April 4, 2008
What Will the Future Bring for Alumni Associations?
Today Andy Shaindlin, executive director of the Caltech Alumni Association, is trying to predict what alumni associations will look like in the next ten years, on the Alumni Futures blog.
Taking a look back at predictions made by alumni association leaders in 1998 in a Currents magazine article, many of them hit the mark, Mr. Shaindlin observes. Some said they believed that technology will be used to sustain relationships, that associations will struggle to compete with an increasing array of entertainment choices for members, and that career services would become the “staple of the profession.”
By 2018, Mr. Shaindlin writes, affinity programs like alumni credit cards will be regulated and providers will be licensed by the government, online communities will no longer be thought of as a “separate activity, any more than we think of people we talk to on the phone as a ‘telephone community,’” and social networks will be replaced by complete connectivity, where anyone online will have direct connection with anyone else online.
How will changes in the way alumni associations operate and serve their membership change the way higher-education fund-raising professionals do their jobs? How will the evolution of connectivity influence the way alumni give back?
Erin Strout | Posted on Friday April 4, 2008 | Permalink
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