Gerry,
The barriers you listed are very common issues. But, you have great thoughts on overcoming them. Bottom line, don't let the barriers stop you from moving forward. Get your program started with what you can, keep adding to it, and let the momentum grow. Often just getting started is the most difficult part.
Good luck!
June
Fiona,
You have some great ideas for each of these areas. It looks like setting up an advisory board would be of benefit to two of your three barriers. I'd start there!
Good luck!
June
Manpower - coming from a smaller school, we won't have the dedicated personnel to run a true Alumni department. That role will fall on my department, Career Development. Although initially a challenge, the benefits of an Alumni Association is what we will sell to those challenging our available manpower. We can start small and slowly grow.
Money - this will also be a challenge. How do we overcome it, by doing the little things that don't cost much ($$$) first. Creating a simple newsletter where we can have quarterly updates and articles and send out to all of our graduates. We can also invite graduates to on-campus seminars which don't cost us money but can get the ball rolling.
Marketing - we won't have the marketing dollars available to us to spend on Alumni Association promotions. We will have to go back to the basics when it comes to promoting, i.e. email blasts, word of mouth and staff/faculty buy-in.
3 objectives I am sure to face in an effort to improve our already existing alumni association is
We already have an alumni association-My argument here is to demonstrate how we can improve on our exisiting Association by increasing membership, activity and structure-Having key departments buy-in, setting up an advisory board.
ROI-My argument to this will be the impact on enrollment, placement and retention by improving and having a dedicated individual to run our alumni association
No one to work on community outreach-My argument to this would be to have several members of our advisory committee be made up of community members/contributors/influencers/business owners. In this way the Alumni Association Director can have a direct liason to key people who can assist with the outreach and be linked to their connections.
