"I think we all want to feel that there's value in the degree that we have obtained and participation is part of that."
 - Tina Phillips, Executive Director of Alumni Engagement at Widener University

Balancing the Seesaw of Volunteerism with the Widener Alumni Engagement Team

Session 07

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Learn more about why alumni participation matters this week as Beth sits down with Widener University’s Office of Alumni Engagement staff: Tina Phillips, Meghan Radosh, Noelle Cordeaux, Amy Sheely Pecsi and Jessica Prince. Engaging current students is just as important as reaching out to past alumni, and the team has found new ways to encourage participation—including the archaic act of simply picking up a telephone and making a call. They discuss the different ways of gauging interest and involvement from the various groups of alumni associated with the university’s unique history and how social media has changed the communications sphere. Volunteerism is just as important for a university as a nonprofit, and they discuss how their volunteers have stepped up and taken initiative in planning events that matter to them.

They discuss:

  • What can you do to get a donor to become a consistent donor?
  • What should you do in between the time a person shows up to their first event to get them to want to come to a second and third?
  • Why is consistency in a central message so important?
  • And how you can you attain consistency when reaching out to very broad and very different groups of people?
  • How can you create a sense of self-directive among volunteers and avoid a “volunteer burnout”?
  • Why recognizing and rewarding volunteers can help in creating meaningful events
  • How instilling a sense of volunteerism spirit in current students can help them recognize their work, and influence them for the future
  • Ways you can personalize your relationship with alumni and volunteers, and what difference that makes
Resources:

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