Connecting Alumni Associations With Young Graduates

Thursday, January 24, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time

Roger L. Williams is director of the Pennsylvania State University Alumni Association, which is among the largest dues-paying alumni associations in the country, with nearly 160,000 members. A graduate of Penn State himself, Mr. Williams has held various posts in higher-education communications, public relations, and marketing for 25 years. Before starting work at Penn State, he was associate vice chancellor for university relations at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. One of Mr. Williams's priorities at Penn State has been creating opportunities for students to get involved with alumni-association programs before they graduate.

A transcript of the chat follows.

Erin Strout (Moderator):
    Welcome to today's Brown Bag chat. Today we thank Roger Williams, the director of the Pennsylvania State University Alumni Association, for being our guest. Our discussion will focus on how to reach and stay connected to young alumni, which has proven to be a challenge for many organizations in recent years. Let's get started -- we have a lot of questions to get to, so submit yours early for the best shot at having Roger answer it today.

Roger L. Williams:
    The Penn State Alumni Association has developed a number of new programs and services designed to reach younger alumni and students, whom we call "alumni-in-training." From a new student membership contingent to an annual program of intellectual and cultural events in East Coast cities to travel-related initiatives to alumni career services, the effort to attract and retain young alumni is extremely challenging yet rewarding. A monthly e-newsletter launched in 2007 helps to effectively reach this alumni group and communicate these new opportunities in a format they prefer.

Question from Carmen Rosaly, Pontifical Catholic University of PR:
    1/23/08 What are some of your suggestions for attracting young alumni? Thanks, Carmen A. Rosaly

Roger L. Williams:
    Carmen: The key word here is relevance -- what is your alumni association doing and offering that is relevant to the lives of your young alumni. Here at the Penn State Alumni Association, we are adapting certain programs of long-standing such as alumni tours (shorter, cheaper, and in some instances oriented for young families), reunions (trying to find formats and times that work for young alumni, and recognition (we recently established a Universitwide recognition programs for high achieving alumni under 35). In addition, we have established a "City Lights" series of intellectual/cultural/networking events targeted at the major cities where 40% of our alumni live and work -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, New York, and Washington -- in an effort to reach out to younger and more diverse alumni. Our e-communications programs have been altered to better appeal, we hope, to young alumni. Our alumni career services, through webinars that have been quite popular with young alumni. And of course we are dabbling in and exploring various social networking and online community tools that should help us well.

Most important, however, is that we have been focusing on recruiting students while they are students into our alumni association. Our Blue and White Society, as we call it, now numbers 10,000 dues paying student members ($15) and we are working to familiarize them with the roles and opportunities and the lifelong relationship that will be presented to them after graduation.

Question from Terence Brennan, Jones International University:
    What strategies are effective for engaging alumni of online universities?

Roger L. Williams:
    Terence:

The key here is what are you doing or offering in ways that are relevant to online university alumni? At Penn State, our online World Campus now enrolls some 7,000 students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and almost all of them are non-traditional. They are working adults, with families and career responsibilities, and not a few of them are in the military at distant outposts worldwide. The challenge is how do you bind them to the university in ways that will affect their lives for the better?

Here, alumni career service programs, social networking, e-communications, can be effective tools that meet their needs. Is your online alumni association dues-paying? If so, can you offer a free membership for a period of time, so as to engage them and introduce them to your association?

Although traditional alumni reunions won't work, can you pull smaller interest groups of them together in urban areas where you have a critical mass of online alumni (and current students) to provide up close and personal networking opportunities and fun events that complement any social networking tools that you may be offering?

Question from Mike, Rutgers University:
    What can an alumni association do right now to strategically position itself with new/recent graduates?

Roger L. Williams:
    Mike: Boy, you've really cut right to the quick. For starters, do you have a student membership contingent at Rutgers, where you can start to introduce current students to the alumni association while they are students? Start the connection while they are in school, if possible.

With provide a free-year's membership for all graduates, and the challenge is always to convert them to paying membership after the free year expires. Thus the quality of our communications with them during this time, both e-communications and print, is very important. Alumni career services, mentoring programs, and events in their geographic locations are also important to younger alumni.

