“What a noble profession this is – to be entrusted to support the lifelong relationships between alumni and their institution.
Staff move on, research priorities shift, and estates evolve. But what endures is the bond between this place and the students whose lives have been transformed by it.
- Unknown
The contribution of University College Cork (UCC), since its creation in 1845, to the societies it continues to serve has been of very great consequence.
UCC has touched, informed, and transformed many lives; over 220,000 alumni around the world furthered their education on campus. Today, some 180 years later, UCC is a comprehensive research-based globally oriented university with over 3,200 staff and 24,000 students, the alumni of tomorrow. Our student body includes 4,000 international students from 138 countries, and this diversity together with our extensive range of partnerships worldwide informs our curriculum and research ensuring we graduate truly global citizens and have a real impact on the societies we serve.
Our Strategic Plan, Securing Our Future 2023-2028, was developed to position UCC optimally in an environment of rapid change whilst also reflecting our commitment to a sustainable future for our people, planet and University.
Who are our stakeholders?
In developing the University’s Strategic Plan we held consultations with alumni, donors, staff, students and friends. The overlapping relationships between alumni, donors, students, staff, honorary graduates and parents of students were highlighted, hence the word stakeholder has been used in the development of this inaugural plan.
Our accolades are extensive and there is every reason to be proud. We are in the top 1% of universities globally, we are the 6th most sustainable university in the world and we are the first in Ireland for graduate employability. UCC generates more than €1 billion in economic impact annually, supports more than 21,000 jobs across Cork city and county, and creates a return of €6 to the Irish economy for every euro of state investment.
I am first and foremost an alumnus of this great University. I meet fellow alums every day and know that the relationships with our alumni are built on the solid foundation of an excellent student experience and a pride in the institution. The successes of our alumni, working across the
world and for the world, are also a source of pride for the University.
The Advancement, Alumni and Development team champion and facilitate mutually beneficial relationships over a lifetime. Thriving institutions are hubs of creativity, discovery, research and learning. Engaged alumni contribute to this vibrancy and are vital partners in our future. The aim is to ensure students feel connected to UCC and remain proud of their alma mater wherever they are in the world.
During the pandemic the Advancement, Alumni and Development team used the opportunity to fulfil a long-term goal by uploading all former students (i.e. postgraduates and students who had attended UCC for at least one semester) onto the alumni database.
By November 2021 we were confident that we were celebrating the graduation of
our 200,000th alum. Online platforms created opportunities to host virtual and hybrid events attracting audiences far greater than we could ever have accommodated through inperson events alone. The way we work changed forever.
Philanthropy and stakeholder engagement are key enablers to deliver University College Cork’s strategic ambitions in the Strategic Plan, Securing Our Future 2023-2028, and UCC’s Global Engagement Plan. In 2023 we completed a comprehensive review of our engagement and held strategic workshops to develop our thinking. We asked ourselves: who are our stakeholders and at what points in their lives do they interact with us? What are the changing needs of UCC and of our alumni? What are the mutual benefits of being connected? What constitutes a valuable connection and how will we quantify this value? And, how can we foster the connections that provide the greatest value for alumni and for UCC within our fiscal environment?
All alumni, for whom we have an email address, were invited to give their feedback through an online interactive survey.
Over 8,725 alumni, from 86 countries, participated for which we are extremely grateful. Thank you. It provided invaluable insight into our network of alumni, where they are and how they want to engage with the life of the University today. Overwhelmingly, alumni value their connection to the knowledge, networks and memories of their alma mater - they are proud of this connection. And our alumni, in both their personal and professional achievements, are a huge source of pride for everyone in UCC.
A common dichotomy faced by our sector is balancing an engagement programme while also delivering return on investment. However, these two things need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, thoughtful involvement begets transformative investment. As Cork University Foundation works with the University on planning an ambitious fundraising campaign, stakeholder engagement must be positioned to help drive a long-term pipeline of volunteers, advocates, partners and donors. Our success will depend on a fundamental shift in our
approach to connection, by positioning our stakeholders as the largest and longest-lasting community of champions, volunteers, advocates, brandambassadors, mentors and advisors.
