Development and Public Affairs: Office of Engagement I
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Development and Public Affairs: Office of Engagement I. Alumni and Parent Engagement Executive Summary The mission of DPA’s Office of Engagement is connect alumni, parents and friends to each other and the University of Virginia through the UVA Global Network: UVaClubs, Professional Interest Groups and Cavalier Admission Volunteers; Lifetime Learning and Travel programs. By fostering these connections the Office of Engagement strengthens the lifelong bond alumni, parents and friends have with U.Va. increasing participation, involvement and financial support. During FY12, 1,280 events were held with 22,022 documented attendees, of which 15,257 were unique individuals. A priority for FY12 was to increase the amount of participation while executing fewer events to increase efficiency. Executing 6% fewer events but increasing unique participation by 15% accomplished this outcome. This exceeded our 10% goal of increased participation by 5%. Alumni and Parent Engagement continues to be the lead producer of documented event attendees and represents 50% of all event attendees in the Advance database. Alumni represent 62% of participants followed by non-alumni parents at 16%, students at 15% and friends at 7%. The largest constituent increase, at 25%, was by non-alumni parents due to continued targeted marketing to parents. Ethnic diversity continues to be an important metric for engagement and 19% of attendees are identified as non-white. Engagement event attendees are donors, and 48% gave during FY12, more than double the University-wide giving rate. Over 1,400 volunteers assisted 105 UVaClubs to achieve their objectives with prospective student and admission outreach; educational and cultural enrichment; social and networking opportunities; spectator events for U.Va. and professional sports; organized U.Va. recreational leagues; and volunteer service. The volunteer corps represented a 70% retention of experienced leaders and 30% of new volunteers to reflect effective leadership succession and volunteer management. Lifetime Learning coordinated 115 talks with 78 faculty members who represented 11 of the 12 schools. Programs included More than the Score, Reunions Seminars and Engaging the Mind. In addition, the School of Professional and Continuing Studies asked Lifetime Learning to assume responsibility for their Summer on the Lawn program, which was re-invented as Summer Jefferson Symposium, with a 95% capacity outcome during its first year. Cavalier Travels continued to provide experiential learning through travel during daylong and multiple week excursions. Registrations were up 3%, and 19 trips were executed including a first time service trip to Vietnam in partnership with the Nursing Alumni Association. Online engagement opportunities continue to be enhanced and explored. The free online research library saw a 39% increase in database explorers. A Lifetime Learning blog was created to spur dialog between faculty and stakeholders. Facebook and LinkedIn accounts for UVaClubs and Lifetime Learning provided a forum for peer to peer connection, and the Lifetime Learning website was redesigned In addition to direct services, the Engagement Community, a network of nearly 300 U.Va. professionals, fostered growth and development through meetings, conversations, tours of U.Va. buildings, webinars and R & D pilots to support the common goal of increased involvement and support of our stakeholders. DPA-Alumni and Parent Engagement FY 12 Annual Report Page 1 Progress on Alumni and Parent Engagement FY12 Goals Goal 1: Alumni and parent programs are inclusive of all stakeholders at the University and represent a diverse array of offerings. Engagement programming is inclusive for all stakeholders at the University. 62% are alumni, 16% are non-alumni parents, 15% are non-alumni students and 7% are friends of the University. 19% of documented alumni/student attendees were ethnic minorities. The University of Virginia is recognized by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education as a leader in integrating parents into traditional alumni programming. A team representing Engagement and the Parents Annual Fund presented a CASE webinar for 40 schools and received an overall rating of 4.2 on a 5 point scale. Cindy Fredrick, AVP for Engagement was the faculty chair for the national Parents Program Conference. She received a 5 out of 5 rating for all three of her presentations and was asked to serve a second term as faculty chair for FY13 and was credited for creating a new framework to think about parent engagement through touch points as Provider, Participant and Philanthropist. Programming represents a diverse array of offerings in five core areas: Admission/New Student