The Shifting Landscape of Alumni Engagement
Priya highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on alumni engagement. The pandemic forced people to reconsider how they spend their time, emphasizing quality over quantity. This shift necessitates that institutions become more innovative in their outreach strategies. Instead of relying on traditional events like reunions and homecomings, schools need to offer higher-level, professionally focused events and ways to connect alumni directly to current students. Enhancing the value proposition for why alumni should return to campus or engage with the institution becomes crucial.
The Importance of Micro-Volunteer Opportunities
An interesting point raised by Priya was the concept of micro-volunteering, wherein alumni can contribute in small, manageable doses rather than committing to long-term volunteer roles. Examples include speaking at a webinar, attending a high-school career fair on behalf of the institution, or providing mentorship to a student. These opportunities not only make it easier for alumni to stay engaged but also allow them to offer their specific expertise and insights without making hefty time commitments. This flexibility is crucial in an era where time is seen as an incredibly valuable resource.
By focusing on building a sense of community, leveraging the professional achievements of alumni, and creating flexible volunteer opportunities, institutions can significantly enhance alumni engagement. Priya Vin’s insights offer a comprehensive roadmap for navigating this new, ever-changing landscape.
Feel free to listen to the full episode to dive deeper into these topics!
Read the transcription
Shiro [00:00:16]:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast hosted by Concept 3 d. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple, and Google. My name is Shiro Hatori, and I’ll be your host today. And I’m really excited to talk about something. I think this is the first time we’ve covered this specifically, so really excited to talk about the new age of alumni engagement marketing strategy, why volunteer recruiting works. So for the topic, I’m thrilled to have Priya Vinn join us. She is the director of volunteer engagement at Lafayette College.
Shiro [00:00:51]:
Priya, welcome to the show.
Priya Vin [00:00:53]:
Oh, thanks for inviting me, Cheryl. I’m happy to be here.
Shiro [00:00:57]:
It’s great to have you. I do ask all my guests this. So, as an icebreaker, please tell us what you love about higher ed, Priya.
Priya Vin [00:01:04]:
Yeah. Sure. So, doing my research, I knew that you were gonna ask me that question. So I had to think about what I wanted to say. And it’s funny. You know, I graduating from college and from graduate school, I didn’t anticipate going into higher ed. First part of my career was all in nonprofits. And what I’ll go into a little bit later, I worked with volunteers the first half of my career.
Priya Vin [00:01:27]:
So, there was no I there was no plan to go into higher ed, but, I did make that pivot into higher ed, and it was just it was just so much fun. So it was just amazing. I think it’s really the sense of community. You know, we’re all, like, on the same academic calendar, for the whole year in terms of our how we plan things. So the beginning of the school year, is just is just so exciting, especially for the staff and for the students. And then you go through the whole year, and then you end with graduation commencement. And it’s just wonderful that how we can end the whole year, and we try to accomplish the things that we accomplished. So it’s really like a sense of community, and it’s such a great cadence.
Priya Vin [00:02:06]:
Like, you’re aligning it with the students. And, it just even the first place where I worked, I just love my colleagues so much, and I love the volunteers, and I just kept they just kept going. There’s so there was no real, like, reason why I just wanted to go and hire as a that, I just had an opportunity to get in, and then I stayed in. And I’m still, very excited to be, part of higher ed.
Shiro [00:02:30]:
That’s amazing. I and I’m assuming this is the first time I’ve gotten seasonality response. Like, I I’m a seasoned person as well. Like, I think seasonality, like, I wanna live somewhere that stays temp temp for all your dogs. Like, that was interesting response. Like, they’re in in Pennsylvania, you get as well. Right? That’s great. Awesome.
Shiro [00:02:54]:
Well, I know you told us a little bit about your background already, but can you tell us a little bit more about what you’re doing today?
Priya Vin [00:03:02]:
Sure. So, I’ve I’ve received my graduate degree in, social service administration, so that was more of the administrative track of working in nonprofits. So like I said before, for about 10 years, I worked in nonprofits running programs, but always incorporate volunteers into my work. It was always a part of it. I’ve I’ve worked with older adults. I worked with those who had had heart attacks or strokes, those who had developmental disabilities, like, a wide variety of folks. And at one point, I made a pivot towards, alumni volunteers about, over 10 years ago. And I used that opportunity, to go into higher ed, and that’s when I was actually, like, in an alumni office.
