COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IVY PLUS CONFERENCE JUNE 2011 Engagement Models: Thoughts on Getting Started

Benchmarking Among Peers In March 2011, nine leaders from six Ivy Plus schools met at a half-day conference at Columbia’s Alumni Center in New York City.  MIT  Princeton  Dartmouth  Harvard  Cornell  Yale  plus materials from Brown The focus was engagement models: what we are doing now, what we hope to do, and what we can share.

Benchmarking Among Peers We measure… …but few of us tie these together yet. Satisfaction Participation Club Strength SurveysOnline# of events Focus groupsEvent attendance# of communications Volunteering# of board members Giving

Benefits of Engagement Models Ability to validate value internally Ability to apportion resources to maximize engagement Difficulties of Modeling Engagement Hard to show impact on bottom line Alumni “gifts” are not comparable: donation, promotion, volunteering, “keeping the university honest,” creating community Data gathered/stored may not be uniform 4 Benchmarking Among Peers

Benchmarking Also conducted nine interviews with six schools identified via Association of Private College and University Alumni Directors as leaders in this area  Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)  University of Chicago  Vanderbilt  Emory  Stanford (both Ivy Plus and leader!)

Benchmarking Many schools just beginning these projects  Timing coincides with 2008 downturn in economy  More competition for university funding  Need to validate value of alumni relations programs

Benchmarking Goals vary… …and raise questions. 1. Can we gather data well enough to create a model that will help us to optimize these outcomes? 2. Should we optimize all three? In what order? 3. How can we protect traditions while nimbly reacting to alumni needs? Increase Satisfaction Increase Participation Drive Development

Models to Consider Emory  Creates engagement percentage:  Number of alumni who participate / number of contactable alumni  Determine correlation between engagement % and donation RIT  Determines effect on donation via regression model  Apportions resources according to impact on donation Chicago  Tests satisfaction via survey to sample population that matches overall database in terms of engagement

What These Models Can Provide Ease of setting and measuring progress to goals  Goals can be set more quickly and can be better compared unit to unit Ability to plan for tidal program changes  E.g., increase in SIGs Finer segmentation of population  Easier to target donors in the pipeline  Easier to create tiers for exclusive invitations or communications

What These Models Require Additional staff for accurate data entry  Many schools hired “volunteer coordinators” to gather information about volunteer activity across campus  Some schools hired staff to create programs in “under- satisfied” areas Shared vocabulary across campus (e.g., what counts as a “volunteer”?) Ability to shift funding based on model Shared goals, agreement about what matters most

What Does Your Model Measure? What is your brand?  Our brands are the strongest in the world  Excellence, power, integrity, history  Each model must be different, must acknowledge  How remarkable our specific alumni and institutions are  The emotional, familial nature of the bond we forge  That we are respectful stewards of University funds