Summary of Alumni Engagement Ideas Submitted via the Strategic Planning Process — Fall 2011

Suggestions: Include more and better alumni and networking services, more opportunities for alumni to teach and mentor, more donor choices, enhanced alumni and development engagement from the College and acknowledgement of mission concerns. These specific suggestions are largely alumni-generated:

Services

  • Reinstate the Alumni Travel program.
  • Create website where alumni can buy and sell alumni-offered goods and services .
  • Allow alumni to bid on College-contracted projects.
  • Offer a group insurance program.
  • Publicize successful alumni more and better.
  • Build a searchable database for alumni to share professional paths and network.
  • Set up a continuing education program for alumni; send the Alumni College idea out to alumni communities; make some available online.

Teaching opportunities

  • Use academic alumni as outside readers of student work.
  • Reinstate the alumni-in-residence program.
  • Reinstate the Alumni Scholars program.
  • Have alumni offer short courses on how to network.
  • Ask alumni to teach and perform on campus.

Mentoring opportunities

  • Engage older alumni with younger alumni in grad school.
  • Engage alumni with current students as mentors or career advisers; pair seniors with qualified alumni postgrad advisers based on student’s postgrad interest.
  • Enable students to contact alumni who share their interests.
  • Expand alumni engagement in admission.

Networking

  • Expand commitment to fellow classmates into commitment of Grinnell as an institution.
  • Establish a network of alums and engage them more; make stronger alumni communities; establish alumni clubs across the country.
  • Build an interactive website where alumni can interact with students, faculty, staff, and each other; replace The Loggia, which is not well-liked or widely used by alumni.
  • Build an Alumni Collaboratory, a new building for alumni to connect with students and each other.

A customized, improved donor experience 

  • Allow alumni to search for and donate to specific projects, departments, research, or students to sponsor; create a “donors choose” website.
  • Enhance ability for fundraising and development office/staff to interact with alumni.

Engage the disengaged

  • Ask alums who don’t give why they don’t.  
  • Assure better follow-through with alumni when they are asked to help the College.
  • Acknowledge and address the perception among some alumni that social justice has overtaken education as the College’s primary mission.