Hi David
A very sensible step, for many reasons. We recently did the same thing and it’s so much better. Some of these reasons are (1) it’s a ‘bad look’ to charge families for their child to join an alumni organisation as they are leaving the school, either graduating Year 12 or other circumstances (2) some families will be reluctant to pay at that point in their relationship with the school. This means that you then have financial and non-financial members of your alumni organisation – a headache to manage (3) as a joining fee all students become a member of the alumni organisation, whenever they leave the school – easy to manage (4) no-one minds paying an additional fee when they join as they are always excited to be at a new school (5) overall income will rise as there will be more students joining the school than departing in Year 12.
It’s important to make sure that all stakeholders understand the benefits of the change and then implement it from the beginning of the following year – this allows time to update enrolment materials that mention fees and charges.
Good luck
Dennis