Outreach (18%), Educational/Cultural/Travel (21%), Social/Networking (24%), Athletic (19%) and Volunteerism (18%). Goal 2: Alumni, parents, friends and students are connecting with each other, with their community and with the University of Virginia in their hometowns through volunteer led UVaClubs. Regional clubs are organized in 105 locations worldwide, 86 within the US (82%) and 19 outside of the US (18%). These clubs are led by 1,472 documented volunteers who planned, organized and developed 1,228 engagement activities for 19,178 documented attendees with support from a professional staff of 10. This represents a 15% increase in stakeholder participation with 6% fewer events. Staff supporting UVaClubs continue to develop partnerships with colleagues in Regional Development, Schools and the Alumni Association to meet new and emerging needs of stakeholders. One of our goals has been to increase participation among parents as event attendees and volunteer leaders. While parent attendees have increased by 25%, we fell short of our goal of increasing parent volunteers by 10%; actual percentage of parents as volunteer leaders was 7%. In addition, through evaluation of participation statistics and scatter maps of stakeholders, UVaClubs staff evaluated regional markets to maximize engagement and ensure efficiency and effective use of resources by forming 2 new UVaClubs, revitalizing 2 clubs and designating 5 clubs as dormant due to lack of activity and/or volunteer leadership. Program highlights include: Admission and New Student Outreach: UVaClubs are the focal point for Admission and new student outreach in local regions and the partnerships with the Office of Admission was strengthened, representing 19% of engagement events. At the request of Dean Roberts, UVaClubs developed Cavalier Admission Volunteers through UVaClubs or in stand-alone cities to assist with admission outreach. In FY12, 224 documented stakeholders made congratulatory calls to admitted students. At the request of the Office of Admission, UVaClubs planned 15 April Admitted Student Receptions with alumni and DPA-Alumni and Parent Engagement FY 12 Annual Report Page 2 parents to give prospective students an opportunity to meet alumni and parents and experience a slice of what it might look like to be a U.Va. student. Since FY10, documented attendance at April Admitted Student Receptions has risen over 600% (59 to 441). 81 Student Send-offs were held in 2011 with support from the Parents Annual Fund with 3,038 documented attendees. U.Va. is acknowledged by Parent Programs as having one of the largest if not largest student send-off programs. Governor McDonnell attended the Richmond Student Send-off, as his two sons were welcomed into the U.Va. family. The CASE award-winning UVaExpress provided transportation for 216 international students and their family members to U.Va., and the International Dinner welcomed 400 documented participants. Student Experience An area of emphasis for FY12 was to enrich student experience and stakeholder experience by creating engagement opportunities, which connect students with alumni and parents. This was determined a priority from the University’s alumni and parents attitude survey, conducted by e- advancement, which indicated a strong desire to connect with students. In FY12, the Student Ambassador program doubled to include 134 UVaClub Student Ambassadors, representing 61 UVaClubs around the world. The opportunities for students included participating in making congratulatory calls to admitted students from their hometown, speaking at student send-offs, staffing engagement tables at Family Weekend and the More Than the Score lecture series and sharing their student experience at Legacy Breakfast events. As a result of this increased emphasis, documented student attendance rose 10% from 2,088 in FY11 to 2,305 in FY12. Athletics: Approximately one fifth of our events are related to athletic activities. The Parent and Alumni surveys also identified three high interest activities - athletic, social and educational events and were charted as “sweet spots” for engagement. Capitalizing on all these areas was the programming line- up for the Chick-fil-A Bowl Game. The UVaClubs professional team coordinated with U.Va. partners to plan and promote a series of events including a Friday night Wahoo Welcome with a record attendance of over 900 people, educational panels with senior administrators and co- sponsorship of the pre-game tailgate. All told, over 1,400 documented individuals attended DPA events over the weekend. During FY12, Athletic Director Craig Littlepage and Coaches Bennett, London, O’Connor and Starsia and former athlete Barry Parkhill participated in 19 UVaClub events. Around the world, alumni, parents and friends came together for 166 documented game watching parties