Also, in all of your communications, are you including features and items that appeal to younger alumni as well as older alumni -- not to mention the design and look of these media?

Question from Laura Neidert, Hampden-Sydney College:
    Hello, I'm working in career development at a small liberal arts college that is all male. My question is: how can you help bridge the gap between what the younger alumni want out of their programs, services, and events, and what the older generations of alumni want from us? A second question is: how do you incorporate alumni into any career mentoring programs?

Roger L. Williams:
    Laura: One of the best ways to figure our what younger alumni want is to ask them, through formal surveys and informal focus groups, as well as keeping your eyes and ears open in the various events and programs you offer for younger alumni. For us at Penn State, our younger alumni tell us they want career services, discounts, inexpensive and brief travel opportunities, and networking and social opportunities in their local metro areas. Is there a big event or festival of some sort that is part of your college's tradition that you can use to continue connecting to your constituency as the transition from students to alumni?

Our alumni career services has a number of new initiatives for young alumni. One such effort is LionLink, a career-mentoring program that helps Penn State students and alumni make professional connections or explore job fields.

Question from Anthony McAdoo, University of Arkansas:
    What research (particularly on the needs/wants of the demographic) has Penn State used in reaching out to this alumni market? Also, have you found geography/location of recent graduates to have an effect on which needs/wants they value most? Thanks, Roger.

Roger L. Williams:
    Anthony: We've done alumni satisfaction surveys and, interestingly enough, the age band with the strongest affinity and deepest affection for the University is from alumni under 35 years of age. We've done other more focused surveys as well. We're also reliant on our Student Affairs staff, which constantly surveys our undergraduate population and which provides us with clues as to what our "alumni-in-training" are doing and thinking.

Actually, we have higher membership penetration rates in our continuous and nearby states (Virginia, Maryland, New York, Connecticut, and especially New Jersey, as well as Texas and Florida, than we do in Pennsylvania. I'm not sure the age differential is as much of a factor in this as are the effects or living at a distance from alma mater.

Question from Craig Eozzo, College of Education, Penn State University:
    Dr. Williams,

Are there any best practices for encouraging young alumni to keep their address up to date? We keep an "update your profile with the alumni association" notation on many of our web pages but I would like to know if there are more effective means to keep our addresses current. Craig

Roger L. Williams:
    Craig, this is probably the greatest challenge we face. If you can't reach them, you can't do anything for or with them.

For recent graduates, on whom we confer a year's free membership, we are able to communicate with them for six months following their commencement through their student e-mail accounts. During this time, we send them three emails, each detailing a few benefits and services to better acquaint them with the PSAA and what it can do for them. The fourth and final email we send, just before their student accounts are due to expire, is a plea asking them to give us their best email address.

Of course, we do the standard things as well -- email appends, phone appends, home address appends -- but it's difficult. Very new grads -- and I count my daughter, an August 2007 graduate of Penn State -- among that number. They are transient, often moving through a series of jobs and addresses in the first year or two following graduation, and focused on many other things with their new lives.

We also offer an email forwarding address, so they (and all alums) have a means by which their friends can always reach them, but this benefit does not appeal to the vast majority.

Question from Ronald Smith, Umm al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia:
    Mr. Williams, I study in a foreign university where not even 1% of the student body is American. Since Americans began attending the university in the late 1970's, there have been approximately 60 graduates. These graduates don't have a networking system, nor are they in contact with current students. The present American student body would like to develop an alumni association as a way of assisting graduates find jobs and continue there studies, along with a host of other goals to be implemented on the basis of priority and capability. What advice can you give us to make this process as easy and effective as possible?

Thanks for your assistance.

Roger L. Williams:
    Ronald: I'm guessing your American alumni base is dispersed far and wide, and to connect them to your American student body, e-communications and perhaps social networking are the keys here. Can your university move in this direction in an experimental fashion to see of the two groups can develop an affinity and relationship for one another? Getting them talking to each other is the groundwork you need to lay for other programs to ensue from there.