Priya Vin [00:03:49]:
And for the last, 10, 11 years, I’ve worked in alumni engagement, and I’ve worked in various roles. So I’ve done, like, the regional work. I’ve worked with affinities. I’ve worked with young alumni, old alumni, you know, put reunion together, worked on homecomings, or anything you can imagine. I’ve worked on that. So I feel like I have a good robust experience about it. And now my role, I’m I’m working on developing a good infrastructure on how we manage our volunteers at my institution.
Shiro [00:04:21]:
Amazing. Well, let’s let’s jump in then. So, like, what’s can you tell me a little bit from your land, right, what is the current state of alumni landscape? So is is alumni coming down, do you think, regionally, like, nationally? I know we’re just conference, with other, volunteer engagement folks. Like, what is the chatter that you’re hearing?
Priya Vin [00:04:44]:
So I’ve worked at, 3, institutions, and I would say they’re more, like, regionally based. And so I’ll I’ll talk from a regional perspective. I don’t think alumni engagement is actually down, but it’s it’s definitely harder to achieve. And I think that was the same sense I was getting at that conference that you’re men mentioning, and shout out to that conference. It was, held by academic impressions, and they did a great job of, bringing us together, all the all these alumni engagement professionals. And, I think the biggest thing that has changed is the fact that we had COVID. That changed the way we look at things, how we recruit people, how do we get people back on campus, how do we get people involved with the school. And so COVID did what COVID did was force people to think about how to spend their time.
Priya Vin [00:05:34]:
It forced people to reprioritize the things that are in their life, at the time of where they are in their life in their life cycle that is. So, for example, like parents or those alumni who are in their thirties and forties might prioritize their home life, so maybe not as engaged with the school as much as they used to be. Or you have, folks that are retired. And because now they have time, they’re not at work anymore. They might get reengaged with the school, but how do we meaningfully, engage them? So, I noticed with COVID that after COVID, attendance to some of our events, they they were harder to get to those same numbers as pre COVID. I’ll just say it like that. People would come, but it would take a lot more effort to get them back to, back to campus or get them engaged, meaning that we had to really up the ante in what are we offering folks. It couldn’t just be the same old same old stuff.
Priya Vin [00:06:28]:
Come to campus, have a beer with someone. That wasn’t gonna work. We had to be more innovative in our strategies, like, maybe we need to get higher level speakers. Maybe we need to get, more professionally, focused type events or put those type of events on. Perhaps we need to offer, areas where they can we can connect alumni to students because that has that has been really the biggest thing that I’ve heard from alumni, from all the institutions from any, like, peer school is that alumni want to contribute to, like, the student life, to the student experience in general.
Shiro [00:07:06]:
That’s, yeah, that’s super interesting. Do you think that in this information age that, like what do you think the impact of social media apps like Facebook and Instagram have on this too? Do you think they play a factor?
Priya Vin [00:07:18]:
Almost definitely. And I think that when, you know, when first social media came out in the early 2000, it was just it was just taking a while for people to catch on. And as we as it slowly ramped up, people were using, social media as a way to connect with, their classmates. So prior to that prior to the 2 to the early 2000, institutions would hold homecoming, would hold reunion, hold maybe very, you know, signature events where people would come back to campus because they there was no other way to get in connection with their classmates. Now with the advent of the social media, they can be more connected with their classmates. They they make their own groups. They they’re like, they they’re, they they’re talking to each other on LinkedIn if they’ve they’ve seen they’re working at the same company. They don’t need the school to be the intimate intermediary at this point.
Priya Vin [00:08:15]:
And so how do we make, those events more appealing, or how do we get them back on campus when they have all these other ways to get together? And so, yeah, it most definitely has impacted the way, alumni engagement works.
Shiro [00:08:32]:
Got it. Yeah. And I think in a in a previous call, like, you you mentioned your your opinion, right, that alumni engagement and events have to just they have to move beyond just, like, being social gathering events. They have to have another element like you just said, connecting with current students. Like, you said that was a big thing that alumni, you know, wanted to do in volunteer work. So, I really liked what you said there because I I agree, like, as someone who uses Instagram, like like, the value I get from it, like, is is, like, I can see what people are up to, like, without having to do anything. You know? Right. Right.
