they are your greatest resource to help your current beneficiaries. They are your best advocates; they know the true power of what you do and offer the richest seam of prospective donors and volunteers. They are living proof of your transformative long-term impact and should be your nearest and dearest.
I have worked with a number of organisations to help them connect and reconnect with and build their community of alumni. The 2 key ways to do this are:
1. Stop losing touch
2. Reconnect with the most valuable people
And here are a few of the ways that I’ve helped them do just that…
1. Stop the rot - don’t lose touch
You may have missed many, many cohorts before now, but get a strategy in place to maintain relationships with people and families who graduate from now on.
The best way forward is to figure out what they might continue to need from you, your wider community and each other as they move on.
When I worked with a premature baby charity it was particularly hard to maintain contact after the first year, but we did know that birthdays were a time when they wanted that acknowledgement. We created the Celebrate programme to maintain our connection at least annually - “even if you want to move on and not think about that difficult and frightening time, we’d like to acknowledge your huge collective feat by sending you a family birthday card every year and see a photo of you all celebrating. It’s important to us, and invaluable to those at the start of their tiny baby journey.”
At universities I work with, we focused on making sure that the maximum number of graduates choose to join the alumni community before they leave. We do that by meeting their needs. That meant access to careers help, not just from the University, but from across our community of thousands of successful alumni. Articulating this attractive offer has measurably driven up opt in.
2. Reconnect
When it comes to reconnecting, you need to narrow your focus to those who care about your central mission. To identify this subset you should:
· Remind alumni how much you mattered to them
· Ask them to take an action that is connected to your mission
I’ve done this with a number of organisations by co-designing ‘participation campaigns’ - a call-out to past beneficiaries asking them to take a small action to help current beneficiaries.
This simple request encourages people to cast their minds back to how much you mattered to them in the past and provides a much appreciated opportunity to share their experience to help others.
One powerful campaign I ran with Kingston University encouraged alumni to share the difference that having a degree has made to their careers. We asked them to share this with 6th formers from challenging backgrounds to inspire them to consider university. Over 200 alumni sent in their responses, the vast majority of whom had not been in contact since graduating. Each respondent was followed up and 10% reconnected with the University as new donors and volunteers.
When I ran a participation campaign with a disability charity, we asked past beneficiaries to share what they wish they’d known/their best advice. This pulled people back into conversation and back into the community, especially online. Many became active online and 15% of those who reconnected went on to get involved as donors, volunteers, mentors - you name it.
Participation campaigns are a really powerful way to get that untapped group of past beneficiaries to put their hand up, to volunteer to pay it forward. But first we need to both make them think about it, and give them a way to do it.
In summary, your alumni are a powerful resource for your work. Staying connected or reconnecting with them is an invaluable way to extend your networks, your community, your reach, your volunteer numbers and donors.
They and their families might not think of you much these days, but many will appreciate a chance to reflect on how far they’ve come and extend a helping hand to those who find themselves in a similar position. But, as always, first you need to ask!
Ilana Jackman is a fundraising Coach & consultant, working with charities across the sector to support them to raise even more money to do even more good. To talk about your alumni participation rates or any other fundraising challenge, email Ilana at ilana@ilanajackman.com