As some of you heard in November during Executive Council, we began a journey last spring to identify a vision for membership that is sustainable, long-term, boosts alumni involvement, and generates increased revenue to support IU campuses and schools. We’ll be talking more about Membership at the Alumni Leaders Conference next week and before we gather, I’d like to provide a brief review of our work accomplished thus far.
Membership Working-Group Update
Over the past year we’ve convened a Membership Working Group who has reviewed membership challenges and opportunities in the current model, and defined desired critical outcomes of a successful model.
Critical Outcomes of a Successful Membership Model:
- Optimal alumni engagement and involvement
- Increased annual donor participation
- Increased overall giving
- Support for the Alumni Association’s vision of a powerful network of alumni who back one another and IU throughout their lives
- Elimination of membership competition and audience confusion of dues vs. gifts
Based on these critical outcomes, the Alumni Association leadership team began to explore new model concepts. Below is an example of a concept, comparing the current benefit model to a cause-driven model.
| Models | Model 1: Benefit Driven (current status) | Model 2: Cause Driven |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Sells membership in support of the Alumni Association’s operating budget. | Moves IUAA and its key volunteers from selling membership to building relationships that bring greater value to IU alumni and the university. |
| Features |
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| Value to Alumni, Donors, and Volunteers |
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In November, we heard constructive feedback around the cause driven example model above from alumni volunteer and recognize much work is still to be done as we seek to define a successful model in the future.
Our next step on this journey is to continue exploring model concepts that support the defined critical outcomes and address volunteer feedback while NOT sacrificing revenue for alumni programs. Once the concepts are defined, they will be assessed by the working group and then prepared for research and testing. However, with our environments and resources currently in a state of development and transformation, this task requires an expanded time frame and incremental steps in the short-term to create positive impact.
During the Alumni Leadership Conference in June, we will introduce three areas of incremental change we anticipate achieving over the next 12 months. We look forward to seeing you and continuing our dialog around membership.
Elizabeth Blevins
Director, Annual Giving
Joan Hall
Director, Membership