The AAS Live Overview is a free, hour long web presentation that discusses many of the facts about the AAS and also includes discussion of application at the institutional level.  Many different schools have used this work in various capacities and we will touch on some of the areas of greatest value.  Included is time for discussion of questions and/or concerns that there might be regarding the AAS and its application.

The Alumni Attitude Study (AAS) is an industry-developed, comprehensive process through which institutions of higher education can increase alumni engagement, membership and giving by utilizing direct alumni feedback to build more targeted and effective programs, communications and solicitations.  The AAS provides precise guidelines to drive action to those areas alumni believe are most valuable.  Implications of the AAS can be applied to such areas as (but not limited to): strategic planning, program development, capital campaigns and donor engagement initiatives.

For more information about the AAS Live Overview or to sign up for the next presentation, please contact Aaron Osborn at 866-471-8600 or register online at: http://www.alumniattitudestudy.org/s1/liveoverview.php

In our discussions with those who have chosen to do this work in-house, many people often start by thinking about the questions they want to ask rather than thinking about what they hope to achieve by conducting the survey.  We find the inverse to being more beneficial.  A successful survey process starts (and continues throughout) with a clear understanding of the following five operational guideposts:

1. Begin with the end in mind. Stephen Covey said it best.  Know what results you’re looking for; and what you want to do with the results.  Question design and structure make a huge difference in allowing for insightful analysis, but only when they are correctly drafted in the first place.
2. Everything needs to be actionable.  When thinking about certain questions to ask of your alumni, be sure to ask yourself “if they answer this question, how can we act on what they say?” and if you can apply action; it is a relevant question to include in your survey.
3. Make sure the process facilitates “prioritization” opportunities.  It is unlikely that you will find out things that are totally surprising.  The power is in helping you pick those things to do that will have the most impact/benefit.
4. Avoid compound questions or questions that confuse the point.  One issue per question is not only a good rule of thumb; it is critical to meaningful analysis.  When using compound questions, you run the risk of distorting the analysis by having too much mixed content related to one topic/question.
5. Make sure the effort is part of your Alumni Partnership Model.  You are asking them what is most important to them, their opinion.  Make sure you incorporate your brand – to make it known that this is a part of your on-going communication model with your alumni – and most importantly, communicate this initiative before, during and after the process.

By keeping these principles in mind, you can ensure that you will be more effective at generating better feedback, clearer data (with actionable results) and a more comprehensive alumni engagement tool. Conducting a study of this nature is more than just an assessment; it’s also a great communication piece to allow your alumni to voice their opinion on things the institution does well and those areas where the institution can improve.  Do not waste the opportunity with a less effective survey that will not provide you with adequate results.

Until recently most alumni associations have not availed themselves of this technology.  On one hand that’s understandable, given the rather significant differences in approach to “business” across the alumni spectrum.  On the other hand, it’s a regrettable situation since there are many (if somewhat diverse in style and application) practices that are common to alumni associations, whether they are dues-paying, non dues-paying, 501c3 corporations, public, private, large, or small.  That implies tremendous opportunity to learn from each other, which is the fundamental purpose of all benchmarking.

Benchmarking is the “. . .process of identifying, understanding, and adapting outstanding practices and processes from organizations anywhere in the world to help your organization improve its performance.” —American Productivity & Quality Center

Some experts identify three basic forms of benchmarking (strategic, data-based, and process).  Our approach does not readily distinguish between data-based and process-based benchmarking, since process-based benchmarking must ultimately involve a solid system of metrics and measurement (i.e., data).  However, we do sometimes refer to benchmarking in a context of establishing baselines, which is essentially benchmarking against self.  After all, how do we know we’ve made any progress unless we first define our starting point?  But this is not intended to be a treatise on how to benchmark; rather to make the case for benchmarking as a key element of business process improvement.

