Alumnae Engagement Tracking

Miki Martin

Being an all girls' Catholic high school, we have the alumni feature in RE. Administration recently asked me if we could track engagement through our database, as right now this is done via spreadsheet. We have the Events module, so we can track those that attend events. Outside of those events, though, I don't see how we could track things.

Does anyone else have ideas on how we could track other engagements, such as if an alum comes to speak to a class? Do you include reunions, since those aren't hosted by the school but are coordinated strictly by the class? I am eager to utilize all resources available in our great DB but want to be smart about doing things.

Henrietta Hawkins

Hi Miki, just wanted to jump in here - one of our NXT Add-Ins might be a solution for you. It's called Engagement Tile and you can set up your own scoring model to track what's important to you. More info here. One of the customer stories (on that same page) we have is an NZ university that uses it for Alumni - and finding forgotten supporters. Happy to answer any questions just email me at henri@redarc.systems

Dan Snyder

@Miki Martin I have not had a chance to really look at the Engagement Tile @Henrietta Hawkins mentions, but we once a year pull information out of RE and create our own “Engagement Score” and add it as a rating (attribute/custom field could work as well). We are building up a few years of ratings so we can see some trends as we have more data. Our criteria is below.

Miki Martin

@Henrietta Hawkins I did not even think to look in Marketplace for an add-in. I will certainly tuck away this information to share with Administration.

@Dan Snyder thank you for sharing your metrics and definitions! This might be a great first step for us.

Karen Diener

You also may have luck using Actions, if you use specific Types in combination with Categories. You can include summaries of actions in Export, and are able to refine each summary to specific categories, types, timeframes, etc. It obviously requires someone to be putting the data in to RE, but that is no different from any other piece of data you want to report!

Karen

Faith Murray

Miki, as Karen suggested, Actions and Events will be your best friend.

• I would recommend using an Event for the Reunion attendance, or any similar conferences, galas, etc.
• You may consider the Volunteer module, if you have it, for speakers, book sale helpers, committees, etc. - anything where they are investing their time or serving as an ambassador.
• Actions will lend well to communications and “inter-actions” with your org: if they send a Christmas card to your CEO, nominate their favorite teacher, vote on an alumni ballot, etc. Just make sure you have your Action “Types” well organized so you can do efficient data pulls.
• Consider an Attribute (Custom field) for Board Member affiliations, Class Chairs, or Committees, especially if you don't have the Volunteer module. We keep one drop-down table Attribute for all sorts of boards: our Alumni Board members, our Event Board members, our Regents, our Finance Committee, etc. We include an option for “former member” as well.
• The “Membership” module also works well for Board/Committee/Class Chair terms, because it includes start/end dates.
• Definitely keep a record of any awards your alumni earn. This could be an alumni award, honor spot at a donor banquet, or other recognition. Entering this as a “Recognition” drop-down Attribute keeps things clean and easy to search. Just think how much your major gift officers will appreciate you for keeping this info at their fingertips.

Those are some starter ideas! I don't really think you need to invest in any third-party plug-ins. RE already has so much capacity. I really like @Dariel Dixon's engagement rating system (might borrow that myself!) but I think being able to pull that data and assign a score is dependent on already having all that supporting data entered in their records to begin with.

Laura Fong

Love these ideas! Do you (or any one else feel free to reply) have experience with the Volunteer module as it relates to alumni?

Miki Martin

@Laura Fong we do not have the Volunteer module at my school so I cannot speak to it. Hopefully others might comment on it.

I am hoping to start tracking our engagement better besides the Events. It's just a matter of structuring it in a helpful way.