What do alumni do?
 

My sorority is relatively young, and as such many of our alumnae are at a point where they are still in grad school, just starting careers or having or have small children.

Also, because we do not have a large number of chapters yet, we don't have a huge pool of members to grab leadership from. We're having issues filling local positions as well as national positions.

My first question is, how was this transition time period handled by the older organizations? How do you keep alumni involved and motivated when most of them are at a stage where they can not devote as much, or any, time to the organization, while not burning out the few highly active members in the mean time? (Until they reach a point where they are settled in their careers, their children have grown up and/or left, or they reach retirement age, which are all still fairly far off for the majority of our members!)

My second question is, what do alum chapters/groups do? Yes they are support to the actives and they keep in touch with each other, but outside of that? I dunno. What do your chapters/groups do?

Any advice appreciated :)

Most of our organizations survived with good alumnae help in the beginning because our founders were driving forces in this capacity. You have to instill in your members that you still need them when they graduate. Every NPC will tell you, however, that a large number of our sisters hang up their GLO membership with graduation, never to participate again. Fortunately, you do have some highly motivated sisters who cherish their lifelong membership and commit their time to helping keep the organization strong.
While alumnae chapters/associations are meant to act as a resource for local collegiate chapters, they also act as a chance for alumnae sisters to continue to fellowship with sisters from many chapters once they graduate. We have meetings, social gatherings, philanthropic events, etc. The schedule is much less involved than for collegiate chapters given the lifestyle of most of the alumnae.
To keep your "highly active" sisters from burning out, make sure that you show your appreciation for their continued support. When people are recognized for their work, they are much less likely to then say to themselves, "Why am I bothering with this? No one appreciates me, and I'm obviously not needed anymore!"

We do a lot of those things, and the VP of each group acts as liaison :) My chapter in particular has a big problem with having alum come to anything with the actives because very few of them stay in the area and move at the very least 3 hours away. I am lucky enough to still be around, so I'm still pretty active with them, which is fun.

AOII: That sounds about right. I know there is an adage of sorts that says something like 10% of your members will be the active ones. I guess I just haven't resigned myself to letting that completely sink in. We only have about 360 alumnae sisters to date, and only about 1/3 of them are the "professional" members, with fewer being highly active.

I guess the other thing we've been discussing is whether or not it would be better to go from our current set up of respective alumnae chapters (from which you came) or to go to a more general alumni association by region?

AOE: The transition in the early years of a chapter can be tough because the girls you bring in may not realize the amount of work that was put into forming/maintaining your chapter. That is something you have to instill in them or you may run into problems (and lower membership) as your "founding" classes start to leave. When the early classes go alum, it's easier to keep up with everyone, but make sure to keep that going, it gets harder as time goes on :) Don't want to loose anyone.

In SAI and Phi Sig, recent alumnae are handled a little differently.

SAI: All soon-to-be-graduates are advised to join the Alumnae Association before graduation which ensures that the alumna continues to receive Tempo! & Pan Pipes. It also connects the alumna with information on near by alumnae chapters and/or sisters. Membership in the alumnae association is beneficial for all sisters, but especially for sisters that have taken a break from SAI involvement after graduation. They will still receive the newsletter and magazine and are also added to the International Listserv which keeps them connected to the needs and goings-on of the fraternity.

Phi Sig: Alumni members in Phi Sig are encouraged to immediately become involved regionally. Recent graduates always serve as regional consultants to collegiate chapters because they are not that removed from the collegiate experience. Regional Consultants cycle every year to maximize the amount of alumni involvement. We also have a newly developed (2003) National Alumni Association which provides national networking, scholarship opportunities, continuing receipt of the fraternity magazines, membership in the alumni listserv, and other resources for alumni. There are also a number of alumni chapters and associations in various parts of the country. (Although, Phi Sig's alumni membership isn't nearly as well developed as SAI's. 6 associations & only 3 chapters.) Every year, separately from National Convention, there is also an Alumni Convention which is another way for the fraternity to reconnect with alumni.

For your question about what do alumnae chapters do, there's a lot of information in the Alumni Involvement Forum. http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/forumdisplay.php?f=29