Taking a collaborative approach can add tremendous value to alumni relations and development - whether that collaboration is between the two functions, or with the wider institution. This session will explore collaboration ‘best practice’ from MTU Munster Technological University and from the University of Oxford.

Developing capacity across the University is key to delivering an alumni engagement programme.  Whether you have a one, two or 10-person alumni function, you are eventually going to run out of capacity to support the tens of thousands of alumni, unless you collaborate. 

Glynis Gardiner from MTU Munster Technological University will share how she developed alumni engagement programmes by collaborating with colleagues and units across the university. The initiatives and programmes that were developed will be discussed and the impact of these programmes will be shared. 

From an advancement perspective, the move to online events and engagement over the past 18 months has brought many challenges, but has also created unprecedented opportunities to connect with our alumni audiences. How can we ensure we are making the most of these?

Reflecting on her experience of joining Oxford's Department of Physics six days before the start of lockdown, Lisa Willmot will share how she leveraged its alumni relations programme to create space to talk about development - across major gifts, legacies and individual giving. She will explore how, by connecting different teams and activities across the department and wider University, an alumni relations programme which traditionally has never had advancement as part of its remit can be adapted to create opportunities for philanthropic gifts.

The European Commission has launched the European Universities Initiative: "The aim of this initiative is to bring together a new generation of creative Europeans able to cooperate across languages, borders and disciplines to address societal challenges and skills shortages faced in Europe." Universities are developing consortiums with the ultimate goal to merge and become large multinational European universities. RTU is part of European University of Technology (EUt) and one of the tasks is creating a Foundation that will support EUt and ensure the involvement of private investors.  How alumni relations and development will be shaped there? There are more questions than answers for now but we all must prepare for this future as European Commission is decisively investing in this idea.

Time. Budget. People. Whatever the resource, many of us are trying to cope with less since COVID. And one of the best ways to cope at this challenging time is by doing just that. COPE. COPE stands for Creative Once, Publish Everywhere. It is a strategic approach that helps you gain maximum mileage out of every piece of content, repurposing it across multiple channels for multiple audiences. As a result, your resources will stretch much further, at a time when they are likely to be depleted. This session will explore the principles, practices, and processes required for the successful implementation of COPE, and how it might hold the answers to several content challenges in this post-pandemic age. Where there is COPE, there is hope.         

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

This session lifts the lid on multi-million-pound, multi-project Campaigns. It draws on insight from four Campaign Managers who started to meet informally (online) during 20/21 - sharing experiences, best practice and providing peer support. Campaign Managers are a unique role in many Development & Alumni Relations departments and tend to work across conventional team structures. Fundraising, data and research, communications, volunteering… is there anyone who isn’t involved in a Campaign? The session will include a brief introduction from each speaker, followed by a round-robin Q&A. The format will allow each Campaign Manager to talk about challenges faced and share top tips for overcoming coming obstacles. We will then open the floor to questions from the audience – a chance to ask the experts!

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.

Munster Technological University developed the ''Succeeding Together'' series of events to help its stakeholders counteract lockdown fatigue during the Covid-19 pandemic. The goal was to provide participants with an opportunity to explore activities that were good for their physical and mental health, as well as being interesting and practical. Participants had the opportunity to learn how to enhance their culinary skills, explore their artistic talents, consider how to become an entrepreneur, and learn about new technologies, as well as increasing their understanding of space and the universe in which we live. We will outline the challenges faced in developing and delivering this series of events, the positive reaction from stakeholders, and how it has enhanced our new university's engagement strategy of ''Succeeding Together''.