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  • 1.  Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-12-2022 10:04 AM
    The discussion has come up recently at our institution on whether to do a printed alumni directory. The last time we did one was 2019. Are any of your institutions still doing these printed directories, and if so, does it seem worth it? What are all your thoughts on doing them in general? The main benefit would be the data received back, but given the last time we did this was 2019, I am not quite sure we will get the same results this time around.

    Thank you for any insight!

    Colleen

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    Colleen Deal
    Executive Director of Advancement Services
    Appalachian State University
    dealcf@appstate.edu
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  • 2.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 09:36 AM
    With the availability of online alumni communities a printed directory seems like a waste of resources. If you create an alumni community and encourage your alums to update their information there on an ongoing basis you have the opportunity to collect better information over a longer time period. Younger alumni aren't going to purchase the print directory, anyway.

    If you've been in discussion with a vendor have they suggested any advantages of a print directory? The only one I can think of is that the vendor usually does a push to collect new contact and other biographic information ahead of printing. However my experience is that the information they provide can be of questionable quality.

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    Lianna Bodzin
    Assistant Director of Advancement Services
    Colorado School of Mines
    lbodzin@mines.edu
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  • 3.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 09:52 AM
    Thank you for your feedback. The main reason it is being considered is due to the conversation with the vendor about collecting new contact and biographical data. I wasn't here the last time we did this, so I am not sure if it is worth it, just for that. Did you not receive a lot of updates, or were you finding they just were not accurate updates? I am strongly leaning towards not doing it. But, figured I would see if anyone had some great success with the information they received back! Thanks again!

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    Colleen Deal
    Executive Director of Advancement Services
    Appalachian State University
    dealcf@appstate.edu
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 11:10 AM
    I've "been there, done that" a couple of times. Alumni Association loves them. They (typically) get a guarantee $ and then extra $ for more books sold. 

    From an Advancement Services perspective, they are a lot of work. You do get a lot of data, but (in my experience) it is not clean. Many typographical errors (misspelled employers, children names, addresses, etc.) You're going to find a lot of the data cannot be systematically loaded. So be prepared to hire temps or dedicate a good amount of your staff hours to get the data entered. How long will that take? Will you ever get it all in? Last time my institution flirted with this, I put a proposal together of how many additional temporary hours ($!) I'd need to get the data loaded. It dug into their guarantee.  We ultimately decided not to do it. I am not sad.


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    Jeff Baynham
    Associate Vice Chancellor, Advancement Services
    NC State University
    jtbaynha@ncsu.edu
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 11:24 AM
    I am in the "Jeff Camp" on this one. We have reached nearly the same conclusion at over 85% of the institutions I've worked with. Those that went ahead with a directory often went over budget. And the production time often cause the end result to be out of date.

    There are better ways to collect data. Not the least of which are regular data appends. Last week, I also addressed the virtues of alumni surveys at the PNW Engage conference. Why organizations have stopped regular surveys isn't clear to me. You do not need a directory as a reason for a survey - just do it! But only when your AS Director has the staff and resources available.

    If worried about survey response rates, offer a gimmick - like a drawing each week of survey responses for a prize of some kind - like two tickets to a home football game!

    John

    John H. Taylor
    Principal
    John H. Taylor Consulting, LLC
    2604 Sevier St.
    Durham, NC   27705
    919.816.5903 (cell/text)

    Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987





    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 12:45 PM

    That does take me back to my first alumni directory project.  As I recall, we determined that the vendor data entry listed the same Cal State school something like 27 different ways.  Employer information had similar issues.

     

    So, yes, trying to integrate such information is challenging.

     

    (Though it would be interesting to explore whether AI is reaching the point where it can look at all that chaotic data entry and put Humpty Dumpty back together again, as it were....)

     

    My US$0.02 worth; the usual disclaimers apply.

     

    Good luck!

     

    Alan

     

    Alan S. Hejnal    (he/him/his)

    Data Quality Manager

     

     




    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 12:09 PM
    The last time we did one of these was quite a few years ago but here are the issues I recall with the data:
    • There were a lot of emails addresses, addresses, and phone numbers that were apparently appended and were of very low quality. We had a couple of years of responses from people who were not the person whose record the updates were on and who were unaffiliated with our school.
    • One tactic these companies employ is to not leave the alums alone until they either opt out altogether or they go in and make updates. We found a number of updates that looked like they were made to get the callers off their backs and contained junk info. Stuff like names changed to swear words and that they had 28 children and worked as organ grinders... that sort of thing. We had to weed through the updates to try to find these and remove them.
    • As Jeff mentioned, the data entry done by the company's people was awful - filled with misspellings, phone numbers that were the wrong number of digits, email addresses that were not in the correct format, etc.
    I can't say that this would be the case if you did a project like this but these are the types of issues we encountered. If you do go ahead with this I would be very careful about what you import back into the system to avoid overwriting good info with bad.

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    Lianna Bodzin
    Assistant Director of Advancement Services
    Colorado School of Mines
    lbodzin@mines.edu
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Alumni Directories

    Posted 12-13-2022 04:09 PM
    @Colleen Deal There are better ways to get alumni data.  This is a tremendous waste of time and resources for very low quality data.​

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    Dariel Dixon
    Assistant Director of Database and Gift Administra
    Chautauqua Institution
    ddixon@chq.org
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