In 1912, French sociologist Émile Durkheim introduced the concept of “collective effervescence.” It’s the energy that comes when a group of people engages in an activity together. In the world of advancement, collective effervescence emerges when alumni sing the alma mater song, locked arm in arm; or when alumni fans give each other high fives after the field kick that wins the game; or when the Giving Day team breathes a sigh of relief at 12:01 a.m. after meeting its fundraising goals. It’s the magic that all of us hope for when we design gatherings.
Now, after more than two years of living in various stages of pandemic lockdown, when most human interaction has been filtered through a screen and a mask, it’s time to reflect on what we’ve learned. Let’s explore how we might rethink our in-person events to inspire our audiences’ FOMO (fear of missing out).
Let’s reset, shall we?
I think we can agree that P.C. (pre-COVID-19), most of our organizations produced too many nonstrategic, “come one, come all” in-person gatherings. That’s because events were often the only tool many of us had in our toolboxes to bring the big engagement numbers to our vice presidents. As we all know, though, in-person events take a lot of time to plan and execute, and we reach a miniscule percentage of our alumni: Generally (based on my own experience and what I’ve heard from peers in advancement) just 1% to 10% of all alumni attend events in any given year.
In March 2020, many of us in advancement made a big shift. Nearly every institution figured out—in about 12 days—how to reach thousands of new alumni online with content that was arguably more fun, more diverse, more interesting, and of course, cheaper to produce. In those first few months of the pandemic, booming attendance at Zoom trivia nights and virtual happy hours had us wondering why we’d ever want to go back to the days of printing name tags and fretting over which canapés to serve!
But the novelty of Zoom events wore off, and attendance numbers settled down. We accepted that in-person events are and always will be a critical part of our alumni engagement strategies. All the data show that people who attend in-person events are louder brand ambassadors, more highly dedicated volunteers, and more loyal donors. Now, since so many alumni are craving human connections, many of us are in the process of planning a lot of events in 2022. (Triple-cycle reunions, anyone?)
So we’re going back to in-person gatherings. That doesn’t mean that we should go back to the P.C. approach, though. We need to up our game. Society has changed, and people are demanding more from their event experiences. Reasons vary, but many people are likely weighing the risk of illness that comes with the reward of human connection against happy inertia: Many people realized they actually prefer Netflix and sweatpants to small talk and dress pants.
Part of this resetting involves us, as the event hosts, taking charge of details such as timing, seating, communicating the purpose, and making sure we provide conversation starters. Social anxiety has always been real, but now even the extroverts may be a bit rusty. Don’t be afraid to be the event maestro!
First, let’s figure out this transition period
In some sense, the emergency shutdowns precluded any decision making and made our paths pretty clear: There was no choice about producing an event in person, digitally, or hybrid. In recent months though, it’s a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) and the ever-changing variables involved in our planning decisions have kept many of us in advancement awake at night. Will alumni feel comfortable gathering in this or that location? Will university travel be allowed by the event date? What if another variant hits? What if we inadvertently host a superspreader event?
Kelly Holdcraft is the Senior Director of Career, Affinity, and Regional Engagement at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S. She and her team have been using qualitative and quantitative data to drive their transition plans. One thing her volunteers and attendees are sharing loudly and clearly is that they want personal connections, so this summer, W&M is hosting a flurry of purely social, small, intentional regional gatherings.
“Our year-over-year data for first quarter 2022 saw a 40% decrease in virtual event attendance and 80% decrease in registration,” she says. “At the same time, digital marketing analytics show that alumni, especially young alumni, are engaging more with digital, immersive, and alumni-centric storytelling via social media, blogs, interviews, and short-form webinars with an emphasis on career, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice.”