This engagement plan connects alumni, honorary graduates, donors and parents to the life of UCC today, to our students, to each other. With the recent recruitment of Deirdre O’Shea, Associate Director of Stakeholder Engagement to lead our plan, we have developed a segmentation framework to engage our community at various stages of the alumlifecycle focused on six priorities. It will be enabled by two-way communications, volunteering opportunities, events and philanthropy - all culminating into a clear objective to develop long lasting, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with our students and our alumni.
Kerry Bryson Director of Business Development & Advancement, and CEO of Cork University Foundation
“Alma mater” or the university one attended, literally translates to “bountiful nourishing mother”. The words “to nourish” speak to UCC’s holistic approach to create student success but they also encapsulate what many alumni do to help UCC.
As a proud alumna myself I can testify that UCC has an indefinite amount of potential, an aweinspiring number of accolades and achievements, a plentiful amount for all of us to be immensely proud. To my fellow alumni I say we are an incredibly diverse cohort of people, each with unique aspirations and circumstances. We are the living, breathing embodiment of the UCC brand, forever linked by the life-altering value that a UCC education provided. As we approach our 180th anniversary in 2025, we are the ones that truly embody UCC’s institutional memory.
In developing this plan, we will be able to harness investment in a new alumni database and we know our future success also relies on our ability to harness technology, focus on what really matters, ensure that we can offer individualised connections
through investment in new digital platforms; we will segment our alumni to drive thoughtful and valuable connections with our graduates at every stage of their life journey. We will run a campaign to find our lost alumni and enhance alumni benefits. We will focus on student and young alumni programmes to create lasting relationships and prioritise markets in line with the Global Engagement Plan. We need to ensure we have the right staff skills, engage more through surveys and be more agile in responding to feedback.
I will be establishing a new International Alumni Advisory Board to help guide our work and we will use four key measures: experiential engagement, volunteerism, communication, and philanthropic support. When universities look at engagement across these categories it helps us better understand how alumni stay connected to their institutions long after graduation. Looking at our peers across the world, there is a clear trend: we need to work better with students and young alumni, we need to create more volunteer opportunities and measure the support of alumni serving
on advisory boards, giving masterclasses, volunteering in sports clubs, and mentoring students. We need to enhance our communications and offer a variety of experiential opportunities early on, and by establishing these foundation pillars we hope that alumni will consider UCC among their causes to support when it comes to philanthropy.
This plan sets out to build meaningful, lasting connections. As with any seismic shift, it will take time. This strategy outlines the blueprint for change and the steps we will take to get there. My colleagues and I are committed to broadcasting the very best of UCC and giving our students and alumni every opportunity to maximise the experience of a place we can always call home. I look forward to connecting with many fellow alumni in the years ahead.
Deirdre O’Shea, BComm 2010 Associate Director of Stakeholder Engagement
Our relationship with students will be infinite, and alums will be proud to belong to the UCC community no matter where they are in the world.
Foster life-long relationships, by engaging alumni, students, donors and friends, and to encourage advocacy, philanthropy, and volunteer support that will advance the overall mission of UCC.
‘Belonging’ is the uniting force in the most effective programmes
Developing an environment where we don’t ask alumni to contribute, we make it irresistible for them to want to be part of the change we are creating in the world.
‘A community that reflects my values’
‘This community understands my needs’
‘This community does the right thing’
To promote and nurture the value of a lifelong relationship with UCC
To build a culture of pride and advocacy for UCC and its achievements
To positively enrich the student experience
To actively support global engagement
To champion the culture of philanthropy
To build the infrastructure to deliver fundraising and reimagined engagement
Everyone has key milestones in life, those big memorable life-defining moments that show a life well lived… deciding if and where to go to university, meeting your best friend for the first time or falling in love; your graduation, your first job, first mortgage, first baby, dealing with bereavements; juggling family life with work which can include caring for children or elderly relatives. But before you know it you are attending open days with your teenage kids and supporting them as they become young adults, and the cycle of life continues. Our visual aid tool will aid our decision making in creating programmes that suit people at different stages of the life-course and ensure UCC has multiple touchpoints for our alumni before and after graduation.
