Building Alumni Networks Through micro-volunteerism There are few words alumni engagement professionals love more to hear or read than: “How can I help?” Getting asked that question is deeply satisfying because it means our message is heard by activated alumni. It means we reached out through the right medium, we shared the right message, we motivated a new volunteer to donate their time… and best of all, they offered to work on an initiative that we get to suggest. But even with this perfect lineup, sometimes it goes wrong. At Longwood University, we set out more than two years ago to make sure that an offer to help never went without a meaningful volunteer opportunity in response. Today, we’ve establish a volunteer army that donates “1 Hour a Month” and is rewarded for their efforts. Our core goal was to provide a micro-volunteering opportunity that allowed stakeholders to participate any place, any time, and still make a meaningful impact. Ultimately, “1 Hour a Month” is a program that’s worked very well for Longwood. Alumni participating in the 1 Hour program are asked to undertake a variety of activities organised in “time bundles.” Bundles are a grouping of activities that can be managed quickly and easily such as endorsing another alum on LinkedIn, submitting a class note for the magazine, sharing university content on social media, writing letters to accepted students or former classmates, or spreading the word about an upcoming event or initiative. Your Options May Be Limited Many institutions have core volunteer programs operating at mature levels: reunion committees, class agents for annual giving and volunteer boards are the most prevalent. Volunteer leadership positions designed to build regional alumni groups are often the most significant and meaningful opportunity for volunteers – and for alumni outreach and engagement. That’s why, from an administrative standpoint, huge amounts of both human and financial resources are deployed to not only build these networks but also keep them operating over the long term. The same holds true for volunteers. Depending on the nature of the role, significant amounts of time and effort are necessary. Unfortunately, this limits the potential pool of volunteer alumni. Most people aren’t able to donate a number of hours every week, much less every month… which makes their willingness to help a wasted opportunity. Eliminate Place and Time Requirements Digital volunteerism — and its close cousin, micro- volunteerism — is steadily gaining traction in higher ed stakeholder engagement, for good reason. Conceptually, the idea of the digital ambassador is great: we desperately need our key stakeholders to consume and share content so our key messages can gain broad distribution. A Facebook like, a LinkedIn share, a retweet — each digital engagement activates a network we may otherwise not have reached. Core constituents who share content act as a megaphone to widely broadcast your content. If we’re lucky your message can go viral as one share begets another share, which begets another share. Before you know it, your message has reached thousands of people. Asking volunteers to engage in a different way — and not requiring them to show up at a specific place and time — provides an engagement avenue that could be more appealing than a traditional volunteer. However, gaining the time commitment required can still be a challenge. Creating good, shareable content takes time and also takes skill. Another difficult challenge for micro- volunteerism programs is the necessity of changing an alum’s digital habits, web browsing or app use. Do you ever check or use the app your alma mater has deployed to engage you? How often? The Solution: Get Specific About Time Commitments and Reporting What if we could devise a system — and formally manage and market a volunteer engagement program — that asks alumni for a specific time commitment such as thirty minutes or one hour each month? (Your response to, “How can I help?” will be a lot less daunting if you can respond by saying, “I’m glad you asked. We have a program that only requires one hour a month of your time. Here’s how it works…”) We believe that there’s definitely a framework for meaningful engagement, one that gets to the core of network building — and that provides the perfect way to take advantage of digital – and micro – volunteerism. Tracking volunteerism in this regard becomes self-reported, and therefore that process must be super-duper easy. Asking for 30 minutes a month might be appealing to those proactive alumni volunteers who offer to help, but for retaining them too. If it’s simple, meaningful, and doesn’t require place and time, it’s probably tough to say “no” . To date we have over 300 alumni volunteers contributing an average of 75-100 volunteer hours every month. We’ve evolved the program to ensure that timely activities are added each month to reflect Longwood’s needs at any given time – writing a letter to an accepted student during yield season or sharing content about our Day of Giving when it arrives in March. RYAN CATHERWOOD ASS. VP ALUMNI & CAREER SERVICES LONGWOOD UNIVERSITY (USA) RCATHERWOOD@GMAIL.COM