Creating and communicating a strategy for your alumni relations activity is more important than ever. A successful Alumni Relations operation should be tied into the institution's larger goals, and be tangible, measurable, collaborative and ultimately, worth investing in. We'll demystify strategy and show how it can link to institutional mission and values. This session will explore how best to arrive at a strategy: what the components might be, how it lives alongside other institutional partners, how it is communicated and ultimately how it is measured. Participants are encouraged to bring copies of their institution's wider strategic plans as well as their Alumni Relations strategic plans (if they have them).

Successful alumni programmes are built on data, data, data. This session will cover everything you need to know about data: from its value and applications to its collection, maintenance and sharing. We'll explore how to read and tell the story behind your alumni data, and how to use this to inform your alumni programming. Come prepared with what you know and don’t know about your alumni data.

Communications is the most important form of engagement for any institution. Done properly, it will pave the way for successful engagement around events, volunteering and fundraising. In this session, we will look at the full spectrum of communications from membership joining campaigns to newsletters, event invitations and calls for volunteers and donations. How often are you engaging alumni and what tools are you using? How can you plan and measure this better to make all of it a pleasant and effective experience for your alumni, as well harness this important stakeholder group for the benefit of your institution?

Events have always been, and continue to be, a core staple of any successful alumni and supporter engagement programme. However, events have changed forever. Traditional programming has been interrupted by the global pandemic and new and innovative ways of delivery have been learned and embedded. In this session we will discuss events as a fundamental tool for engaging your alumni community. We will cover some of the key elements of an events programme including strategy and design, delivery: virtual vs hybrid vs face-to-face and the use of technology, analysis: measuring success and also how to both gain support from key internal stakeholders and partners and the role of the events manager. We’ll also look at a few case studies of different institutions and how they’ve used events to bring alumni together.