Educate Plus

Customer details

Educate Plus is a network of advancement professionals working in the following fields:

Admissions, Alumni & Community Relations, Fundraising and Marketing & Communications. Delivering networking events, professional development opportunities, mentoring programs, certified practitioner training and national and international conferences, members learn from peers and experts and increase their individual and collective value to the profession.

Challenge

Low membership uptake.
Impact of COVID-19.
Postponement of the International Conference, our primary revenue source.
Inadequate coordination and management of State Conferences.
Concerns about the neglect and decline of the NZ delegate.

Expectations of my role

To run events both NZ and Australia wide with a team of volunteers and take care of all marketing requirements (as a team of 1!)
Develop a video strategy
Complete all promotion of International Conference (and as it happens, reinvent that 3 times due to COVID).
Run training courses virtually due to COVID
Increase awareness and membership

The Strategic Plan

Brand update - the brand was archaic and developed by old schools teachers. Therefore it appealed to most of our aging members but was not attracting any of our new younger membership. I phased out the use of iconography and used a lot more photography of our actual members. Reduce the colour palate and introduce Bebas Nue font as a more professional clean font.

Webinars - I initiated the running of free webinars during COVID. Our members were feeling disconnected, alone and worried about the future. I organised over 90 webinars in 2020/21 and we offered them free to our members.

International Conference - set up and ran the Conference website and app. Established and ran the marketing campaign - video, edm, socials, web promotion, SEO, hard copy mail outs.

Jobs Board - Our most engaging email communication occurred was our Friday emails to all members, featuring job advertisements. I conceptualised a strategy where members could opt to pay extra to have their 'job of the week' promoted on our social media platforms, creating an additional revenue stream.

Mentoring Program - Promoted and simplified the mentoring program, resulting in a 150% surge in program participation. Development of the webpage, video and all promotional material.

Member engagement - Collaborated closely with the Membership Engagement Manager to enhance our onboarding process, ensuring that members comprehend the benefits of their membership, understand how to access our services, and are aware of their entitlements. Set up the history timeline as Educate Plus is a long established association with a proud history of fellows (Experienced and committed Educate Plus members are recognised for their contribution to the industry and the organisation by the awarding of a Fellowship. These special awards are made biennially.)

Training - established our online training course via Moodle so that pre-course work could be completed online and marked and record kept. Moved our training online successfully during COVID. Set up the virtual training hub - members can learn at their own pace using recordings of previously delivered material.

CRM management - worked with the Membership Manager to define and clean up our CIVI database of contacts to ensure contact and interest information was accurate and up to date.

Knowledge Bank - set up and developed the Educate Plus member Knowledge Bank - a deposit of all of the webinars, papers and presentations from conferences, podcasts (I also set up the podcast channel) and studies completed in the Advancement field.