Category: Blog

Beyond Friendraising: The Shift to Metrics-Driven Alumni Relations

SIGN UP FOR AI TRAININGS FOR FREE WITH AI PRO! We want to take a moment to thank you for reading our publication, and let you know about AI Pro, our new membership service that includes free access to 50 recent online trainings for advancement professionals, as well as many upcoming trainings! Membership also includes a discount on registrations for AI conferences. It’s a great way to train your entire team for less. We hope you’ll find out more here. by Gwen Doyle, Daniel Fusch, and Erin Swietlik (Academic Impressions) Academic Impressions recently conducted a survey of nearly one hundred alumni relations professionals. We asked about what measures of alumni engagement they had in place — and the extent to which these measures inform program improvements, new projects, and strategic planning for alumni outreach. Measuring “return on investment” on alumni outreach efforts can be a touchy subject — and a particularly difficult activity to attempt. At AI, we wanted to track the shift toward more data-informed decision making in alumni relations, and learn more about how alumni relations professionals across the industry are addressing this challenge. Here is what we learned. Are Your Peers Assessing the Return on Alumni Relations […]

What Training Do Academic Advisors Receive?

by Daniel Fusch and Cory Phare (Academic Impressions) In March 2014, Academic Impressions surveyed 111 directors of academic advising in higher education. Here are the key findings from that survey. What Advisors Are Being Trained In NACADA has identified 5 critical skill sets for advisors, and we asked academic advising directors whether they provide training in each of these. What we found: More than 90% of directors provide some training on informational skills (including national/institutional policies and procedures such as FERPA and scheduling processes, departmental rules and resources, and curriculum) and technological skills (use of the student database, navigation and modification of student records, research and problem solving using the student database). Approximately 65% provide training in the other skill sets: relational (establishing trust, communication, questioning, mentorship), conceptual (the theory and practice of advising, student rights/responsibilities), and personal (including personal growth and professional development). However, several directors noted that when time is short, the training gets weighted heavily toward delivery of information, and the relational and conceptual skill sets receive condensed, if any, treatment. FACULTY ADVISORS Most respondents to the survey provide training for professional advisors only – not for faculty advisors. In cases where this training is available to […]

4 Keys to Building a Stronger Advancement Team

by Heather L. Greig

We often talk about improving the success of annual giving programs in the context of external tactics. As important as the programs you execute are the strategies you use internally to ensure that your colleagues understand your work, see themselves in your success, and view you as keys to their own success. Building your program’s internal brand is critical to building morale for your team, setting the stage for future investments, and ensuring a consistent, comprehensive, and impactful external brand. Integrated and Successful Teams Share These Characteristics Annual giving programs intersect with every part of advancement. Successful programs require the investment and support of each department. Here are just a few examples of how successful annual giving programs depend on their colleagues: First Steps Getting there doesn’t happen overnight. You need to lay a strong foundation that helps your colleagues understand the impact of their partnership. Here are four things that you can do to set the stage for success coming into a new fiscal year: When you’re able to successfully accomplish these steps, you will be setting the stage for future successes—from stronger team morale to a front-row seat when requesting additional resources. By not building this type of […]

7 Ways Advisors Can More Effectively Engage Online Students

by Sue Ohrablo, Ed.D.

Online students are at significant risk for attrition as they experience isolation and a sense of disconnect from the institution, as well as find themselves lacking resources and information. Advisors can greatly impact students’ perceptions of their online experience by providing ongoing support and information to students. Advising online students can be challenging, however, as academic advisors are responsible for providing quality advising to students they may never meet, relying on phone and electronic communication as an alternative to face-to-face advising. Advisors who have traditionally worked with students in a face-to-face environment may experience frustration, dissatisfaction, and a lack of connection with the students with whom they work. Advisors run the risk of eliminating critical, comprehensive developmental advising strategies as they attempt to manage a seemingly unmanageable amount of emails and phone calls. It’s important for advisors to remember that online is not a type of student, rather, it is a mode of delivery for academic coursework. Students study online for a variety of reasons, including geographical limitations, learning style, work, and personal commitments. The needs of these students are no different from those of any other students, although students in an online environment often perceive a sense of isolation, […]

Checklist: What You May Not Know About FERPA and Advancement

by Casey Hudson (Academic Impressions) Advancement professionals sometimes hear that FERPA does not apply to advancement records. However, as advancement services expert Alan Hejnal cautions in his online training on the topic, this is only somewhat true. According to FERPA regulations, “Records that only contain information about an individual after he or she is no longer a student at the agency or institution” are not subject to FERPA, but all other records are. To unpack this, Hejnal provides the following keys to determining whether your advancement shop is complying with FERPA regulations. Defining “Student” While there is nothing in the FERPA guidelines that specifically references alumni, advancement professionals need to be aware of how the FERPA definition of a “student” applies to their target audience. A student is defined as any individual who is or has been in attendance at an educational agency or institution and regarding whom the agency or institution maintains education records. Under FERPA’s definition, alumni are students. What Records Does FERPA Apply To? Because alumni can be defined as “students,” advancement professionals have to be cautious about which records do and do not fall under FERPA rules. Here is a handy list of common records for […]

