Transcript Document

Embracing a New Era in
Alumni and Donor Communications
Constituent Relations in an E-World
Washington DC, USA
March 13, 2003
Andrew K. Tiedemann
Communications Director
Alumni Affairs and Development
Harvard University
Questions to Ask
• How do we define engagement?
• Can it be measured?
• How much do we know about our alumni
and their engagement levels?
Potential Engagement
Indicators
Cares about you
Reads your publications, visits the alumni website
(is well informed)
Stays in touch with classmates
Files class notes
Participates in class events
Attends local club events
Gives at levels appropriate to capacity
Serves as a volunteer in some way
What We Know
• 309,000 alumni
• 260,000 postal addresses
• 110,000 email addresses
• Harvard College Class Reports
• Giving history
Alumni Attitudes
“How informed are you about Harvard today?”
% = College respondents
58%
56%
52%
36%
34%
28%
16%
12%
8%
1994 1997 2001
Not informed
1994 1997 2001
Somewhat informed
1994 1997 2001
Very informed
Harvard Alumni Online
• 93% with email
• 57% visit alumni website
• Connection to classmates
• Access to intellectual content
• Career mentoring
What Harvard Has Online
• Harvard Monthly Email
• Harvard@Home
• Post.Harvard Community
• Online Directory
• Club and Class Website Hosting
What’s Missing?
• Individual engagement levels
• Individual interests
• Life stage histories
• Correlation of involvement and giving
• Measurability of existing programs
Smart Investments
Age
21
Age
81
AA&D Resource Allocation
Lifetime Engagement Index
Lifetime Giving Value
Metrics Model
Institutional ROI
Summary Data – Giving
1. Raised – New Gifts and Pledges by School, Fiscal Year
2. Received – Gift Receipts by School, Fiscal Year
3. Giving consistency – University-wide by Fiscal Year
4. Year end pledge balances by School, Fiscal Year
5. Scale of gifts – University Wide by Fiscal Year
6. Giving vehicles
7. Donor constituency
8. Economic indicators of Development Environment
(Calendar Year)
Metrics Model
Institutional ROI
Summary Data – Engagement
1. Engagement opportunities
2. Number of donors by School
3. Reunion attendance
4. Other alumni affairs events
5. Memberships
6. Continuing education
7. Lost alumni counts
8. Alumni attitudes
9. Online activities
One to One
• Build lifetime profile for each alumnus/alumna
• Capture self-identified interests
• Personalize all messaging
• Record all contacts online and off
• Create engagement indices
Alumni Profile
Channels of alumni communication are
sources of information:
• Classmates on giving committees
• Volunteers on numerous other committees
• Class notes
• Class reports
• Phonathon calls (both students and volunteers)
• Surveys
• Club associations
• Other involvement
Alumni Profile
Types of information to consider:
• Professional information
• Communication preferences
• Marital and family information
• Participation/engagement with
Harvard
• Other Harvard affiliations
• Interests
• Volunteer activities, across the
University, in all areas Email
received
• Personal Harvard experiences
• Print mail received
• Reasons for giving or not giving
• Phone call received
• Salutations
• Responses/lack thereof
• Messaging
Alumni Relationship
Management
Capture all alumni communication channels
Clubs
Analytics
Trigger
Systems
Alumni
Events
Peer
To
Peer
Voice
Channel
Integration
Marketing
Database
Campaign
Management
Systems
Website
Email
Print
Operational
Systems
Management
Reporting
Alumni Relations Engagement
Alumni Board Member
150 points
Club President
100 points per year
Club Member
25 points per year
Travel Study
25 points
Club Event Attended
10 points per event
Survey Response
10 points
Postal Address
1 point per year
Email Address
1 point per year
Online Community
1 point per visit
Donor Relations Engagement
Endowment Donor
150 points
Executive Committee
100 points per year
Major Gift Committee
100 points per year
Class Gift Committee
100 points per year
Volunteer Solicitor
50 points per year
3-Year Annual Donor
50 points per year
1-Year Annual Donor
25 points per year
Event Attended
10 points per year
SYBUNT Donor
1 point per year
Engagement by Segment
Engagement Indices
Age Group
AR
DR
0-9
0-9
10-24
10-24
Passive Engaged
25-100
25-100
Active Engaged
100+
100+
Source: Charlie Cardillo, Andy Tiedemann, and
Jonathan Byrnes
20s
Disengaged
Leaders
30s
X
X
40s
50s
60s
70s
Disengaged alumni don’t give.
How Can We Improve Affinity?