Communications
Volunteering
Effective communication paves the way for successful engagement around events, volunteering and fundraising.
The activity supports website development, proposal design, philanthropy impact reports, curating content for speeches, membership-joining campaigns, newsletters, event invitations and calls for volunteers and donations to the UCC Alumni Fund. The challenge we set ourselves is to consider how we will plan and measure our communications better to make all of it a pleasant and effective experience for all our alumni and harness their advocacy for the mutual benefit. Our goal is to maintain connections with our stakeholders through thoughtful communication and content and inspire continued involvement in the life of the University. We will measure our progress through open rates, click through rates and/or feedback.
WE WILL:
• Improve our story-telling and share consistent messages on reasons and examples to be proud of UCC.
• Adopt a customer-centric approach and move beyond traditional College structures to deliver content that is based on individual passions/interests, rather than an area of study.
• Define and segment our audiences, tailor our communications to each cohort and use a mix of channels to reach our audiences.
• Enhance connection points through the life-course to better engage our alumni using emotional and cultural touchpoints.
• Encourage a culture of ongoing feedback and collaboration including more distinct calls to action that support our Stakeholder and Global Engagement Plans.
• Transform our social media platforms to be fit for purpose.
• Define our LinkedIn Strategy to utilise and better enhance networking opportunities.
• Launch and implement our Student & Young Alumni Communications Plan.
• Invite parents/guardians/carers of our students to opt into a Family Programme and be kept up to date with news from the University.
• Deliver a ‘Lost Alumni Campaign’ to re-engage alumni who have lost touch with UCC.
• Promote the benefits of staying connected.
• Re-introduce an Alumni Magazine in response to alumni feedback, broaden our channel mix and provide a preference-based communications model.
• Showcase the value of alumni engagement to staff and students through internal communications plans.
UCC has benefited from the generosity of many alumni who have supported ad hoc appeals and fónathons over the years.
Today most of the mass-alumni giving, or regular giving, is consolidated under the umbrella of the UCC Alumni Fund. Support is crucial to fund a range of urgent and transformational projects that aren’t covered by the state grant but directly impact the student experience, including the support of extracurricular activities which are integral to a well-rounded educational journey. All requests for disbursals from the UCC Alumni Fund are overseen by Cork University Foundation. Moreover, support from alumni, at every level, help leverage multi-million-euro gifts – when lots of alumni support UCC, it demonstrates an important message to the wider world that the people “who know us best” care about the future of the University and support their alma mater’s role in solving some of the world’s biggest challenges. The overall goal is to raise awareness of the importance of philanthropy in higher education today.
WE WILL:
• Support UCC’s major fundraising campaign by offering opportunities for alumni to support at all levels.
• Expand the number of donors and enhance the donor relations programme.
• Conduct fónathons to give students meaningful work experience, raise donations and/or get feedback from alumni on UCC and the alumni programmes.
• Grow recurring donations for sustained UCC Alumni Fund revenue and increase multi-level donations.
• Drive awareness of the UCC Alumni Fund and its impact across UCC.
• Seek opportunities to visibly acknowledge alumni support on all projects funded by the UCC Alumni Fund.
• Support donors interested in establishing student prizes.
• Advise UCC student sport clubs raising funds within the fundraising policy.
• Create a stewardship model to support alumni interested in leaving a legacy.
• Integrate legacy storytelling into our alumni communications.
• Support in-memorial programmes.
• Engage with national/international campaigns such as #GivingTuesday and Make-A-Will Week.
