The University of St. Andrews wanted an innovative and effective tactic to get alumni to update their online profiles with new contact details. St. Andrews partnered with StageClip to turn two old VHS recordings from the 1990s into short, Tik-Tok style, fully personalised digital clips of individual graduations that could be shared on social media. Nearly 20% of alumni reached updated their contact information, and the campaign sparked engagement in unexpected ways for their alumni relations and development teams. In this session, StageClip will present the process, results, surprises, and next steps for this new outreach opportunity.

Although we may never want to hear ‘you’re on mute’ again, Zoom has enabled us to connect with our global alumni community like never before. The need to create a sense of community for our students and recent graduates has never been more important than in 2020. In this session we will discuss:

• How we worked with the University’s Careers Network to deliver an integrated approach to our activities from graduation to life as a graduate ensuring they meet the needs of our graduating class
• How we connected our newest alumni with our international community through a specially commissioned poem
• How we enhance student and recent graduate professional networks while also developing their skills and introducing them to our donors

Are you or your team lacking the drive and motivation to support your alumni community? Are requests met with frustration or annoyance? Has it been increasingly difficult to manage work and family/friends? It is likely you are feeling the effects of burnout. Burnout can be weighing on your mental health however is both preventable and manageable. Learn the telling signs of burnout, how to address it, and maintain a healthier work environment for you and your team.

Are you using LinkedIn to its best advantage? Is it predominately used for tracking down alumni in certain locations, or for sharing your university’s latest ranking position? If so, register for this session and pick up tips on how to become more proactive and creative with LinkedIn, so that it becomes an invaluable tool, helping you develop an engaged community of passionate and eager supporters.

Taking the form of an informal workshop, the topics covered will include:

• Personal vs professional
• The power of nostalgia
• Generating pride and celebrating success
• Getting to know your alumni better
• Supporting recruitment, student outcomes, fundraising & research
• Future-proofing
• Reaching a larger audience

Now more than ever, we are tasked with creating innovative, engaging and strategically important alumni volunteer programmes and initiatives that are not only scalable and sustainable, but contribute to increasing our institutions global reach whilst encouraging collaboration internally and externally. This requires a high degree of flexibility and ability to adapt to ever changing situations and an ever changing world!

Join us to hear thought-provoking discussions around key themes facing us as we navigate our way through a pandemic, backed up by real-life case studies demonstrating how these themes can be applied at your institution. We’d love to hear from others and invite participants to not only ask questions but share their stories and experiences to really embrace this year's CASE 'Connected' theme.

A global celebration, in the middle of a pandemic, with 25+ volunteer-led virtual and live events all happening on the same day. Join us as we share our experience with creating, marketing, managing, and evaluating #RSM24 - 24 hours of alumni events. As part of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University's 50th Anniversary celebration we wanted to find an exciting way to engage our global community of alumni.  This session will cover the entire process from relationship management, marketing and communication, event execution logistics, post-event follow up and how to project manage and work productively as a team to put on 25 (nearly) simultaneous events while still working from home.

Though ELTE was is established in 1635, the organized alumni life has just started five years ago. How to vitalize alumni activity ASAP and how to overcome critical difficulties meanwhile: old registration method; GDPR; hardly any alumni activities; almost no communication, old website lacking content; minimal resources? Time for miracles. Let’s rely on the strengths of the university: treasures, great places; famous alumni; nice stories to remember; seventy languages taught. A wide range of advantages helped to kickstart - focusing on 7 key territories parallel: Market research, Benchmarking; Structure and Internal connections; Communication, Content; Registration; Mobilization; Resources; Still a long way to go, but the progress is already impressive with promising results. ...and what a good foundation this all proved to be during home-office period!

It all started with an optimistic Alumni Relations plan drafted for important people at the top of the organisation. Aided by our energy and belief in the strategic importance of alumni engagement, inspired by the institution’s mission, and with the help of colleagues, we got started. Then came the pandemic: not the best way to start building a community...

We will share the keys to Making It Happen:

- Tips on building a team and embedding them into a complex organisation – all online
- Professionalism, camaraderie, creativity, and what can happen if you trust people to make plans come to life
- ‘The battle of the data’, silo mentality, and the need to believe in what you do
- Managing upwards, outwards and across divides

Recent years have seen the expansion of alumni models to new areas of endeavour. Charities, research institutes and NGOs have all explored the power of engaging networks to create social change, extend global reach, and support critical missions. This panel session will explore what these new programmes have learnt from Higher Education alumni programmes and how they have evolved them outside of the Development Office structure to explore global connectivity, increased collaboration, and social change.