Affinity
Expressed by Giving:
Transactions
Expressed by Engagement:
Attendance and Leadership
Use Data to:
•Better understand the nature of affinity expressed
by one’s gift giving
•Better understand the evolution of affinity over time
Donor Relationship Metric:
Annual and Accumulated Participation
Fully 75% of the Undergraduate Alumni base contributed to Harvard
over the period while 44% contributed in ‘00
Harvard Undergraduate Degrees
Annual & Accum ulated Participation
80%
75%
70%
Opportunity Gap:
31 Points
Percent Participation
60%
50%
44%
40%
30%
20%
10%
Excludes Senior Year Gifts and
Radcliffe Alumnae prior to 1976
Annual Participation
Cumulative Participation
Challenge: How to increase frequency of giving?
Source: Connie Cervilla, Core Group
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
1979
0%
Recent Retention
of Alumni Donors
100.0%
Retention of Undergraduate Alumni Donors to the Annual Fund FY'02
by Years of Consecutive Giving
87.3%
90.0%
Percent of Donors Retained
80.0%
In ’02, Alumni
donors giving more
frequently had
higher retention
rates than less
frequent donors.
75.0%
70.0%
66.5%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
35.4%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
New Donors
2 Year Donors
3-4 Year Donors
Years of Consecutive Giving
5 Year + Donors
Recent Reactivation
of Alumni Donors
50.0%
Reactivation of Undergraduate Alumni Donors to the Harvard College Fund
by Years Lapsed
45.0%
43.3%
In ’02, Alumni
donors who gave in
recent years were
“reactivated” at
much higher rates
than those
dormant for more
years.
Percent of Reactivated Donors
40.0%
35.0%
30.0%
25.0%
22.3%
20.0%
14.6%
15.0%
10.0%
4.1%
5.0%
0.0%
1 Year Lapsed
2 Year Lapsed
3-5 Year Lapsed
6 Year + Lapsed
Years Lapsed - Since Last Gift
Finding: Frequency correlates to retention over
the short term.
Components of
Alumni Donor Value
• Size of the Alumni donor base & its growth – Participation
* Challenges: Younger classes & recent donor growth
• Size of the gift – Gift size & its evolution over time
* Challenges: Encourage frequent giving & tailor the
message to the sequence of gift
• Retention of the Alumni donors – Reactivation & Attrition
*Challenges: Encourage frequent giving & convert first time
donors to a second gift
Alumni Association
Objectives
• Measure effectiveness
• Gauge resource productivity
• Target segments with programs
• Create market-oriented support systems
Project Overview
1.
Establish a baseline by program and School
• Cost
• Segments
• Engagement
2. Map onto ladder of engagement and analyze
3. Design – implement supporting systems
• Analytical system
• Operational system
4. Refine Association activities using the new information
• marketing/outreach
• portfolio of programs
• program operations
The Ladder
of Engagement
Alumni
overall
Class
notes
Reunions
Clubs
Travel
study
Speaker
Programs
Web
Magazine
SIG
Others
Very Active
Active
Passive
Unengaged
• Which programs affect which segments?
• Which programs move alumns up the ladder (at each level)?
• Which programs are most productive for which segments?
• What is the best portfolio of programs to maximize engagement?
Source: Charlie Cardillo
Program Evaluation
A. Data Feeds
C. Planning
Program/Activity Sources
•
•
•
•
•
•
University-Wide
College
Graduate School
Clubs
Classes
Vendors
Analysis/Targeting
B. DATABASE
Production
•
•
•
•
•
Source: Charlie Cardillo
Class Reports
Travel Study
Reunions
Regional Events
Club Activities
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Engagement Metrics
Profiling/Modeling
Resource Productivity
Gap Analysis
Program Portfolio
Prioritization
Cost/Benefit – Budgets
Program Activity
Value to Alumni
• Access to shared interest groups
• Relevant message/content
• Peer-to-peer communication
• Life stage programming
• Involvement opportunities
• Fun, lifelong friendships
Value to the University
• Develop segment-appropriate engagement
programs
• Measure program effectiveness
• Integrate online and real-time
activities
• Increase engagement
• Identify leaders
• Ability to survey opinions by numerous
segmentations
• Resource-allocation indicators
Engagement Process Overview
Specify
System
Done
Obtain
Obtain HAA
Stakeholder
Commitment
Participation
Done
In Process
Obtain
Data
In Process
Set up
Ongoing
Data
Collection
In Process
Perform
Analysis
In Process
Improve
Practice
Beginning
Obtain Data –
Clubs On-line Participation
2003 –
20 Clubs
• HC – DC
• HC – Denver
• HC – Maryland
• HC – San Francisco
• HC – Silicon Valley
• HC – So. California
• HC – UK
• 11 more HC
• 2 HBS Clubs (Toronto, Dallas)
• HC – Boston
• HC – New York
2004 –
40 Clubs
2005 –
All Clubs
Harvard Club of Chicago
• Alumni within a 40 mile radius
• Member = 1,397 in 2002
• 16.8% “market share”
• 30% of members have College degree
• 76.6% renewal: why did 24% leave?