One other important introductory note:  When all is said and done, it’s about money.  Whether you are a small business or a large corporation or a not-for-profit organization, money is your blood stream.  Whether you are looking to reduce costs without reducing value; generate more market share; or increase alumni engagement; it’s ultimately about enhancing your bottom line.  Benchmarking is an effective approach to accomplishing that goal.  Simplistically, we identify who is best at X, and discover the practices they employ to set that standard.  If your goal is to bake the best apple pie, you might consider talking to those who bake the blue ribbon winners at local and state fairs.  If your goal is to capture the widget market, it probably makes sense to study the practices of the company who currently owns that market, and then improve on what they’re doing.  This is the essence of benchmarking; finding out who’s out-performing everyone else with respect to something important to us, then studying their processes and procedures (practices) to learn how we can do a better job ourselves.

PEG’s Alumni Attitude Study^© (AAS^©) provides a great deal of data that can be applied to benchmarking activities.  As the name implies, the data are attitudinal in nature, resulting from collecting the opinions of thousands of alumni about specific programming, communication, services, and benefits of membership (whether dues based or not) in the alumni association.  Since these data are based on opinions, they must be compared and contrasted with actual performance data where possible and practicable.

The Study^© is a cooperative effort among institutions to measure and compare the values, preferences, and perceptions that motivate alumni to engage with their alma mater.  The Study, which was initiated in 2001, is a reliable and cost effective survey process that provides Study participants with baselines, comparables and benchmarks to help assess institutional performance on alumni communication, development, and programming efforts.  Benchmarking applications of Study data are simultaneously broad in nature and specific in approach:

• Communication Identify and utilize the most effective methods of communicating with alumni through attitudinal research.  Sending the right number of pieces via the most appropriate medium to each era or strategic cohort.
• Programs Increase alumni participation and engagement by understanding their priorities, and targeting them directly.  Use programs that engage alumni based on their unique interests and affinity.
• Development Enhance alumni affinity through targeted messages to specific segments.   Target their affinity interests and high-value touch points through a coordinated campaign of nurture and ask questions. Understand the different motivators for current, lapsed, and never givers.
• Membership/Engagement Understand what motivates alumni to participate in the association and remain active.  Learn how to engage alumni of different eras by revealing the university to them anew through the things that mean the most to them.

In some cases, of course, the only meaningful data available to us are attitudinal.  We can easily keep track of how many people contribute to the annual fund, and even calculate the per person contribution level.  It is not so easy, however, to discover the keys to increasing these figures.  The only effective way to do this is to canvass the alumni population about some of the issues we think may influence giving patterns and habits, and then taking action directly addressing the issues which the alumni say are most important to them.  A powerful supporting technique to this approach involves benchmarking best practices.  By identifying who sets the standard (not simply in terms of total dollars; but in terms which are directly comparable across institutions), we can emulate their success by applying the same or similar practices they employ.

In future newsletters, we will reveal the names of some high-performance benchmarks.

Response rate is important.  It tells us a lot about the target population’s attitude regarding the survey and their belief in our willingness to listen and take action.  Response rate, however, is not as important as the number of responses. If we have a population of 100 people and 20% of that population respond to our survey (20 responses) we do not know much about the 100 people.  There is a high probability that the 20 responses could be substantively different than the 80 non respondents because it is composed of only 20 different people.  If, however, we have a 20% response rate from a population of 200,000 (40,000 responses) there is a very low probability that 40,000 different people could collectively be way outside of the norm.

Additionally, response rate will vary for many different reasons.  Understanding this variation and its causes is informative about respondent attitudes and affinity but does not necessarily give more information about the accuracy of the findings.

Since 2001 we have completed alumni and donor survey projects with over 140 universities and colleges.  Within that group, we have had response rates as low as 5% and as high as 35%.  The distribution sets have ranged from 3,000 to 150,000.

In my judgment, response rate is a function of:

1. Affinity between target group and the institution doing the survey,
2. Demographic characteristics of the distribution pool,
3. Structure of the survey instrument,
4. Belief of the respondents that someone will read the surveys and take action as a result of the findings.

