Our purpose

This wiki seeks to capture and share the best practices for using the Web and other forms of electronic communications to reach alumni and build alumni communities.

In fall 2008, an article entitled "How the Internet is changing alumni communications" based on the wiki will be submitted to CASE Currents magazine for potential publication.

The article's preliminary outline follows:

• Introduction (recent history, new reality)
• Outcomes not outputs (business goals, metrics, measurement)
• Usability and branding
• Communications strategies (email, blogs, videos, social networks, RSS, others)
• Financial and human resource implications (staff, volunteers, consultants, CMS, budget, impact on print and traditional)

The various categories for the wiki have been broken down further to ease navigation and editing.

Our contributors

The contributors are invited experts and practicing professionals within the Alumni Affairs and Development community. The deadline for contributing copy and edits is August 1, 2008.

If you are a contributor, thank you! Please write your entries in a feature magazine, conversational style. Grab a copy of CASE Currents so you can mimic their style. Tell us your successes (promoting your college is totally all right) as well as any hard lessons learned. Don't be afraid to quote yourself if you are offering an opinion or a story: it'll save us some editing time at the end of the day.

Our experts make this information available to you free of charge and you may use it in your published reports, share with others, or incorporate it into other presentations without compensation to the authors (but please credit them).

We hope you find the information presented here useful!

Sincerely,

Andy Tiedemann

Communications Director
Alumni Affairs and Development
Harvard University