Question from Keith Lue, Brigham Young University:
    Mr. Williams: Thank you for taking my question. Relevancy is a common objective for alumni groups. How does Penn State Alumni measure the relevancy of its programs and are the expected outcomes different for each generation?

Roger L. Williams:
    Keith:

We measure everything we can to check for relevance. We do alumni satisfaction surveys, which tell us our alumni are, in general, greatly satisfied with their Penn State experience. We also measure attendance and survey our attendees to gauge their satisfaction with particular programs and events. Usage and participation tell us as much about what is working as anything. Our new online alumni library is generating widespread usage, much to our delight. Another new program, offering discounted professional school test preparation at a discount to our new, younger members, has not generated nearly the interest we had expected.

Currently, we are experimenting with a young alumni reunion, held during the morning of Homecoming. We expected 125-150 this past fall, and more than 200 showed up, so we think we are onto something. Sometimes, as you know, you simply have to experiment, take the leap, and see what happens.

Question from Erin Strout:
    I've heard that some larger institutions recently surveyed young alumni and were surprised to learn that they really value their alumni magazines -- that they loved having something arrive in the mail from their alma mater. I think a lot of people found this surprising. What do you make of it in terms of keeping in touch with what seems like a fickle generation?

Roger L. Williams:
    Erin:

Our Penn Stater magazine is not going away in print form; it is far and away our most highly valued benefit of membership. We do, however, take pains to make the magazine relevant and interesting to younger alumni as well, so that they are seeing and reading some features about people who look pretty much like them. In our most recent issue, for example, we ran a feature on Paranormal State, the new cable show on our student organization that studies weird phenomena.

We are looking now at creating an online analogue of the magazine in an effort to appeal, in part, to younger alumni.

In addition, we have created a monthly e-newsletter that complements the Penn Stater and appeals to a younger audience, according to the feedback we get. And of course, we are looking into various social networking tools.

Erin Strout (Moderator):
    We are about halfway through our discussion time today, so if you have any questions, now is the time to ask them.

Question from Michelle S., Penn State:
    I'm curious about ways to foster a sense of community at a place like Penn State where the student culture is so fractured and diverse. Aside from student groups or disciplinary lines, are there other avenues to pursue?

Roger L. Williams:
    Michelle: Yeah, the student culture is fractured and diverse -- there are more than 600 registered student organizations -- but at the same time, Penn State generates a surprisingly strong culture of unity -- "We are...Penn State" is the signature battle cry of this institution, and it speaks volumes about the sense of affiliation students develop and carry over as alumni.

Our most recent alumni satisfaction survey (2006) shows that 98 percent of alumni are satisfied with their undergraduate experience (74% strongly so); 83 percent have "positive overall feelings (70% strongly so); and 92% would recommend Penn State to a prospective undergraduate.

Interestingly, the age band reporting the greatest degree of "very positive feelings" is under 35, as contrasted with the 36-54 and 55+ cohorts.

But we work proactively as well. Our student membership contingent, the Blue & White Society is 10,000 members. The is a "pan-Penn State" student organization dedicated to perpetuating Penn State spirit, through campus and community service, athletics, social and networking events, and student-alumni activities. We look at this group as a great unifying entity and the source of future members of the PSAA.

Our student-alumni corps, the Lion Ambassadors, does much to keep and spread Penn State history and lore to the student body and others. Its annual "Lantern Tour" takes thousands of students across campus where Ambassadors present brief skits of Penn State history. And its "Senior Sendoff" on the lawn of our alumni center the last week of classes attracts upwards of 2,000 -- 30 percent of the senior class -- for an afternoon of relaxation and celebration. All of these events -- and so much more -- foster a sense of unity and community.

And two, we have two great forces that unify our student body. Penn State football, which students love; and THON, our annual dance marathon -- the largest student-run philanthropy in the world that engages between 3,000 to 4,000 students annually.

It also shows up in our membership rate as an alumni association. That rate is 34%, which is almost twice the national average of 18% for dues-paying alumni association. Our alumni association is in many ways the beneficiary of the wide and deep Penn State identity that is spawned at the University Park campus and our 23 other campuses across the state.