For instance, current givers or current members will usually respond at a rate that is two to 5 times larger than never givers.  If the database is oversampling never givers then the response rate will be lower.

Finally, I cannot overemphasize the last consideration.  If your alumni believe that you will actually listen to their responses and take action on the results they are much more likely to respond.  When you survey, always let them know what you heard and what you are going to do as a result of what you heard.  When you take action that is based on what you heard, let them know!  Finally, ask again.  We call this the Alumni Partnership

Model(c) and it is a critical part of a successful feedback systems, higher response rates, and more engagement.

One other thing to keep in mind is that response rate is much less important than having a sufficiently large number of responses. Statistical confidence is not a function of response rate but is based on the number of responses, their demographic distribution, and the methodology of participant selection, survey methodology, and instrument design.

Many people start by thinking about the questions they want to ask rather than thinking about what they hope to achieve by conducting the survey.  Good survey processes and questionnaires start with a clear understanding of the following five operational guideposts:

1. “Begin with the end in mind.”  Know what results you’re looking for; and what you want to do with the results.  Question design and structure make a huge difference in allowing for insightful analysis, but only when they are correctly drafted in the first place.
2. Everything needs to be actionable.  Some questions like “overall opinion of the institution?”  are not actionable on their face but are critical to very actionable inferential analysis.
3. Make sure the process facilitates prioritizing opportunities.  It is unlikely that you will find out things that are totally surprising.  The power is in helping you pick those things to do that will have the most impact/benefit.
4. Avoid compound questions or questions that confuse the point.  One issue per question is not only a good rule of thumb; it is critical to meaningful analysis.
5. Make sure the effort is part of your Alumni Partnership.  You are asking them what is most important to them, their opinion.  Make sure you carefully deploy your brand as part of the process.

When you launch a survey you are entering into a conversation with your alumni.  Let them know that their opinion matters to the institution by using a high-quality process/instrument.  Conducting a study of this nature is more than just an assessment; it’s also a great communication piece to allow your alumni to voice their opinion on things the institution does well and those areas where the institution can improve.

Most Higher Ed professionals are familiar with the importance of social media and the effect on alumni relations and overall advancement.  More and more schools are looking to this niche area to target support for the institution and for the alumni association/alumni relations.  For many schools, alumni are already utilizing these platforms to network and connect with fellow alumni, and thus schools are doing their best to better capitalize on this growing trend.  Alumni already have an affinity to their alma mater, and depending on their availability, will choose whether or not to contribute to the institution with time, talent, or treasure; perhaps all three.  Through social media, alumni are now more connected than ever, and seeing the events and opportunities to give back at the click of a button or an update to their mobile phone has wide-spread appeal.  As the evolution of social media reaches unfamiliar heights, colleges and universities alike are hoping this is another way to keep alumni engaged and further encourage alumni to give back to their alma mater.

Where this becomes even more interesting to institutions is the ability to measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts.  Are the schools hitting their target audience?  Are alumni interfacing with the schools profiles and/or becoming more engaged?  If schools are not effectively measuring their performance and accuracy of their efforts using social media, they may quite likely be going the way of the duffer, “hitting and hoping.”  Developing a plan of action to strategically target alumni is where an institution will be most effective at engaging their alumni through social media.  One of the easiest (and most efficient) ways to develop an action plan is to canvass alumni about their volume and usage of these social media platforms.  Based on the direct alumni feedback, you will know where to focus your time and what resources are needed to address the different social media sites; and how to target specific age groups most effectively.  At the same time, you will be more in tune with the type of content your alumni are looking for based on the feedback from your survey results.