Shiro [00:09:08]:
And so it’s it’s great. It’s great for that, but I could see that, like, if I were to connect with someone, it has to be something else. It needs a plus alpha on top of the social gathering. So you may I think you make a great point there. So let’s talk about bars. If I
Priya Vin [00:09:22]:
could well, just going back to that, I just wanted to say and then you throw in COVID with that, where people again, they’re reprioritizing their time. And so if we’re just talking about alumni engagement in general, they’re not gonna like, if they live across the country, what’s gonna make them come back to the East Coast? Right? And so especially if they’re already in touch with their friends in these, like, an I guess if you wanna call them, like, underground networks, what’s gonna get them back onto campus? Right? Or what’s gonna get them to come back to the school, to participate as a speaker? Or what’s gonna get them to come back to, welcome students or something like that. So it just it makes it a little bit harder. And so we have you know, obviously, we have to be a little bit more creative.
Shiro [00:10:05]:
Yeah. And, like, super broadly, I have my own idea for an answer for this, but, like, what’s the value of of getting people reengaged with Lafayette College? Like, what whether it’s bringing them back from the West Coast, like you mentioned, or just having them reengage with some of your campaigns, what’s the value in that for the institution?
Priya Vin [00:10:24]:
I mean, I I was thinking long and hard about this, like, how what is the reason why do we want volunteers? And they’re really, like, the the quiet, the sleeper force behind the whole institution because they add so much value to the institution. And we’re not even talking about giving money at this point. I’m just talking just that their time that they’re giving, they can add value to the student experience. You have parents who are more particular about where they’re gonna, spend their tuition dollars. And so students really appreciate and the parents really appreciate, okay, they met this alum who is making so much money working at this, like, fortune 500 company. So my child can do that too. You know, they wanna be able to see what’s the value of their degree, because it’s in I mean, it’s an investment into their future. Right? And so they wanna see that after they graduate, they can get not just a regular job, but a job that’s gonna really propel them to whatever, you know, their their, aspirations are.
Priya Vin [00:11:24]:
If it’s even like medical schools, law school, what have you, anything like that. And so, when you have volunteers interacting with students and, specifically, like, I guess, in in, like, an admissions capacity or, in a regional capacity where they’re welcoming students, to campus or to to start their 1st year. You know, they really wanna see what is that value and, like, what is the experience like? And did you have a good experience on campus? Like, I think, not that I’m in the student life capacity or area, but, I know they’re, the students really wanna see what’s that student life experience like. And, is it gonna are they gonna have a good time while they’re on campus, while they’re studying and they’re learning and things like that? So, they wanna hear, especially from recent grads, like, how did you how were you able to navigate, this major and how are you able to participate in these types of sports or other like clubs and things like that. So they really wanna hear, the students definitely wanna hear from the alumni and the alumni people love talking about their experiences on others. They want other people to have that same, especially the ones who have such a good experience. They wanna be able to impart that experience onto others and say, yes. You need to come here.
Priya Vin [00:12:37]:
Like, this is so much fun. You’re gonna have a great education, great social life, and then you’re gonna do great, in your professional life as well. So, yeah, yeah, going back to your question. So, like, from, like, from that perspective, like, they add value there. We have faculty who invite alumni to campus to speak, and that’s, like, such a valuable experience for both ends as well. You have alumni who they’ll end up feeling good about, participating and and being involved with their school, and then you have students who are like, again, oh, they know a lot about this specific major. Like, this is great and they often end up being a resource to students. So just a couple of examples of how, they’re they’re they’re kind of, like, underneath everything, but they’re a great resource.
Shiro [00:13:23]:
Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I’m here really what’s the marketing channel that works the best in any industry, higher ed, Amazon, whatever word-of-mouth. Right? And so, the online engagement is an opportunity to feel increased word-of-mouth that will show up that people are looking for. And, like, you can take the step further where, like, alum even help, you know, not within so far, like, also help us in through their, school experience. So it was great. Let’s let’s talk about, volunteer engagement as a whole. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And I this was interesting for me.
Shiro [00:14:04]:
I went to big, new one school, see Boulder. Are you interested? I get calls to donate. Not so often, because I think I I don’t I don’t not to come anymore. I’ve never gotten the emails. Hey, sure. Do you wanna volunteer for folder? So can you tell me a little more about, you know, what’s your engagement? Is this growing channel? Help try and, engage with more alone?
