Isabelle Tournassoud, President of ENSAE Alumni & Anna Mika, OAKland Group
The strength of alumni associations lies in their ability to coordinate a constantly evolving network. This requires a commitment from members, as well as financial resources enabling them to offer quality services. Regarding this last point, offices and associations are not on the same footing, as the latter depend essentially on their members’ contributions.
One of the goals of alumni networks is to increase the number of members. While this is a guarantee of quality for alumni offices, for associations it is also a vital need, as their budgets depend directly on membership fees.
It is a vicious circle, because associations need to offer meaningful services to their community in order to attract new members, which in turn requires financial resources and therefore membership fees from new members.
As a result, associations rely on a double commitment from their members, namely a financial commitment to keep the network alive and a personal commitment to keep the network alive.
It is also essential for associations to maintain an active network that can be mobilized in order to strengthen ties and consolidate its position in the world of ‘grandes écoles’. This is why associations need to mobilize their networks.
The quality of the events organized by alumni densifies the network and increases the number of subscribers, as well as boosting the international character of the organizations.
How can they create commitment ?
It is undeniable that the reputation of an alumni association is based on the satisfaction of its members. The more the association invests in them, the more they will invest in the community. The priority for the association is therefore to make sure it knows its members well and to show them it knows them.
ENSAE has understood this and in order to guarantee optimal services to its 6,500 alumni around the world, it has focused first and foremost on its database. This is a crucial initiative because knowledge of its members directly depends on the reliability and quality of the data recorded. In addition, it is important to keep this database properly updated because knowing the career paths of its alumni is a real asset for the community.
Therefore, as well as proposing appropriate activities throughout its community, ENSAE provides a highly detailed directory that has proven to be a very valuable tool for subscribers.
“Our updated directory remains more than ever a central tool for both professional and informal networking. On the eve of its 80th anniversary, ENSAE, School of Data, Economics, Finance and Actuarial Science, continues to provide knowledge and skills that are at the heart of the needs of the French economy, administration, companies and start-ups.” explains Isabelle Tournassoud, President of ENSAE Alumni.
As you can see, an up-to-date database provides access to many lost contacts and will allow you to reach out to even more people.