Greetings alumni leaders!
As you may know, your Executive Council is the advisory board to the IUAA. You’ll be thrilled to hear that they filled this role perfectly at the last meeting on December 4-5, 2015 here in Bloomington!
The weekend focused largely on the 2015-2020 IUAA Strategic Plan which was unanimously adopted by the Board of Managers in November. Our goals for this meeting were to educate the group about the mission, vision, and strategic priorities and also ask for their help in prioritizing the 38 points within the Strategic Plan.
Executive Council members spent time examining the four core values of Collaboration, Commitment, Inclusion, and Pride and discussed ways their respective alumni communities are supporting those values. This session was a wonderful opportunity to learn from each other.
For me, the highlight of the weekend was when the group broke into round table groups to dive into a prioritization activity that was designed to help us determine which of the three core priorities we should focus on first as we work through the Strategic Plan. The group was given a homework assignment to individually prioritize the points under their assigned core priority of either “Make Involvement Easier”, “Empower Staff and Volunteers”, or “Personalize the Alumni Experience”. Then, each table group came to a consensus on which things should be green (top priority), yellow (secondary priority) or red (deferred priority).
These points that bubbled to the top:
Top priorities
All three tables ranked these points as green:
- Make paying dues as easy as making a gift
- Renew efforts to involve students and recent graduates
- Attract and retain more regional campus alumni
- Address data issues
Secondary priorities
All three tables ranked these point yellow:
- Consider a new form of membership
- Define and deliver a sustainable service model for all those served by IUAA
A big thank you to all of our Executive Council members and to all of YOU for your continued support and feedback. We truly could not do what we do without all of you!
Jennifer Gentry, BS’93
Senior Associate Director of Alumni Communities