• Follow the trends in philanthropy and flex our programmes in accordance with alumni feedback.
Volunteers, just like donors, are another metric of our philanthropic health.
From our Governing Authority to Cork University Foundation, to the Advisory Boards across many functional areas and subsidiaries, UCC benefits every day from the time and expertise of external individuals that serve on our Boards and Committees in a voluntary capacity. Alumni mentor students, give masterclasses and guest lectures, organise events, and support student and alumni sporting clubs and societies. Volunteers add value to our activities by acting as critical friends, providing a more diverse range of skills, experience and knowledge; by bringing new opinions and approaches; by opening doors and by being brand ambassadors amplifying the impact of UCC in the communities we serve. The goal is to be able to measure and quantify all volunteer support centrally so that UCC can understand, thank and recognise the value of their contribution. We will measure the quality of our volunteer experience through surveys and feedback.
• Launch a new International Alumni Advisory Board to support the annual plans.
• Create a more sustainable and empowered members’ network through a new Constitution and service level agreement for Alumni Clubs and Chapters.
• Prepare and publish a new Volunteer Policy and streamline our guidelines.
• Launch the inaugural Cork/Munster Alumni Club.
• Develop stewardship plans to thank volunteers and underpin a positive volunteer experience.
• Identify and support new volunteer opportunities such as global brand ambassadors, or volunteers who support event planning and delivery.
• Curate a bank of alumni testimonials which can be used on the University website and in student recruitment materials.
• Engage with national campaigns such as Volunteers’ Week.
• Mobilise alumni to advocate for the University on significant issues.
• Partner with UCC Career Services, and other functional areas, to grow the current Student to Alumni Mentorship Programme; and Reverse Mentoring Programme.
• Run focus groups with students and young alumni to scope out and implement the benefits which are in most demand for young alumni.
• Develop a methodology to quantify and report on volunteering hours and volunteer experience.
Reunions and events are core staples of engagement programme, providing opportunities to deepen the connection, build relationships and instil pride and community.
In addition to the annual Golden Jubilee Reunion, our model offers a dedicated advancement officer who helps individual cohorts of alumni (volunteers!) to organise and deliver their class reunions. During and after the pandemic, hybrid events, such as our Global Speaker Series, enabled a greater reach that was kinder on the budget than traditional event planning. The 2024 Alumni Survey has been a starting point for thinking about the range of events and services we can offer noting the operating budget will remain challenging. The goal, therefore, is to deliver the events that are of most value to alumni and the University, with their success measured through postevent surveys and feedback.
WE WILL:
• Partner with other areas of UCC to involve alumni and donors in key events in the University’s calendar.
• Ensure all public events organised across the University, including those suitable for families, are promoted to alumni.
• Partner with academic areas on plenary or inaugural lectures which could be open for alumni to attend.
• Curate new events - hybrid, online and in-person - for alumni and donors based on the stage of their lives or personal interests.
• Develop bespoke events to engage our student and young alumni audiences in partnership with the Students’ Union, UCC Career Services and Student Experience Officers.
• Optimise opportunities to speak to students and parents (often alumni) on the benefits of being a UCC alum at Open Days, Postgraduate Fairs and Conferrings.
• Seek ways to make events affordable such as corporate sponsorship or modest cover charges.
• Support senior academics when travelling overseas to engage with smaller cohorts of international stakeholders such as round table discussions.
• Support Alumni Clubs/Chapters to deliver their own events and record event attendance.
• Use reunions and events as a strategy to re-engage with alumni for whom we have no email address or contact data.
• Record all event attendance/participation in our database and send post event surveys to gather data insights and to guide planning of future events and activities.
Global engagement is central to University College Cork’s Strategic Plan – Securing our Future 2023-2028 – and in 2024, the University adopted its first Global Engagement Plan 20242028 with the aim of driving a more strategic approach to university internationalization.
