From prospects to alumni, every stage of the student lifecycle requires customized offerings. You need online community features that grow with your prospects, students, parents, faculty and alumni… allowing them to connect with one another long before they set foot on campus to staying connected after they leave.
After all, engagement is crucial to retention and donations. With robust features including social networking profiles, community groups (that can be customized to your needs be it individual grade levels or majors, interests, sports, or member type – like alumni, friends, parents, staff or prospects), blogging, forums, photo albums and wiki, you’re sure to find a multitude of ways to keep them connected. Plus member search allows your community to find one another easily within the secure surroundings of your branded website.
Student Recruitment
Your current students love the 24-hour interactivity of an online community – and who best to describe an authentic school experience to your prospects? Private online communities also allow you to monitor the conversation without compromising authenticity. On open social networking sites anyone can access your school's page and post questionable content. Even if you monitor the site around the clock, if a piece of misinformation is posted (even for the briefest of periods), there is no way of knowing just how many people saw the content, nor can you email all 80,000 of your fans to let them know of the prank. There is no way of estimating the kind of damage it could do to your efforts in recruiting prospective students and their parents.
Don't forget the parents! Parents play an important role in their child’s college choice. Why not provide membership websites and discussion forums for apprehensive parents, conducted by some of your existing students’ parents? Topics could include preparing for your baby’s departure, packing for college and financing options/application processes.
Student Retention
An online community also helps with retention as it provides a forum for connecting for your existing students. Plus in the months immediately following graduation, it provides a seamless transition from student to alum – and keeps them connected and their contact info current!
Alumni Management
Once your current students become alums, they can remain in the YourMembership.com database as a new member type – alumni. YourMembership.com easily tracks alums as a member type within your system, and as a web-based alumni management solution, YourMembership.com enables you to manage events, send marketing messages, solicit donations, manage donations and fundraising campaigns, run many different reports, and more.
Online Fundraising, eCommerce and Event Management
With YourMembership.com, you'll even gain a powerful new tool for fundraising and online commerce. Easily create events with online ticketing, maintain online donations and quickly setup your school's online store (ensuring your prospective students have college gear before they come to campus). With your new online community, you can even manage your school's online admissions.
We also provide an optional plug-in for Blackbaud®'s The Raiser's Edge® software that enables the automated, on-command synchronization of core member data between YourMembership.com and The Raiser's Edge.
Secure Administrative System
YourMembership.com's administrative backend also allows you to keep a quick watch over the health of your school's online community. Tap into a secure executive dashboard to import and export member and non-member records. Monitor logins, new members, online sales and donations. Plus the Refer a Friend feature allows your members to tell others about your fantastic online community. Update, create and manage your online content... and take quick control of your school's entire online community.