Priya Vin [00:14:31]:
Yeah. You know, it’s funny. You mentioned about, like, the the calls about giving and stuff, and that’s what, that we hear a lot. Like, the alumni don’t wanna just hear about, they don’t wanna just get calls from the from the institution when it’s time to give. They want not everyone has the ability to give, and we should able we should be able to, give options on how they can participate and how they can give back to the school with their time. So going back to the time aspect, everyone’s time is valuable. It’s the one thing you can never get back. Right? And so how can we make the most use, and how can we, offer something that they can just give their time? And so what I’ve been working on is, not only we have opportunities where you’re on committees and maybe they’re, like, over 1 to 3 years commitment, but also micro volunteering experiences where you can just participate once, like, perhaps you’re, hosting a welcome event or hosting some type of telecast or you’re just popping into a professor’s class talking for, like, 20 minutes, so that people have a wide range of, ways that they can give back.
Priya Vin [00:15:41]:
And so I’m always cognizant of, leading when I’m talking to potential volunteers that, you know, I know your time is valuable, so we will make this work with the time that you can give us. And I think also showing that appreciation and, showing that I’m aware that your time is valuable. People are more, I’ve noticed, are more likely to engage and participate in these volunteer activities. Does that answer your question?
Shiro [00:16:10]:
Yeah. So I mean, you’re asking for money. You’re asking for their service in a different way. That also meaningful for them besides just money or fund. Right? And so I think there’s there’s opportunity to increase engagement in that outreach, I think, as initial versus, like, hey. Do you wanna to our long lead foundation or, hey. We have amazing tier opportunities coming up, which is interesting. Like, I might click that email more.
Shiro [00:16:43]:
Just read it even versus, like, asking for money immediately upfront. And I think, like, in our previous call, you mentioned, like, how you can really build on that. You said micro volunteer. Right? Like, once someone has micro volunteered, like, that person is sitting in a much closer place with your institution or college than they were before that. Right? So whether that’s, like, for donating down the road or you you mentioned something around building committees around that as well. There’s just more opportunities to engage with that person after that initial outreach, so I really like that as well.
Priya Vin [00:17:16]:
Can I add another thing?
Shiro [00:17:18]:
Yeah. Of course. Go ahead. Okay. It’s your time.
Priya Vin [00:17:20]:
Well, the other thing and I think it was something that was brought at that conference that I I, we were mentioning about is that, because we are brainstorming ways to recruit people. Besides, you know, saying, hey. We we’re look we have this opportunity available. You’re gonna spend x amount of time. This is what you’re gonna do. What’s really in it for them? And there was thoughts about making some opportunities, that would be beneficial to an actual alumni volunteer, like, something that they can add on their resume so that, it shows that they participate on board because that’s something that, folks as they get higher up in their own ladder might wanna be on some type of board and to be part of committees and things like that. They that’s certainly something they can add on to their resume. Or if they’re speaking, in front of students or what have you, some of these things can be put on someone’s resume, which I think, sometimes people are looking for that.
Priya Vin [00:18:14]:
So that’s just how do we incentivize? How do we get people excited? And I think that’s one way as, people are more focused on, like, professional development because the social stuff, they can handle that for the most part. Right? So the professional stuff, we can help them with. And this is just one way that we thought of that, is a good way to to get them in.
Shiro [00:18:36]:
Yeah. That’s that’s fantastic. Yeah. I I’m always thinking of, like, how do we help the person that we’re marketing to while they also help us? Like, have it be both ways instead of just one. And it yeah. I think people do wanna give back in their lives, not just their money. Right? And so I think such a good opportunity. Can you tell me a little bit more about I I guess I have 2 questions.
Shiro [00:19:01]:
I’ll ask them 1 at a time. What are, like, what are some volunteer engagement, examples that have been working really well with with your institutions or other institutions that you’ve heard of? Like, what types of events or what types of activities? You mentioned the the student peer one was a good one, but do you have, like, any examples of that?
Priya Vin [00:19:20]:
Well, I I mean, at our in my institution, we have a really good, admissions alumni admissions representative program. And I think a lot of schools have that, you know, where, you have, alumni pro they can go to career fairs at local high schools in their region. And the reason why I think this, particular program is a very good program is that, you know, you have high school fairs all over the country, so you don’t necessarily need to come back to where the school is located to participate. You can participate in your town, you know, the, admissions department, they will send you the information like which fairs are are happening, what do you need to do, here are the talking points, and you can just stay in the town that you’re in and and still help out. Also, you know, you have, again, other institutions, you have the same thing where you can interview potential prospective students. That’s always a good, way to get involved because you don’t have to necessarily come back, travel back to the institution where where you came from. Something that’s been great, with us is, also through the career center. We have a lot of alumni who, offer internships, externships, and that’s how that’s how we get a lot of folks involved, especially being, like, in the tristate area, you know, there’s a lot of opportunity.
