June Gudeman

Christian, There are certainly many barriers that need to be faced and then addressed, but I hope you are also seeing the incredible benefit of developing and maintaining a relationship with your graduates. Our alumni are of GREAT value to our institutions. It sounds like your job will be to sell that to others at your institution. Use your contacts with alumni to gather their success stories and then begin to creatively share those stories. Our graduates are walking breathing advertisements and investing a little in them is 'way' cheaper than the money we give our marketing departments. June Gudeman

Christian, I like how you're thinking. So, often alumni events seemed to be planned with the - what can we get from them? - mentality. Thinking about how you can appreciate your alumni changes the whole atmosphere and they will notice that and, in the end, want to give back to your institution. June Gudeman

Christian, Career services is the number one draw for grads to come back to their institution. You may want to poll some of your alumni to see what other services may be of interest to them? June Gudeman

Christian, Quantifying your ROI (Return on Investment) is always a challenge. The other challenge is to think like a graduate and provide opportunities that will draw them back to your institution. Whether it's career services support or transcript request or the social events, we need to meet needs they have to bring them back. June Gudeman

Christian, It sounds like you have a great school mission statement and certainly some of those goals may be reflected in your alumni statement. I encourage you to really think through the goals you have for your alumni association or community and write your alumni mission statement to match those goals. June Gudeman

Christian, Have you thought about including some of your alumni on your advisory board? June Gudeman

Christian, There are certainly many barriers that need to be faced and then addressed, but I hope you are also seeing the incredible benefit of developing and maintaining a relationship with your graduates. Our alumni are of GREAT value to our institutions. It sounds like your job will be to sell that to others at your institution. Use your contacts with alumni to gather their success stories and then begin to creatively share those stories. Our graduates are walking breathing advertisements and investing a little in them is 'way' cheaper than the money we give our marketing departments. June

Christian, I like how you're thinking. So, often alumni events seemed to be planned with the - what can we get from them? - mentality. Thinking about how you can appreciate your alumni changes the whole atmosphere and they will notice that and, in the end, want to give back to your institution. June

Christian, Career services is the number one draw for grads to come back to their institution. You may want to poll some of your alumni to see what other services may be of interest to them? June

Christian, Quantifying your ROI (Return on Investment) is always a challenge. The other challenge is to think like a graduate and provide opportunities that will draw them back to your institution. Whether it's career services support or transcript request or the social events, we need to meet needs they have to bring them back. June