UCOL: Award Winner of the best Tertiary Alumni/Community Campaign at the 2018 Educate Plus Advancement Awards. All good alumni programs have a few things in common which form the bones or structure that allows engagement. This is true no matter how big your budget or how many or how few staff you have. 1. Alumni programs start when students begin at the institution. If your graduates don’t have a memorable and enjoyable time while with you as students, it makes engagement and reaching out so much harder. 2. Data is key to everything you do, whether you are launching a new program, doing prospect research or looking at opening up a new region – data is a top priority. 3. Any program has to be about them, ‘the graduates’. Launching a program that ticks all the boxes for you, but offers them nothing in return, will not get your community engaged. Since 1902, UCOL has had more than 140,000 students come through its campuses. In 2017 the institution launched an alumni program with a three year plan and a range of activities to keep the momentum flowing. The alumni program followed these guidelines, and already, we are seeing great results: . . high percentage of graduates opening our communications; . . a third of event attendees are alumni, and . . our social media presence is continuing to grow, plus, graduates are featuring in profiles or branding opportunities. As well as a schedule of regular communications and events, UCOL is also committed to recognising the success of its graduates. We have just opened nominations for the inaugural Alumni Awards which will be presented in 2019. UCOL is a student focused institution, with services that align to needs, and teaching staff who are from industry and talk the talk. Our graduates leave with high levels of satisfaction, the RateMyQual 2017 survey told us 96% of students showed satisfaction when reflecting on their time with us. Obviously, all this is a great advantage when launching an alumni program. What about the data? Even though UCOL had gone through a number of mergers and has multiple campuses, the contact and demographic data we had to start with was solid. Since early 2017 we have actively been encouraging graduates to jump online, update their details and show us that they have an interest in a UCOL alumni community. Some 2,883 have updated their details since 2017, with 98 alumni website profiles. We can now start to really look at the alumni population and take the program to the next level. Engaging older graduates Knowing that we had strong relationships with many of our graduates but understanding they might not know what an alumni program was all about, the early communications to this group were an educational. We told the alumni what was in it for them. The communications were full of profiles, FAQs, links to events, and provided plenty of encouragement for staying connected. Through the communications the engagement levels of the alumni program are high, with engagement between 38- 62%, which significantly exceeds the industry benchmark of 22%. We have grown attendee numbers at our events, and the audience demographic has shifted with a large proportion now being graduates. Recommending UCOL We believe our graduates can be the strongest and most effective ‘brand’ ambassadors. Alumni have come forward to be part of our marketing campaigns, as well as being speakers at UCOL events. On Open Day in June 2018, four alumni spoke to a crowd of potential students with one alumni offering work experience for a day to a student who travelled two hours or more. This student has now enrolled at UCOL and moved towns, even though there is a polytechnic in their city offering a similar qualification. UCOL has always been committed to producing great graduates who make a difference wherever they go. Our alumni program is a way of formalising our commitment and encourages our alumni to stay connected. JASMINE GROVES SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, UCOL (NZ) UCOL takes out Alumni prize 2 6