5 Tips for Improving International Alumni Data

by Gretchen Dobson

Today, international alumni relations looks and feels: Successful programs require leadership support, designated staff management, volunteer engagement and resources such as budgets and updated data. With current databases, our efforts are only as good as the information we have — or the information we are getting today. How are we tracking international alumni? Does this area need a thorough review before we start outreach? Can we begin to track international students better? POLLING ALUMNI RELATIONS PROFESSIONALS In a recent online training with Academic Impressions increasing international alumni engagement, I asked participants what their greatest challenge was in engaging international alumni. More than 85% of responses agreed that incomplete, insufficient, old, and/or the lack of international alumni databases proved their most challenging obstacle. You can order that training here. As a follow up to it, I want to offer these five tips for improving international data management practices: 1. Know the depth of current data and create records for “non-traditional” alumni First, do the research needed to track when the first international students attended your institution and how the demographics have changed over time: 2. “Internationalize” current systems Output is only as good as input. The success of engaging international alumni […]

The Worth Claim: How to “Sell” Your College’s Value

by W. Kent Barnds

Whether we like it or not, admissions counselors are increasingly thought of as a college’s sales force. Yet I don’t completely understand why many of my colleagues in admissions bristle at the idea of being a “salesperson.” After all, we are charged with generating awareness, building and managing relationships, and “closing the deal” with interested students. Furthermore, we are regularly asked to introduce our college’s new programs, processes and ideas. Why should we run from this comparison? Why Being Seen as a Sales Force is an Opportunity In my experience, the involvement of the sales team often comes too late in the process of developing programs, resulting in less-than-optimal messaging and differentiations at the point of sale. Using the “sales force” comparison presents an opportunity to help other campus stakeholders understand what we need from them in order to be the best sales team we can be. I recommend: Redefine admissions as a “sales force.”Perhaps the reason so many of my colleagues resist being compared to salespersons is the assumption that, driven by their eagerness to sell, salespeople don’t always speak the truth. We need to redefine the admissions “sales force” as a group with the integrity and insight to […]

4 Lessons Learned from Campaign Volunteers at Gettysburg College

by Ashlyn W. Sowell

THE SUCCESS AT GETTYSBURG COLLEGE This article is the first in a series by Ashlyn Sowell, Gettysburg’s associate vice president and campaign director. Here, Sowell reviews 4 lessons about campaign communications and volunteer management that she and her team at Gettysburg learned — from their volunteers. “Leveraging these key lessons,” Sowell adds, “we have successfully engaged over 100 volunteers in the quiet or leadership phase of the campaign and are tracking ahead of our goal.  I believe with volunteers leading the way we will involve more Gettysburgians in the public phase of the campaign, exceed our goal, and groom the leaders needed to be successful in the next campaign for the college.” We hope you will find this article useful and share it with your colleagues. As we embarked on the largest campaign in our school’s history, our campaign consultant gave us some important advice. She said that our campaign must be owned by the president and by the volunteer leadership, not by the staff. We took her advice to heart. With our board chair, we carefully selected each volunteer that would help us during our planning phase. The board chair personally recruited each volunteer, and I believe that got […]

Why Honor Rolls of Donors are a Waste of Time

by Lynne Wester

In her new book The 4 Pillars of Donor Relations, Lynne Wester of Donor Relations Guru® helps you rethink donor relations practices and offers specific tips for more powerful acknowledgements, stewardship and impact reporting, recognition, and donor engagement. Get this comprehensive guide to donor relations for your shop today, and transform the way you steward, recognize, and engage your donors. The article that follows is an excerpt from Lynne’s book. In all my time in donor relations, I have never heard of a donor who gave an organization a million dollar gift because their name was in a textual list of donors. Yet I must get asked at least once a week what I think of honor rolls and their place in donor recognition and stewardship. I think they have no useful purpose, they provide opportunities to make costly mistakes, they are a huge waste of human resources, time, money, and they are otherwise foolish. Why Honor Rolls Don’t Provide Any Benefit Time and time again, we have asked donors what they want and how they want to be recognized, and the three things that appear most often in their answers are: Donors want handwritten notes from students. They want to meet those that […]

How One Institution Ensured its Crisis Management Plan Didn’t Just Sit on the Shelf

by Daniel Fusch

The University of Wyoming’s emergency preparedness plan has become a template for plans at other Wyoming institutions and state agencies—including Casper College, which used emergency protocols based on the University of Wyoming’s in responding to a tragic crossbow shooting incident on campus in December 2012. In a recent conversation with Academic Impressions, Mark Collins, the University of Wyoming’s associate vice president for administrative operations, shared with us some of the story behind how he and his colleagues developed the institution’s emergency management protocols—and why their plan didn’t just sit on the shelf. He also offered some practical takeaways for other institutions—see below. The Challenge: From Draft to Effective Protocols “In 2010, we had put together a draft of an emergency response plan for the university,” Collins recalls, “and it had already gone through a number of iterations. But it never felt done, it never felt like something we had full confidence in implementing.” For the University of Wyoming, a 2010 Academic Impressions conference on emergency management held in Chicago, IL, proved the catalyst for moving from draft to actual protocols that would be implemented, communicated, and drilled. Collins attended the event with three colleagues, from university communications, student affairs, and […]