Leveraging Technology to Build Alumni Database

The journey of University of Western Macedonia (UoWM) is quite interesting. Founded in 2003 in Kozani, it became the self-governing institution after the first elections of its Rector and ran its courses in 2 cities- Kozani & Florina. In 2019, the university was merged with the Technological Education Institute of Western Macedonia and ran courses in 5 cities, the central campus being in Kozani.

The university wished to connect with their alumni and build a meaningful relationship with them. Being in the early stage of its establishment, the major challenges of University of Western Macedonia were:

1. No Alumni Relations Team: As a small university, UoWM struggled to manage alumni operations with no alumni relations team.
2. No Alumni Connect: They weren’t able to connect to their alumni because of lack of infrastructure, team and technology.

Their Mission was to kick start alumni relations operations from scratch and build a strong alumni community.

Solution

They started looking for solutions that help them in building a strong alumni network and they came across AlmaShines. After multiple discussions with us regarding their plan to set up their alumni relations, they counted upon AlmaShines’ Technology and Innovation to facilitate their operations with a small team.

We onboarded University of Western Macedonia in the Month of February 2021. The platform customized for them was exclusively configured to ensure a personalized experience for every alumnus and help the university reconnect with its large alumni base. One important customization feature was to provide a platform completely translated into their native language- Greek.

The platform was launched for the alumni community on 18 March 2021.

To grow the awareness in alumni about setting up of an alumni portal for them, UoWM conducted various campaigns, leading to a large spread of word of mouth. With Peer-to-Peer Invitation and Social Media Integration, the university could connect with their alumni much faster than they anticipated. UoWM Alumni Platform powered by AlmaShines was very well received by the alumni, seeing participation from all the batches and they all created their alumni profiles on the platform.

Besides this, University of Western Macedonia also offered very unique services to its alumni like

• Online Job Exchange Platform for alumni to share job opportunities with each other,
• Mentoring where alumni became the mentors of the current students  
• They issued Digital Alumni Cards for all alumni eliminating physical identity cards
• Interest groups where alumni interact with each other based on their interests. Interest groups grew professional networking and personal relationships.
• Business Connect

Key Outcomes

1. 63% Alumni database activated: That’s Right! Within a month, University of Western Macedonia was able to increase its alumni database by 63%.
2. Job Opportunities: Using the Job Exchange Module, UoWM created 24 new jobs for the alumni.
3. Alumni Engagement: The platform was very well received by the alumni and nearly 200 hours of activity has been recorded in the Analytics.

All of this in just 30 days of going live with UoWM Alumni Platform!!!

We’re overwhelmed to contribute to this immense success story of the University of Western Macedonia. The efforts of the university have been tremendous and their persistence is what keeps them going. Big shoutout to the University and their efforts!