The AAS continues to be a valuable resource to the Higher Ed industry, and because of that, we know that we must also focus attention and resources on a strong social media presence.  For some time now, the AAS has had a small place in the social media arena, but is now focused on utilizing it more effectively to provide communication and insight into alumni attitudes and related material.  Through our social media sites and fan pages, we can publish articles and present findings, as well as welcome new clients and share data that relate to effective alumni programs, communication, and participation.  As you begin (or continue) to utilize social media for the benefit of your alumni engagement efforts, we encourage you to stay connected with the Alumni Attitude Study.   Please see below for links to AAS social media sites.

AAS Twitter Page: http://www.twitter.com/alumniattitudes

AAS Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Alumni-Attitude-Study/101191039999

AAS Blog: http://www.alumniattitudestudy.org/s6/blog/

1. Create a more enhanced partnership with alumni and donors.
2. Create consensus within your department and with your board about what matters to alumni so that the discussion about how to better engage alumni shifts from a discussion about what they think to one focused on what actions are needed next.
3. Establish a prioritized list of actionable items and how this varies across key segments.
4. Create a heightened focus on alumni and donor engagement with other departments and colleges across campus.

In addition to the checked box or scales questions, most surveys also include open-ended questions.  These questions offer the respondent an opportunity to talk about his or her feelings in their own language or talk about issues that were not included in the other questions.

When creating a survey instrument it is always tempting to use a lot of these open-ended questions because they feel like the kind of question we might ask if we were talking to the respondent.  We would like to ask a question like:

• What are the things most important to you in your relationship with your alma mater?
• What do you remember most fondly about your experience as a student?
• What is it about the university that inspires you to give?

Unfortunately the responses to these open-ended questions are difficult to translate into actionable findings.  They do not easily provide measurable information that is comparable between segments or to other groups.

Our relationship with donors or alumni is, by definition, anecdotal.  The last conversation we had with a happy or disgruntled donor weighs heavily in our thinking about what all donors or alumni think.   This anecdotal world view is unavoidable unless we have the ability to take a step back and gain a perspective of the entire population.  This is one of the roles for a donor or alumni survey.  It gives us a way to see what that silent majority is thinking and how to best communicate with them.  They may or may not be like that last donor we talked to but unless we check, we can never know.

This brings me back to the question about open-ended responses.  Since they are personal responses to a question, they are also anecdotal.  And, unless we figure out a way to categorize them, they are not very valuable in helping us better understand what our donors or alumni think across the population.  Breaking responses to open-ended questions into categories and then looking at them through this lens allows us to move past the individual nature of these responses; however, this is a very clumsy and time consuming process.  Further, if we did our homework in the beginning and constructed a good instrument we should already be testing attitudes around the categories that drop out of an open-ended question.

Given this, what is the value of these questions?  In our opinion they serve three very important functions:

1. The open-ended questions provide respondents a chance to “speak their mind,” positively or negatively.  This is important and can play a pivotal role in enhancing their future engagement.
2. Open-ended questions provide opportunities to quote anonymous comments from different decades or just generally about an experience, relationship with a professor, or feelings about the institution.
3. Open-ended questions provide a context within which we can better understand the statistical findings we acquire from the rest of the survey.  If the survey is thought of as a meal, the scaled questions and the analysis of them is the meat and potatoes of that meal while the open-ended responses in the spice.  These questions provide flavor to the substance gained through the other analysis.

In the end, it is important to keep in mind the multi-faceted benefit of asking for  the opinions of those we care about.  The answers are important but so is the process.   There are many ways to gain insight, target actions, steward a relationship, and enhance engagement through a good feedback process.

Attendance at the Conference was yet another indicator of its success.  Based on our conversations with the Summit’s Committee members, what originally was projected to be 400-500 attendees turned out to exceed 700.  Of course, hosting the Summit in the heart of Times Square in New York City was enticing itself.  All in all, from the Summit attendees, to the facilities and location, down to the hard work applied by all the conference volunteers, the 2010 Summit should go down as one of the more successful CASE events in recent memory.

