Alumni Clubs Click with New Web Services
The early reviews are in: It’s two thumbs way up for the new Web site building service now available to the School’s 107 alumni clubs and associations.
Several features receive special praise from clubs that have already launched the new service: Online registration and payment for membership and events are big hits; nontechnical volunteers can build and maintain a club Web site; and the low cost appeals to small clubs with limited resources.
HBS signed a long-term agreement last fall with Harris Internet Services, a leading provider of Web services to educational institutions. The agreement delivers easy-to-use, feature-rich Web site and club management services to alumni clubs and associations. The move came in response to requests from clubs for more technical assistance, says John Beckvold, director of finance and operations for External Relations at HBS.
Prior to launching the Harris service, the School provided clubs with contact data for local alumni. But if they wanted a Web site, they were on their own, says Beckvold. Not anymore.
“We had a Web site before the Harris service, and it was extremely difficult for us to manage,” notes Christopher Smith (MBA ’01), an officer of the HBS Club of Houston. “This new site is a quantum improvement in terms of both managing the site and delivering services to alumni,” adds Smith, whose club has about 270 members with a local alumni base of more than 1,000. Membership has grown since the new site was launched in January, he says.
The Houston club has also seen an increase in turnout at events because it’s now much easier for alumni to go online and check the events calendar — a feature available to every Harris Web site. In fact, alumni can check the events calendars of other HBS clubs.
Christopher Reed (MBA ’77), Web chair for the HBS Association of Oregon, has also seen a positive impact since the club became the first to go online with a new, Harris-enabled Web site last October.
“One of the greatest benefits is the ability for members to register and pay for events online using their credit cards,” Reed explains. “That makes it easier to promote events, and the club has a real-time view into event registration. It is very useful for a smaller club like Oregon because it allows nontechnical volunteers to set up and maintain a Web site with little effort. We would not invest in a Web site without the simplicity and low cost of a tool like this.”
The benefits of the new service outweigh the annual $750 fee, says Rogelio Fussa, assistant director and club liaison for Alumni Programs at HBS. As more clubs sign on, the annual fee will decrease, he explains. He expects more than a dozen will be using the Harris service by early fall.
For Ronan McArdle (MBA ’02), secretary of the 80-member HBS Association of Ireland, the Harris service makes club management easier. “It’s an excellent tool for a small club such as Ireland’s, which has limited resources to fund and maintain a Web site in its own right,” he says. For the club, the ability to put its membership directory online has saved the time and expense of producing a paper version.
The Harris technology will also benefit groups like the HBS African-American Alumni Association, whose membership is worldwide. “It will help us to be more productive in communicating with our constituents and in distributing information,” says Rena Clark (MBA ’90), the association’s vice president. “Our members are all over the world. We depend on the technology to help us meet our goals and stay connected.”
— Margie Kelley
