By Brent Buswell (Beta Eta- University of Oklahoma ’09)
There are many things that help to contribute to a good chapter, but continual alumni involvement can take a chapter from good to great. The ability to communicate with alumni is a very integral aspect of chapter operations, yet it is one of the most difficult tasks facing an active chapter. Recently, the bridge between active and alumni chapter members has taken several forms, first and most traditionally is the printed newsletter. Another less traditional method is the e-mail newsletter.
Most active chapters seem to struggle when it comes to consistently publishing a well written and designed alumni newsletter. Issues arise from various problems including high historian turnover, loss of essential files, new formats, skipping an issue, and costly printing and postage expenses. An e-newsletter can assist in streamlining a chapter’s alumni correspondence and save the chapter money.
To combat these problems, the Kappa Alpha Order National Administrative Office has created an E-Newsletter template for any active chapters to use. It uses Kappa Alpha Order’s professional branding along with chapter individualization to deliver a consistent message to alumni. The MailChimp interface is extremely user-friendly for inputting content, uploading photos and distributing the e-newsletter via email. The Kappa Alpha Order National Administrative Office can even help you set up your contacts for chapter alumni and alumni in the surrounding area. It is also very easy to tailor to other important focus groups like parents, university officials, and national volunteers.
If your chapter is having problems sending out consistent alumni newsletters and would like to start using this template for e-newsletters, first, set up a free Mail Chimp account. Then click this link to add the KA template into your account. Finally, contact your ADCS for an updated alumni email list to import into your account. Please note that you will need to update the chapter designation and school.
If you need additional assistance with mailing hard copies of your alumni newsletter, look into OmegaFi’s Vault Alumni Relations program.