Question from Sloane Starke, The American School Foundation of Mexico City:
    Hello! Do you use Facebook and if so, how?

Roger L. Williams:
    Sloane: We do use Facebook, but in a limited way -- as a part of our "Grassroots Network" which is our legislative education and advocacy arm for our volunteers. Facebook has been introduced, particularly in an effort to get students involved in our Grassroots Network, and the Facebook network is growing quickly.

In addition, our two student groups put up Facebook pages for their various events and programs.

Question from Steve Proctor, Ohio State:
    Can you give us examples of the content of one of your career services webinars, please.

Roger L. Williams:
    Steve:

The most popular Webinar is the career JobSearch, which is really like "job search 101." It covers resume review, the basics of networking, the basics of job hunting, and the like. We're doing another one very soon. You may want to talk to Cheryl Bonner, our director of Alumni Career Services, at ccb11@psu.edu

Question from Laura Neidert, Hampden-Sydney College:
    In what ways are young alumni similar to older generations of alumni?

Roger L. Williams:
    Laura: In nearly equal proportion, our alumni, regardless of age, relate to the unifying concept of "Penn State" as an institution rather than any of its discrete parts, such as colleges, campuses, or academic departments. In addition, alumni satisfaction is fairly consistent along the age spectrum, although for us, satisfaction tends to be higher among the under-35 crowd, though the differences are not that great.

We do not see a lot of difference among the generations in terms of their pride in the institution and the joy they take in being together as alumni.

Question from Andrew Shafer, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville:
    We are in the process of forming our Young Alumni Council. We are trying to be innovative in our approach to this council for fear of it turning into "just another meeting." Do you have any tips on what to do, or not to do, with a newly formed Young Alumni Council?

Roger L. Williams:
    Andrew: This is a great opportunity -- why not ask them what they want to get out of this organization and how they want to proceed? Use your Young Alumni Council as a focus group and go from there.

Question from Erin Doty, Washington University:
    Can you describe an example of one of your "City Light" events? What do you do to make these different than a standard cocktail reception aimed at networking?

Roger L. Williams:
    Erin:

Never thought you'd ask!

We do about six or seven City Lights events in our five largest metro areas. Typically, these consist of a cultural or intellectual component with our faculty as well as a reception preceding the event.

For example, last February, we did a City Lights events in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute around the King Tut exhibit. We used one of our Egyptologists to present a lecture and answer questions before the tours through the exhibit. In Pittsburgh, we did a City Lights program around food and wine, in the Strip

District at a great Italian restaurant and market, using one of our hospitality management professors to talk about what our guests were tasting.

In two weeks, we'll do our first City Lights of the spring season at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, where our alumni will attend a Pops Concert conducted by Marvin Hamlisch. The reception will feature a talk by our Marching Band director on the music of George Gerschwin, which will be be featured during the Pops performance.

We love this series, and it has made us much more visible and active in our key metro areas.

Question from Aileen Hogan, Marymount Manhattan College:
    How do you attract younger alumni without imposing the obligation of a donation?

Roger L. Williams:
    Aileen:

By donation do you mean dues, or do you mean a gift solicited by the annual fund? At our institution, these are very different processes. The alumni association does not directly raise money for the university.

At Penn State, we have, however, a very high correlation between membership in the alumni association and giving to the university -- about 90%. Our members tend to step up and give our of sense of noblesse oblige and interest in seeing the University thrive.

Question from Patricia S. Rudden, Alumni Association of Hunter College:
    Our association no longer collects dues, receiving a small subsidy and some office space from the college instead. I'm curious to know what the Penn State Alumni Association charges, and any differences in approach you might see between a dues and non-dues alumni group.

Roger L. Williams:
    Patricia: We are dues-paying. Single annual dues are $50 and single life is $600, with various permutations thereof.

We also have a two-tiered pricing structure for most of our events and programs. Members pay less than non-members.

In addition, you've asked a very important question about the difference in dues and non-paying dues alumni associations, and it would take a dissertation to answer it fully.

