Alumni Communication and Today's Economy - To cut or not to cut (the magazine, that is)?

In this current economy many universities and colleges are making budget cuts.  Scot Mory (USC), Sherri Schmidt (NDSU), and I recently hosted a CASE Webinar entitled Maximizing Your Alumni Relationships: Making Your Case in a Down Economy.  http://www.case.org/Publications/Detail.cfm?ProductID=3398   During that webinar Sherri made the following point that is very applicable to this discussion.

Ask yourself these questions as you consider budget cuts.  Are you cutting items which represent the largest chunks of money? Are you cutting x% across the board?  Or, are you cutting so that you are best positioned strategically for the future that will unfold on the other side of these difficult times? 

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Solving the Program Attendance Paradox - Leveraging Communications

There are many “generally accepted truths” that we hear over and over from our university and college clients.  In spite of the power of such paradigms, there appears to be ongoing debate about the veracity of some.  One topic getting a lot of attention is sponsored events and the attendance implications of those events. Three recurring themes are:

  1. Alumni who attend events are more likely to be givers/donors than those who don’t attend. 
  2. Alumni consistently and repeatedly state their desire for more events.
  3. Alumni who don’t attend events have a lower level of engagement than those who do.  

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Partnering With Your Stakeholders

When universities and/or colleges decide to survey their alumni, it is most often because they want to know what motivates alumni to engage with the institution.  Typically, they are searching for answers to questions such as:    What kind of alumni magazine articles will have the most impact on engagement?  What matters most to the broader audience of alumni in general?  Which talking points are most effective?  Clearly these are important issues... Click here to read more.

In this issue:


Alumni Communication and Today's Economy - To cut or not to cut (the magazine, that is)?

Solving the Program Attendance Paradox - Leveraging Communications

Partnering With Your Stakeholders

 

What others are saying about the AAS...


Jorge Ancona
University of California, Irvine

Assistant Vice Chancellor, Alumni Relations
Executive Director, UC Irvine Alumni Association

“Since doing the Alumni Attitude Study and implementing the results, we have seen an increase in participation from our alumni. Our alumni were impressed that we took the initiative to research their opinions and implement the findings.”

Paul Clifford
East Carolina University

Associate Vice Chancellor, Alumni Relations
President & CEO, East Carolina Alumni Association

“The Alumni Attitude Study that PEG, Ltd. produced for East Carolina Alumni Association allowed us to focus our time, energy, and resources on those programs that could make a real difference for our alumni.”

For more information about the Alumni Attitude Study, contact Aaron Osborn, Director of Sales and Marketing, or Rob Shoss, Managing Consultant, at 866-471-8600.