Maintaining good relationships with alumni over time is crucial to the success of students as well as institutions. Alumni serve many valuable roles, such as helping to build and grow an institution’s brand through word-of-mouth marketing. For instance, positive posts on social media can create buzz and increase application rates. Colleges know the alumni importance and always rely on alumni to provide mentoring, internships, and career opportunities to students.
It is critical to an institution’s success to build an engaged, supportive alumni network. Graduates’ understanding of the university would get stale if communication stops once they leave the institution. Thus, both the institution and the alumni know the importance of alumni relations and benefit from strong alumni relationships.
Today, alumni relations is an important part of an institution’s advancement activities for many reasons:
Alumni are an institution’s most loyal supporters
Alumni are fundraising prospects
Alumni generate invaluable word-of-mouth marketing among their social and professional networks
By engaging alumni, an institution can continue to benefit from their skills and experience
Alumni are great role models for current students and are often well placed to offer practical support to students as they start their careers
Alumni are often in the position to engage the expertise of the institution in their professional lives
Our alumni are our international ambassadors. They take their knowledge of our institution to their hometowns and countries and into their professional and social networks