Another success at this year’s Summit came amidst one of the conference’s first sessions. AAS Managing Consultant, Rob Shoss co-presented with representatives from The Napa Group and The University of Tennessee Alumni Association to discuss the topic of “Re-envisioning Alumni Associations for the 21^st Century”.  This presentation was highlighted by the results of a very extensive and successful strategic planning project at The University of Tennessee and how the outcome has helped define the foundation for a successful alumni relations program.  The presentation drew over 100 of the conferences 700+ attendees; sparking several attendees to stop by our exhibitor booth to compliment the presentation and learn more.  For details about this presentation and for the materials presented, please use the following link.

http://www.case.org/conferences_and_training/summit2010nyc.html

Being an education partner this year, it was truly a pleasure to get to visit with many of the Advancement leaders in attendance.  Through our work with the Alumni Attitude Study, we have developed a solid reputation as being an industry leader in attitudinal research.  It is this reputation that enables us to have so much success at CASE events; and this could not have ringed truer at the 2010 Summit.  Many of the conference attendees (including several conference committee members) were very intrigued by our work engaging alumni and donors, and thus may provide future opportunities to work with them at their institutions.

The Summit has been and continues to be the flagship of all the CASE conferences.  The AAS has shared that great success being an educational partner of the Summit and will continue to support CASE and associated events.  We would like to thank everyone who attended our presentation or visited our exhibitor booth to talk more about how the AAS can help increase overall alumni engagement and affinity towards their institution.  We look forward to seeing you all again at Summit 2011 in Chicago.

Response rate is important.  It tells us a lot about the target population’s attitude regarding the survey and their belief in our willingness to listen and take action.  Response rate, however, is not as important as the number of responses.  If we have a population of 100 people and 20% of that population respond to our survey (20 responses) we do not know much about the 100 people.  There is a high probability that the 20 responses could be substantively different than the 80 non respondents because it is composed of only 20 different people.  If, however, we have a 20% response rate from a population of 200,000 (40,000 responses) there is a very low probability that 40,000 different people could collectively be way outside of the norm.

Additionally, response rate will vary for many different reasons.  Understanding this variation and its causes is informative about respondent attitudes and affinity but does not necessarily give more information about the accuracy of the findings.

Since 2001 we have completed alumni and donor survey projects with over 140 universities and colleges.  Within that group, we have had response rates as low as 5% and as high as 35%.  The distribution sets have ranged from 3,000 to 150,000.

In my judgment, response rate is a function of:

1. Affinity between target group and the institution doing the survey,
2. Demographic characteristics of the distribution pool,
3. Structure of the survey instrument,
4. Belief of the respondents that someone will read the surveys and take action as a result of the findings.

For instance, current givers or current members will usually respond at a rate that is two to 5 times larger than never givers.  If the database is oversampling never givers then the response rate will be lower.

Finally, I cannot overemphasize the last consideration.  If your alumni believe that you will actually listen to their responses and take action on the results they are much more likely to respond.  When you survey, always let them know what you heard and what you are going to do as a result of what you heard.  When you take action that is based on what you heard, let them know!  Finally, ask again.  We call this the Alumni Partnership

Model(c) and it is a critical part of a successful feedback systems, higher response rates, and more engagement.

One other thing to keep in mind is that response rate is much less important than having a sufficiently large number of responses. Statistical confidence is not a function of response rate but is based on the number of responses, their demographic distribution, and the methodology of participant selection, survey methodology, and instrument design.

In addition, PEG is pleased to announce at the CASE Summit 2010, a new line of research products designed to complement the AAS in the form of Donor Enhancement Services.  We welcome you to stop by our booth to talk about the new Donor Development Study and the Donor Stewardship Study, and to find out more about all of our services related to enhancing stakeholder engagement with their alma mater.

For more information about the presentation or to join in on pre-presentation discussions online, please visit www.alumniattitudestudy.org/summit10.

We hope to see you there.