Dear Friends,
Greetings from a snow-covered New Haven! While the snowbanks have made parking difficult around Rose Alumni House, we have been incredibly busy. I wanted to share two items that have kept our staff and Board of Governors working particularly hard.
Strategic Planning:
In my last note to all of you after Assembly and Convocation, I shared that we had embarked on a dedicated alumni listening effort that included a questionnaire, open-answer form, and focus groups. The results of this listening, and your excellent feedback, provided a framework for our new strategic plan, which will have six areas of focus:
- Professional development and mentoring
- Lifelong learning
- Service
- Social Connection
- Convening and promoting content throughout the university community
- Investment in virtual programming and events
I am thrilled that we have a dedicated team of staff and current and former board members working on this plan through subcommittees devoted to each area of focus. You can learn more about the process and the participants HERE.
Engagement Goals:
To establish a foundation for measuring the success of our strategic plan, we have prioritized collecting attendance data and setting impactful, measurable goals. By understanding where alumni show up and how they participate in our programs, we can identify gaps in our programming and better serve our community. In addition, we wanted to ensure that engagement goals were reflected in the final year of the For Humanity campaign – to be celebrated (hopefully!) alongside the $7 billion financial goal. So many alumni are making tremendous contributions with their time, talent, and treasure – ALL should be measured, counted, and celebrated. Here are the goals we set and want to share publicly with all of you. We look forward to your continued partnership in helping us achieve these ambitious goals.
- Goal 1: Engage 16,000 unique alumni in volunteer roles throughout the campaign
- Goal 2: Engage 17,000 alumni for the first time through an event or program during the campaign
- Goal 3: Maintain 80%+ engagement of BOLD alumni as measured by the ACES (alumni cohort engagement score)
- Goal 4: Partner with alumni to “host” 600 events in the last 2 years of the campaign
If you have any feedback on either of these priorities, my email is always open to your thoughts (accole@yale.edu). I look forward to seeing many of you on campus or on the road sometime soon!
Best,
AC