To my mind, however, one of the chief advantages of dues-paying is that it relieves the institution proper from the financial burden of supporting it and using those dollars for education purposes instead. Dues-paying also indicates a level of interest on the part of alumni in alma mater. It is the threshold of interest, loyalty and commitment and makes it easier for development officers and others to cherry pick the best alumni from the alumni universe.

Question from Sarah Mell, Burlington College:
    As a relatively 'young' alum myself, I struggle to see the relevance of any alumni organization to my current life/career. Though I recognize the networking opportunities that might exist, particularly now that I work in the field of higher education, I still can't see getting any bang for my buck. What do you believe the role of an alumnae organization should be in the lives of graduates?

Roger L. Williams:
    Sara: I agree that relevance is the key, and career development and networking opportunities are probably among the best things that can be done for young alumni, especially for a small college.

But what is missing here, at least from my perspective, is the sense of noblesse oblige. By that I mean the intrinsic commitment of younger alumni to want to see their institution proper so that it can provide great opportunities for those who will come behind you. One of the best ways of ensuring that will happen is to become a member of the alumni association and to look for additional opportunities for engagement beyond that.

In other words, if I can pervert John Kennedy's famous aphorism -- "Ask not what your university can do for you; ask what you can do for your university."

Question from Erin Strout:
    Are there other institutions--big or small--that you've seen that are using strategies to connect either with young or nontraditional graduates that you believe are unique or worth taking a closer look at their success?

Roger L. Williams:
    Erin: One of the most interesting cases we're looking at is the University of Illinois Alumni Association. Illinois and Penn State are two of the oldest and largest dues-paying alumni associations in the United States. But Illinois is moving away from the dues-paying model, making all students "collegiate members" free of charge and making all alumni members in one way shape or form.

The University if Virginia has an interesting approach to student memberships -- they market student life memberships where, if students sign up, they become life members and defer their payments till after graduation. As I understand it, this model works very successfully.

Many alumni associations in recent years -- particularly dues-paying public universities -- have created student membership contingents, in order to acquaint students with the alumni universe that awaits them while they are still on our campuses. This is a basket into which Penn State has placed many eggs.

Question from Tara, small private college:
    In the past our alumni office has not made much effort to stay in touch with alumni other than with a quarterly newsletter. How can we go about convincing alumni to be more involved in the college when they've hardly been contacted in 10-20 years?

Roger L. Williams:
    Tara: Consider e-communications in addition to your print newsletter. And work with your academic colleagues to create opportunities for engagement, whether it be serving on advisory boards for academic departments and administrative units, mentoring programs with students, admissions recruitment work, and so forth.

Frequency of communications can help, but you have to go beyond. My surmise is that your alumni communications dynamic is mainly one-way -- you are putting it out there. Engagement, however, requires greater effort.

Question from Eric A. Middlebury College, small liberal arts:
    What do you find is the most effective method of keeping information up to date (physical address, e-mail, etc) on this very mobile section of alumni?

Roger L. Williams:
    Eric: All of the above. Everything is changing and we try to procure changes in contact information through various means. Some of the ways:

1. We start from the very beginning with a commencement update form

2. registrar updates -- an electronic monthly process when they request transcripts.

3. Updates that we receive through our online directory and career services units.

4. Emails sent prior to graduation and during the six-month time frame afterward, before their university email expires.

5. And we subscribe to the address correction service that provides electronic files of address updates.

If we lose a graduate's address, we do electronic and hard copy tracers to the email address and next of kind, past home and business addresses respectively.

We also do vendor home, phone, and email address appends.

Question from Laura Neidert, Hampden-Sydney College:
    Hi Roger, Can you talk more about how lion link works specifically? We are trying to connect students and alumni through our office and online job board as well.

Roger L. Williams:
    Laura: Briefly, alumni act as career coaches while alumni and students are "career explorers." The career explorers can search the online database of LionLink members to find career coaches they want to contact and then they set up information interviews.

Cheryl Bonner, our director, can provide you more information at ccb11@psu.edu

Question from M J Mueller, Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management (Alumni Board Member Rochester, NY Chapter):
    What can an alumni group do to capture the interest and ongoing commitment of recent graduates when they are faced with so many other opportunities to invest their time?