• 10+ years from graduation = 17.4%
• 10<years from graduation = 13%
Club Membership
Now
Participation: (acquisition, retention, and reactivation)
• Do not capture club membership history
• Track self-reported data on membership composition and
club practices per annual survey of club presidents
• Provide updated regional contact lists for snail mail
• Produce clubs directory and give out to College seniors when
the pick up Commencement Tickets
• Provide website hosting (template) and online listing of
club websites
Transition: (Moving Club Members)
• Nothing
Club Membership
In a Knowledge
Managed Environment
Participation: (acquisition, retention, and reactivation)
• Individual Harvard Club (potentially HBS and HLS clubs) membership history data
captured through online membership registration
• Identify members and profile them by tenure, activity, interests
• Establish baseline membership and event programming standards
• Customize membership appeals based on program participation and interest data for
members and non-members
• Help clubs establish membership appeal frequency strategy based on member loyalty
profiles
• Share membership data with other schools to inform their regional programming
• Inform the development prospect profiles to enhance research efforts and
predictive modeling
• Push online membership registration to graduating students before they leave campus
• Create loyalty recognition program
• Provide data to clubs on alumni who move to their area who were club
members in the city they left
Transition: (Moving Club Members)
• Provide data to clubs on alumni who move to their area who were club members in the
city they left
Club Programming
Now
• Support Clubs’ Annual Dinner programs through
Speakers Bureau Program
• Facilitate Harvard-Yale Telecast
• Work with club leadership to promote Universitywide membership
• Broadcast advertising
• Most Club events not open to non-members
Club Programming
In a Knowledge
Managed Environment
• Programming targeted toward member interests
• Programming targeted toward non-member interests
• Personalized communications
• Online event registration
• Program benchmarking across clubs
• Tie club programming with Harvard sports in their club region
Club Administration
Now
• Provide Clubs manual to encourage standard practices
• Online membership and Event Registration Prototype
launched to gather data
• Most Club administration done at the local level
either by a paid administrator or by volunteers
Club Administration
In a Knowledge
Managed Environment
• Club administrator tools provided by HAA to facilitate
membership and event registration, communication and list
segmentation; integrated with central database.
MIT Alumni Association
• Total alumni population: 110,000
• Student population: 10,000 graduate &
undergraduate
• Approximately 100 alumni clubs worldwide
• 6,000 alumni volunteer each year
• 33% participate in Alumni Fund
• Infinite Connection: Used by 46% of all alums,
features include alumni directory, email lists, career
services
MIT’s Technology
Five years ago, MIT’s Alumni Association used technology
the same way everyone else uses it now:
• Central alumni database
• Clubs/association depts. also used Filemaker and
Excel
• Alumni website launched in 1995
• Web limited to number of registrants, email addresses
on file
• Marketing
MIT’s New Metrics
• Clubs, Alumni Association staff and alumni now enter
all data into a central resource
• Event and marketing activity is also recorded, not
only by number but also by type
• All program activities and events are assigned an
activity code
• All marketing pieces – print and email – are also
assigned codes
• The result: Any activity can be measured against any
other activity, demographic group or marketing piece.
Goals of MIT
Alumni Metrics
• Measure effectiveness of programs
• Measure effectiveness of email and print marketing
• Examples: Costa Rica trip, graduate alumni
marketing, alumni leadership conference
• Measure ROI of programs and marketing, better
allocate resources: MIT on the Road
• Correlate alumni activities with giving
MIT’s Best Practices
• Start with a small team
• Build up support for the project – clubs and
departments will benefit greatly from advanced metrics
• Recognize primary issues – databases
• Determine why you want to work with advanced
metrics
• Launch a pilot project
• Designate translators
• Make sure all groups use the same standards to
report and interpret their metrics
• Don’t go overboard with releasing data
Questions?
Contact:
Andrew K. Tiedemann
Communications Director
Alumni Affairs and Development
Harvard University
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 617-495-5945