Alumni Relationships & Database Software

The Benefit of Alumni Connectivity

Alumni connections can be the backbone of your university. Who better to promote the success of your current students than students who have previously attended and graduated successfully? After entering the workforce, they have the benefit of their experience to showcase the results of achieving their educational goals. They can be beneficial assets to help motivate your current students to show them what they can achieve as well.

Alumni can be contacted for help with job and career fairs, job postings that they may know about, and can even be approached for donations for special projects. They may even be willing to donate scholarships. Many students appreciate the years of education and the time that they themselves attended at the university and would love to help further the education of others.

Alumni Database Software

So how do you find and keep up with these alumni contacts? It would take boxes and boxes of archived files to keep records on all the students who passed through your university. Besides being time-consuming to find the students you wish to contact, their contact information would most likely be outdated. For this reason, manual record-keeping of them is not feasible. You need a more efficient way to handle all of these records. This is why colleges and universities, as well as other organizations, have moved to a more modern way of filing records.

Computerized systems have replaced the old manual way of keeping records in filing cabinets. There are many advantages of keeping digital files over manual files. No longer do universities and other organizations have to rely on out of date archaic methods of data management. With local intranet systems as well as networks that expands to other physical locations of your university, files can be shared among your colleagues and advisors as the need arises.

It is a common practice among universities to keep and maintain student records year after year, even after graduation. There are many reasons for this, of course; for example, students may need transcripts when applying to additional colleges or for job applications, etc. However, as the number of records of all your past students grow, they can become way too cumbersome to handle in an efficient manner by keeping in a computer database on a hard drive. Even in a computer system, files have to archived to another database. For example, if a student’s contact information needs to be updated and you don’t have the informa

To make your database more manageable, you need a database software that is specifically designed to handle this type of information. Alumni database software is the way to go. This type of software can handle the data manipulation you need. A good software will be able to handle data analytics, keep your records up to date, and have the capability to contact them through social media platforms or other means no matter where they live. This can be quite useful when you need to contact these students because you are preparing for a particular project or organizing events associated with your alumni students.

Popular Software Programs

Good software programs will totally eliminate the need for unnecessary manual filing, which can cause timely and costly filing errors or even mistakes made within a computer system. Office space that was in use for the purpose of storing manual files can be greatly reduced if not completely eliminated.

There are some good CRM systems out there that you can use to handle large databases of records; but even better is software that is specific for alumni databases. These software programs can assist in updating and correcting student records as well as be customizable to your specific needs. Some of these programs even allow alumni to communicate with each other much like a social media platform. In addition, there are some that may offer a website builder and/or an event registration module with payment processing capabilities.

Some of the Best Alumni Database Software Out There

Almabase: features include ability to combine email marketing, alumni directory, event registrations, donation pages and even branded websites; also provides an online network where alumni can connect with each other. It does not have its own CRM database though, but can connect with other select databases; it can also update itself automatically when the alumni integrates it with Facebook and LinkedIn
Disciple: has accessibility with iOS, Android, and the web, making it convenient for social interactions with each other and includes an events calendar; standard features include database management, the ability to analyze data, and more. Members can even receive push notifications from administrators about upcoming events and news.
e2s Connect: besides the ability to organize events, analyze data, and exchange information, alumni members can post jobs to a job board, join forums based on the year of their graduation, etc. The job board has a database of listings that members can search through and also has tools that can assist with preparing a resume, etc.
Vidyalaya: is a dedicated software that can maintain, insert, modify, and even analyze alumni data. It manages your data and keeps it well organized to be used for communication through social media, bulk mailing, or other channels.
Alumni Channel: standard features include email marketing and payment processing, website builder; unique features, besides the standard features, include a message board ideal for alumni to communicate with each other as well as the ability to input their social profile into their member profile.

Other Popular Alumni Database Software

Graduway
Hivebrite
NetCommunity
Raklet
Vaave
WildApricot