Roger L. Williams:
    MJ: I think one of the best things you can offer as a chapter or alumni society is the opportunity for them to network with each other. Aside from purely social gatherings, anything related to career development seems to work well.

Our chapters do a great job of reaching out to young alumni and inviting them to join when they move to metro areas such as New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.

Question from Dave Westol, Limberlost Consulting, Carmel, Indiana:
    Dr. Williams, a belief that approaches urban legend status is that alumni/ae of men's and women's fraternities and sororities are more engaged and indeed more loyal to alma mater than non-members. Has that been your experience at Penn State and if so, do you target or identify these folks in any way? Thanks and thank you for your very informative responses.

Roger L. Williams:
    Mike: We do get a stronger response from Greek alumni than non-Greek. First, they tend to be joiners, and that shows up in a higher rate for our alumni association membership.

For certain appeals, such as our annual dance marathon to raise money for children with cancer, Greeks play a particularly strong role and their response to solicitations in this regard is higher.

Question from Michael Cunningham, Brigham Young University:
    Do you solicit donations from your newest graduates?

Roger L. Williams:
    Michael: Yes, but this process is handled by our Office of Annual Giving, not the Alumni Association proper.

Question from Becky Shaner, Alumni Relations, Pennsylvania College of Technology:
    How often to you survey your young alumni population and by what means do you do so?

Roger L. Williams:
    Becky: Not nearly as often as we would like, and more often as part of a larger survey where we can segment them out according to age. We also do smaller surveys of alumni subgroups, using Survey Monkey at key times before and/or after events and programs. The Penn Stater magazine does a readership survey after every issue.

Question from Michael Cunningham, Brigham Young University:
    What services and activities does the university alumni association offer that differs from college (engineering, business, law) offerings?

Roger L. Williams:
    Michael: We like to believe that we exist and work in complementary fashion.

The "mother ship" offers the directory, online, and we often cooperate with various colleges and campuses in the programs and events we offer, even off-site.

In fact, on our governing board are representatives from every college (13) and campus (23) of the University, so we embed them into our DNA that way.

In addition, we offer a few "meta-services" such as the online alumni library, tours and trips, various discounts on services and benefits, etc.

Question from Dave Steadman, Hamilton College:
    How do your young alumni engagement programs at Penn State translate to increasing annual giving? Since you've instituted increased career, educational and social networking opportunities have you also seen an increase in philanthropic participation?

Roger L. Williams:
    Dave: I'm not sure I can give you the specific answers you seek, but I can tell you that our recent graduates -- and our current students too for that matter -- are solicited by the annual giving operation for gifts to the University.

That aspect, however, is handled by the Office of University Development, not the alumni association.

In addition, we see a very high correlation between membership and giving -- 90% of the money from all alumni in a given year is donated by members of the alumni association.

Question from Laura Neidert, Hampden-Sydney College:
    Roger, You've mentioned the importance of student alumni groups many times, and I'm in agreement with you on that. What are some important criteria to keep in mind when trying to launch a group like that?

Roger L. Williams:
    Laura: Make it broad based so that it appeal to everyone, key in on pride and spirit, make the communications hip and currents and appropriate to the demographics of the college. And get a good student governing board with adult supervision (the adviser is key and should be on your staff so as to provide continuity)

Question from Erin Strout:
    Hey roger - we're going to have to wrap up soon, so you may want to answer one more question and then send a very brief closing! Great chat!

Roger L. Williams:
    Colleagues: The little finger on my left hand just fell off, so I think I'm going to wrap it up for now.

I can't tell you how enjoyable it has been doing this and the quality of questions has been most impressive.

The key to our future is connecting and engaging our younger alumni, and given all the changes out there, we are constantly going to have to come up with new answers. Roger Williams

Erin Strout (Moderator):
    Unfortunately, we've run out of time for today's chat. There were a lot of great questions that we didn't have time to get to, but thanks so much to Roger for being our guest and sharing his strategies and wisdom today. Thanks also to everybody for their participation in today's Brown Bag.