Priya Vin [00:20:40]:
We’re close to New York City, close to Philadelphia, so there’s a lot of people all around. And so those are also very great opportunities. And I think just because we’re the way we’re geographically placed, it give us a little bit of leverage over maybe some other schools that maybe are not as close to, big metropolitan areas. So that has worked well as well.
Shiro [00:21:02]:
That’s fantastic. The other question I had was RFI. Like, how do you make sure your programs, like, this is a Beatrix number, like, do you, like, think about entering the the data or metrics? Are there any associated with volunteer engagement programs?
Priya Vin [00:21:20]:
So are you as I think because you’re cutting out. So you’re asking about, how do we measure volunteerism?
Shiro [00:21:27]:
Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, what what data do you track to report on or that you track itself?
Priya Vin [00:21:33]:
Okay. So this is I mean, we’re in the beginning stages of it, and and we’ve been I’ve been talking internally about this. Shoot.
Shiro [00:21:40]:
Yeah. What’s Yeah.
Priya Vin [00:21:41]:
Yeah. So, you know, it’s, right now, we’re just tracking when, folks actually volunteer into our database, what program they volunteer for in the length of time. And, you know, throughout the whole fiscal year, we track that, that data. And at the end, we can see who has done what, and then, we make sure that’s, like, a unique number so we deduplicate all the the the data, and then we can get an idea of how many you’ll volunteer throughout the year. And so, it’s not as easy as it might sound because it’s not just our department that has volunteers. We have volunteers that are, working with departments all across campus. So having those great relationships with internal, colleagues or external, partners on campus, like, that’s very important. So, you know, I’m having to work with our career center, admissions, our entrepreneurial center.
Priya Vin [00:22:35]:
I mean, there’s various areas where everyone’s involved in making sure that the data they give us is correct. So but we have a ways to go of how to, do better and track our volunteer data. But that’s just how it is right now.
Shiro [00:22:48]:
The starting point. Well, great. Like, I mean, there’s probably schools who weren’t even where you’re at today. Just as a last part of the call, like, can we talk about, like alright. Let’s say I’m a small regional school like like you, and I’m I’m a director of alumni, engagement, and I’m interested in starting a volunteer engagement program. Like, can you tell me a little bit more about how we can get started? Just like the first couple steps.
Priya Vin [00:23:15]:
Awesome. The first couple steps, I would say, is draft some type of vision statement, mission statement, something that can, that you can lead with and, you know, put some thought into it. Like, why are we doing this? What what is the outcome, besides, you know, increasing your affinity with the institution. Right? And the next piece, which I think is very important is figuring out what are your volunteer opportunities and, thinking about what are the position descriptions for all these opportunities, what’s actually involved, which partners are you working with, how do we ensure that those those opportunities are conducted in a professional manner, meaning that you’re not someone’s not just emailing and then no one gets back to them. You wanna make sure all your ducks are in a row before you launch any type of, program. And, obviously, once you get volunteers, you wanna have your protocol set basically for, how do you recognize volunteers? How do you, train them? How do you how do you give them orientation? That’s also very important because once you sign people up, they don’t wanna just be left hanging. They wanna be given direction. This is these are the things that you need to know, etcetera.
Priya Vin [00:24:33]:
And then how do we track that data? How do we evaluate that we’re doing a good job, like surveys, things like that, and then how do we recognize volunteers. That’s really the volunteer engagement cycle.
Shiro [00:24:46]:
That’s awesome. I I I think I’m just gonna take what you just said the last minute and create a, like, a playbook because that’s a great way to get started. That’s amazing. Well, there you have it. I think we’re just at about time here. Priya, I was wondering where our listeners can connect with you, if you have anything else you wanna share as well.
Priya Vin [00:25:08]:
I can find, I guess, on LinkedIn.
Shiro [00:25:11]:
Cool. Priya Vinn, should you come up right away? Let me search it. I guess I’m already connected with you, but, yes, sir, go ahead and connect with Priya on LinkedIn. It was so great to have you. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. This is a topic I haven’t covered, so love covering new topics and learning. So I appreciate you joining. Thank
Priya Vin [00:25:31]:
you so much, Hiro. Had a great time.
