Another year has come and gone--can you believe it? It feels as though we were just ringing in the new year for 2021.

While we may only be about halfway through the school year, now is a great time for your alumni association to see how close you came to hitting your 2021 goals. It’s also a good time to start thinking about the goals you can set for the 2022 calendar year.

Unsure where to begin? Here are a few tips for setting achievable goals for your alumni association.

Know the crucial metrics to track

It becomes much easier to set goals (and track them) if you know the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most indicative of organizational success.

These metrics include:

• Membership registrations
• Registration numbers for alumni events
• Participation in volunteer opportunities
• Engagement on social media platforms
• Click-through and open rates for email newsletters
• Page views and shares for your website and blog
• Donations made to your organization and initiatives

Understand what makes for a reasonable goal

A main purpose of alumni associations is to create a large, strong network of alumni with opportunities for interpersonal connection and networking, as well as opportunities to support the school community. Any goals your organization sets should have those purposes in mind, and should be based on historical data.

This is why it’s important to track registrations, donations and other KPIs year after year--it’s difficult to set goals if you don’t have an understanding of the data and how you’ve performed in the past. It’s also hard to find opportunities for improvement if you have no numbers to compare year over year.

Using data for the above metrics you can pinpoint metrics you wish to improve and set reasonable goals backed by specific actions your organization can take to achieve them. 

For example, you may wish to increase your total amount of donations by a certain percentage in 2022. Based on giving amounts over the last several years you can determine a goal figure to reach in the next year. You can then consider the efforts you’ve taken in the past to encourage donations and find strategies that will help you reach your goals, such as being more consistent with your asks, improving your annual appeal and finding new ways to engage your audience.

We wish you the best of luck with your annual reviews and your goal setting for the new year. Happy New Year to you all!