Communication

Here are suggestions on how to communicate effectively with your partnered alumni group or school:

• When identifying who to communicate with in your partner school, take your cues from the principal:
  
  
  • Some school principals will want to be the point people themselves.
  
  
  
  • Other principals will assign someone in school but still want to stay in the loop with activity details and to be copied on email correspondence.
  
  
  
  • And others will want to hand over the project entirely to someone else in their school.
  
  
  
• Send feedback, such as photos or a written report, to the school after an event.



• Track alumni and student participation (especially for tutoring) and report to APS Project Manager.



• Read about other APS partnerships to get ideas and motivation for your own partnership.



• Plan a kick-off event at your partner school to raise awareness within the alumni group.



• Meetings
  
  
  • Establish an alumni sub-committee to organize the partnership.
  
  
  
  • Meet first with alumni sub-committee to discuss possible activities and partner schools.
  
  
  
  • Focus on implementing goals and plans after each meeting rather than meeting continuously with no action afterwards.
  
  
  
  • Schedule regular meetings in person or by phone throughout the year to touch base with school and club contact people regardless of when partnership activities are scheduled.
  
  
  
  • Designate who in the club and at the school will make the final decisions on plans and goals for the partnership.
  
  
  
  • At the end of each meeting, outline the next steps and make sure to follow-up with the alumni club / school.
  
  
  
• Keep communications between the alumni club leader and the school leader regular and concise.



• Make sure both the alumni club and school and the individual volunteers and school staff are held accountable for their roles in the partnership.
  
  
  • To help alumni club members and school staff take ownership of the partnership, draft contracts for each side to sign.
  
  
  
  • To help recruit committed, dependable volunteers, draft a contract for alumni to sign to discourage alumni volunteers from missing events they have signed up for or dropping out of APS partnership after a brief involvement. (More help with recruiting volunteers)

More resources on Effective Planning:

Time Management | Event Planning | Using School Resources | Communication