THREE OFFRAMPS OF THE ALUMNI STRATEGY

As you work to establish and grow your alumni strategy, it is essential that you empower your alumni with the ability to self-qualify themselves. Your first question might be, “What is self-qualification?” Put simply, this is any opportunity for someone to tell you more about about how and to what extend they'd like to partner.

Qualification is a bit of a two-way street in Development; we are constantly qualifying our partners by asking ourselves, “Do they want to partner?”, “Is this a good opportunity for them?”, or “Are they ready to be lifted to a new level of partnership?” That ‘side of the street’ is easy for us because it’s in our control, but the decision isn’t made in a vacuum. We aren’t mind-readers and often it saves everyone a lot of time and frustration when information flows the other direction through self-qualification.

Self-qualification is when someone has the opportunity to tell you more about how they want to partner with you.

There are three main “offramps” of self-qualification in the Alumni Strategy process - these are points when the alumni has the ability to message to you that they’re not interested in more than they’re currently doing.

OFFRAMP 1 - THE FIRST CONTACT

After you’ve gathered the information for all of your alumni and sent out the first alumni newsletter, each of your alumni has a chance to take the offramp by unsubscribing from your email list or requesting that you don’t contact them.

Although it’s sad when our alumni opt out of continued connection with our team, it’s highly valuable information to know they’re not interested. If they don’t even want to receive an email then they definitely aren’t interested in investing their L.I.F.E. into your ministry, and this frees you up to focus on better leads.

Plus, don’t you always hate wondering if people are annoyed when you send out your newsletter? The easier and more up-front it is for people to opt out, the more sure you can know that they people getting your newsletter really want to get it.

OFFRAMP 2 - THE LEGACY FUND

Every alumni has a second chance to self-qualify their involvement when you ask them to join the Legacy Fund by giving a small monthly amount. They’ve already passed offramp 1 by opting into the newsletter, but now they have the chance to tell you, “Hey, I really love the updates and will certainly pray for your ministry, but I’m not interested in giving at this point.”

Again, this is valuable information because it helps you to focus your efforts on the right things. It’s not like taking this offramp means they’re no longer alumni - they’ll still get the newsletter and they will remain a part of the alumni community. This is part of why we begin asking for a very small monthly amount - if an alumni says no to something like $10/mo then it’s a clear signal to you and your team that they’re happy with just getting the newsletter.

OFFRAMP 3 - ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES

The alumni who blew right past the first two offramps have one more opportunity to self-qualify, and in many ways it’s actually ongoing. Now that you’ve whittled down your Alumni Database through the two-way process of qualification, you will provide your alumni community with opportunities to engage with your ministry, either actively or passively.

This might amount to an invite to attend an annual Alumni Night at the weekly meeting, to help plan an upcoming event, to lead a Bible Study, to join an alumni prayer chain, to attend a Vision Dinner, or any number of things. It also might mean asking the alum to give a special gift or increase their giving.

The responses to these opportunities allows our partners to self-qualify themselves and further define how they’d like to partner with your team moving forward. You may even find there are some alumni who took Offramp 2 but they’re actually getting back on the road because they’re more interested in volunteering than giving.

In summary, these three opportunities are vital to your partner’s ability to self-qualify the extent to which they would like to partner with your ministry. Any good alumni strategy is constantly listening and watching when these offramps approach and using what they learn to better care for their alumni community.