Building on decades of international partnership and activity, this ambition reflects our ambition to position UCC as a world class university with a global outlook. It reflects our commitment to raising the University’s international profile so that its research and education can have transformative impact.
The Global Engagement Plan has four pillars – Global Excellence, Impact, Partnership and Citizenship – reflecting a commitment to the importance of global at UCC and global from UCC. Global at UCC represents the importance of ensuring that the diversity and values of our university community the world around us, celebrating different cultures and backgrounds and developing our graduates as global citizens for the challenges of today’s world. Global from UCC reflects our determination to ensure that through all of our
activity, we maximise the potential of the University to do good, in line with our values, addressing the world’s major challenges through our research and our education.
Our stakeholders are of course central to this outlook and to the many strategic goals and key actions set out in the Global Engagement Plan. Under Global Impact, the plan commits to ‘extending our global reach through an ambitious and targeted alumni and stakeholder engagement plan, with a focus on supporter relations and donor stewardship’. In fulfilment of this objective, this Stakeholder Engagement Plan presents a welcome refresh of how the University will re-engage with you, our partners, alumni and friends. As Vice President Global Engagement, I look forward to connecting with you to ensure that by empowering people and creating knowledge we will fulfil our vision for UCC to shape a sustainable and inclusive world.
Professor Ursula Kilkelly, PG Cert 2020 Vice President Global Engagement
Building the infrastructure to support the plan.
Reporting: We will prepare annual plans for communications, events, volunteering and philanthropy and report on our KPIs and return on investment.
Students - the alumni of tomorrow: The goal is to build a lifelong, meaningful relationship with students before they graduate that endures long after graduation. A constant sense of belonging. Building a mutually beneficial relationship is key to our delivery, and a new focus on students and young alumni is a critical element of the long-term strategy. A positive interaction from alumni during a student’s lifetime will create a long-lasting impact and encourage involvement in the University at a later stage in life. A new post has been created to champion communications, events, volunteering opportunities and the impact of philanthropy across students and young alumni.
Philanthropy and Stakeholder Engagement are key enablers in the Strategic Plan 2023-2028. In order to maximise our
success for Legacy and Regular Giving, sustain philanthropy and support Cork University Foundation with the majorgift fundraising team, we have recruited a new Head of Transformational Philanthropy to lead and implement new programmes. The focus will be on building a culture of philanthropy, securing support of smaller amounts from many alumni donors, creating a pipeline for the future, supporting community fundraising and cultivating strong relationships with everyone who has decided to leave Cork University Foundation/UCC a legacy gift in their Will.
Alumni supporting international student recruitment: alumni advocacy is an important consideration when it comes to deciding where to go to university, and more so for international students. We will support the Global Plan through an integrated plan to grow impact and reputation. Cork and San Francisco has been twinned for over 40 years and a number
of opportunities have been identified. We will partner with Global Engagement to hire a new post overseas to work across the global agendas with the Vice President of Global Engagement and the Executive Director of Business Development and Advancement.
Concluding comment: Alumni and stakeholder communities are the lifeblood of educational institutions, forming a vital network of experienced professionals, mentors and friends. Cultivating a vibrant alumni community goes beyond mere nostalgia; it’s about fostering lifelong connections and support systems. We need innovative tactics to engage alumni, from new volunteering opportunities to professional networking and social events, to an alumni magazine supplemented with e-news in response to alumni feedback. We know that our stakeholders want a thriving alumni network, and we know we cannot foster a sense of belonging in a vacuum or with a belief that one-size fits all.
We invite you to stay connected and engage with us through LinkedIn. Scan the QR code to connect!
Your involvement, whether big or small, helps strengthen our community and create more opportunities for the next generation. Let’s continue to build on this legacy together and stay connected for the future.
Alumni and Development, University College Cork
2.12 Western Gateway Building, Western Road, Cork, T12 XF62
E: alumni@ucc.ie | foundation@ucc.ie
T: +353 (0)21 420 5942
W: https://alumni.ucc.ie
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