Alumni Program Services

Manual cleanup involves having dedicated data quality professionals or ‘data stewards’ go through your alumni contacts and lists to research, validate, deduplicate, clean and enhance the information. If this work is assigned to in-house staff, the process can be expensive and time-consuming, requiring a great deal of training and supervision. Additionally, because the work is often mundane, it frequently results in a ‘revolving door’ of staff turnover. Many organizations have learned this the hard way and, as a result, prefer to outsource these tasks to experienced data specialists who are trained in data quality and can also help you to establish processes and procedures to improve ongoing data quality in the future.

Often the best way to clean alumni data in the with the least time and expense can be to combine automated and manual processes. In this hybrid data cleaning model, an automated data cleaning process is implemented first to quickly and cost-effectively clean and enhance as much data as possible. Then manual data cleansing can be performed on a reduced set of remaining records at a significantly lower cost.

Once you know the extent of the problems, you need to determine the best way to approach your data cleaning project to ensure your goals are accomplished. Some approaches include:

• Tackle relevant and time-sensitive projects first
• Start with the most important data sets
• Review the most relevant and timely lists
• Break a large project into more manageable parts
• Measure and report on success regularly

Maintaining clean alumni data also requires a plan. it’s important to figure out the most efficient and cost-effective way to achieve your desired results while also taking into account your budget. Here are a few questions you can ask to help formulate a plan:

• What is the best way to clean up the data? Should we use manual or automated data quality processes, or a combination of both?
• Who will perform the cleanup? Should we use in-house resources or outsource to a company that specializes in alumni data cleanup and can do the project more quickly and cost-effectively?
• How long will the cleanup take? Will we need to supplement our resources to make a deadline? 
• How much will the cleanup cost? Do we have the budget currently or do we need to to do the project over a longer period.

To enhance your alumni network clean-up and prevent future data issues, it is essential to establish and document your organization’s data standards in a Data Quality Style & Standards Manual that outlines your specific data styles and processes for consistent alumni data entry, formatting and maintenance. Your style manual should contain standards for consistent and standardized data entry for information such as:

• Formal names, nicknames, prefixes, suffixes, and pronouns 
• Jobs and title 
• Multiple physical and website addresses
• Multiple company, personal and mobile phone numbers 
• Dealing with retired or deceased alumni contacts 
• Handling people who work with multiple companies or boards

Once you’ve cleaned your existing alumni data, it’s important to maintain it moving forward so that you don’t get into a bad data situation again. Here are some things to consider:

• Data cleaning projects are never ‘over.’ Information on people is constantly changing, which means that ongoing data maintenance and resources will be required to ensure that your data doesn’t degrade over time.
• Regularly review new data as it comes in to ensure it’s clean, correct and complete 
• Make sure that people who enter or work with data are well trained on the importance of data quality to the goals of the organization.

Most importantly, if you need help, reach out. The CLIENTSFirst team of almost 100 data quality consultants and professionals can help. We have deep knowledge of data quality systems and processes and can share best practices for success. We have more than a decade of experience helping our clients achieve success with their alumni networks. Our clients include hundreds of organizations including:

• Law, accounting, consulting and other Professional Services firms 
• Companies and corporations 
• Charitable and not-for-profit organizations
• Colleges, universities and other educational institutions

Our proprietary TrueDQ Solution allows you to achieve the level of data quality to meet your needs – and budget. 

Reach out today to see how CLIENTSFirst can help you maintain, grow and leverage your alumni network. Some of our strategic services include:

• Alumni List/Data Assessment – An Assessment is performed on your alumni data to determine the full scope of the data quality project along with top priorities and projected costs. 
• Alumni Data Cleaning – The CLIENTSFirst team can assist with any size or type of data quality project. Our data quality consultants can perform an initial automated data cleanup and our team of experienced data quality professionals can then assist you with any additional manual cleanup on a reduced number of records to meet your needs and budget.
• Alumni List Checkup – Our automated processes can also be used to validate alumni contacts on lists before communications or invites are sent, assuring they can reach the targeted audiences. Emails that may have bounced can then be removed or researched and updated to ensure delivery.

• Donations: Alumni can be an excellent source of contributions for some organizations 
• Recruiting: Alumni are an excellent source for identifying, referring and engaging potential recruits
• Speaking: Alumni can speak at events or webinars promoting an organization and all the good it does
• Brand building: Alumni can be brand ambassadors to promote the organization and its goals

Clean, correct and complete alumni data is one of the most critical requirements for connections with and outreach to your alumni network. You can have the greatest events and the most valuable content and benefits for alumni, but without good contact information, you won’t be able to reach them to maximize the full potential of your alumni program.

In the past, up to 30% of data degraded each year. In today’s economic conditions with people rapidly relocating and changing roles and careers, it’s probably more like 50%. This means your alumni data is likely dated and degraded. Here are some ways to ensure that your alumni data is as clean, correct and complete as possible.

• The first step is to identify locations of key data and identify relevant information to be evaluated. 
• The next step is to “assess the mess” to determine the scope and cost of your alumni data quality project so you can properly budget and gauge the time frame.
• Next, dedicate budget and resources to properly cleanse existing data. Begin with automated data cleansing to easily and cost-effectively clean as much data as possible. 
• Then hire data stewards to clean the smaller set of data more quickly and at a reduced cost. 
• Finally, create a data quality strategy to establish project goals and data management processes to ensure that future data will be entered consistently, properly updated and regularly maintained.
• If your organization doesn’t have the resources and host in-house staff to perform these processes, you can easily and cost-effectively outsource these positions to experienced professionals.

A fundamental part of being able to communicate with your alumni network is to invest in an alumni program. Once established, you can use multiple channels such as newsletters, social media or your website to communicate with your alums and share important information and news about the organization, events, speaking engagements or opportunities to connect with the organization or each other.

You can also provide a automated mechanism for them to update their contact details because to communicate effectively, you have to have up-to-date information on your alumni.

To create a successful alumni program start with the goal of continually providing them with value and/or supporting their professional development. Here are some suggestions:

• Think of different ways to provide value to different groups and individuals 
• Create an alumni list and distribute newsletters or other publications to promote new programs they can get involved in
• Offer them access to information about job/career opportunities
• Provide opportunities for continuing education 
• Provide opportunities to reconnect with each other through in-person and virtual events
• Offer opportunities to speak at your business, school or other organization or at sponsored programs
• Send them swag or logo branded “tchotchkes”  
• Let them write article or blog posts for the organization 
• Promote scholarships or philanthropic programs for donations
• Provide a quick and easy way for them to update their information so you don’t lose touch