Are you investing enough in your Alumni/Advancement Internet strategy?

Technology is LAVISHED on students but SQUANDERED on alumni!

In the last 10 years – colleges and universities have spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating and installing technology that enables students to register and pay for classes online, provide campus email, take classes online, check grades etc. 

Millions more have been spent to provide a wireless campus and provide software and support for the students on campus. Campus IT directors have rightly pushed the budget as far as they could to get the very best technology and services for students.  Pressure to become high on the “Most Wired” campus lists, lead to a virtual “arms race” among campuses.

However, what kind of technology commitment has your college or university made to your alumni?

While the campus is rushing to make the “most wired campus” lists, the alumni association and advancement offices are stuck with budgets that frankly just can’t match their alumni expectation. While the IT department adds web designers, content managers, and system engineers to support the burgeoning web based campus Internet strategies, the alumni and advancement office are lucky to get new monitors or computers, let alone technology to help them manage, communicate with and connect tens of thousands of alumni and friends on a monthly basis.

One major trend I’ve noticed in the last 10 years is the campus IT and upper management’s lack of support to provide technology to alumni.

• Nearly 50% of small alumni associations - still have not developed an online directory and or community
• Few alumni or advancement offices have a written Internet strategy that includes a yearly capital investment in additional software and technology
• For those that have online directories most are not investing enough to keep their site relevant to alumni

Also, at most institutions around the country, the IT department traditionally shuts off graduates email addresses within weeks of them walking across the stage to receive their diploma. While the university has shown a commitment to provide all of the best technology and software they can afford while the students are on campus, there is a serious lack of commitment for them once they become alumni. And these are net savvy Internet users!

As a result, it’s not unusual for an alumni association to have less than 30 percent of alumni registered in their directory.  An unofficial, quick survey of associations with online directories shows an average of 17 percent of alumni registered.

What’s your technology investment per alumni?

One way to bring to the attention of upper management the lack of investment in Internet technology for your alumni - is to ask your IT department what the average investment per year of information technology is per student enrolled. Then show them the average IT investment your campus is making per alumni.  If you have 50,000 alumni and no online directory - of course the average investment per alumni is ZERO.  If you have 50,000 alumni and you invest $20,000 per year on your Internet strategy, you are investing an average of 40 cents per alum. That’s not much more than a postage stamp!

Keep in mind that the number of students on your campus pales to the number of alumni you have. A campus with 2,000 students might have 30,000 alumni.  I’ve met and talked with alumni and advancement directors around the world and have found them ALL fighting to get some budgeting to offer technology to alumni. 

Why should they fight for the budget?

• With Internet technology they can communicate more frequently
• Students show more communication results in more contributions

The lack of commitment from the college in investing in software, technology and developing a written Internet strategy is resulting in alumni associations and advancement offices failing miserably at engaging their alumni via the internet. While commercial networks are signing up alumni rapidly, few are being attracted to the alumni online community. While non profits are finding it easier to fundraise online, annual giving programs are using technology (the phone) invented in the late 1800 and the Post Office which was developed by Ben Franklin in the 1700’s.

This lack of commitment comes at a time when the last 5 years of graduates are living, working and playing ONLINE.   While our research has shown the vast majority of alumni associations have less than 17 percent of their alumni registered in their online community, spammers have 100 percent of their alumni email addresses.  So what do you do?

Are you expected to prove you deserve more funding?

While it’s important to continue to improve the technology offered to campus, isn’t it also important to continue to improve the technology for alumni.  Yes, students provide millions of dollars to your campus each year to fund the operations, but alumni too contribute millions and in many capital campaigns today, hundreds of millions of dollars.

If your campus is looking for an ROI, try this. Determine the value of an email address. 

Think about how much money you save each time you email.  What would it cost you to send a letter or invitation to your alumni?  50 cents, a dollar?  Let’s assume that you are going to send an email twice a month, if you said the savings was 50 cent, the value of having an email address to communicate with your alumni is $1 per month or $12 per year.  A number of our clients are receiving unsolicited contributions.  One in particular has averaged $200,000 per year over the past 5 years. Currently they have 10,000 alumni registered which when divided into the total contributions provides a value of $20 in contributions per email address. Add the savings in postage and the contribution value and you have a yearly value of $32 per email address

While this inequality has occurred commercial websites are stealing your brand

The alumni online directory and community are one of the greatest services you can offer to your alumni to help them network with each other to get jobs and do business with each other. 

However while the institution has failed to develop an investment strategy and a written Internet strategy, commercial websites are capturing the behavior and participation of your alumni.  Your current students are graduating and staying on MySpace and Facebook. Your older alumni are participating at Classmates, LinkedIn, Tribe, Friendsters and Ryze. 

• While your college spends money protecting your brand, these organizations assemble your alumni behind your brand. 
• While you college spends time trying to gather correct email addresses, update physical addresses, these organizations acquire the latest information and profit from it.
• While your organization spends a great deal of time trying to gather career changes and other data updates, these organizations get it and market opportunities to alumni based on it.

So what can you do?

Go to your VP’s and those on the Presidents council to discuss the need to serve alumni with the same level of commitment in technology they experienced on campus and are experiencing via commercial websites.  Begin to draft a written Internet strategy that includes a budget and planned implementation of products and services that match the universities strategic plan and your alumni expectation.

If you need any help, drop me an email. don@iaccorp.com