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This page appears courtesy of Snow & Associates, an international research organization dedicated to helping educational, fraternal and professional institutions maintain better information on their alumni/ae, communicate more effectively with them, and relocate those who are lost. Click HERE to visit our home page.
Permanent E-Mail Addresses for Alumni:S&A recommends an innovative new service that constantly reminds alumni of their affiliation with your institution, facilitates communication between you and your alumni, and helps you keep track of them when they move:ALUM.ORG, an Internet partnering affiliate of S&A, now provides permanent e-mail addresses for alumni, at a very low annual cost. A typical address is assigned like this:
name@yourschool.alum.org The permanent address does not replace an alumnus' current e-mail address. Instead, mail sent to the permanent address is automatically forwarded to the address of the alum's choice, usually a local Internet service provider, or a national provider such as AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe. If an alumnus moves, or changes service providers, the permanent address remains unchanged. The alumnus needs only to notify the ALUM.ORG of the new address via e-mail or WWW form. Alums will not overlook this as they might with regular mail, because they will want to continue receiving e-mail from the permanent address. As local telephone companies enter the Internet market, it is highly likely that many alumni will change their e-mail addresses in the near future. Establishing permanent addresses for alumni now will make it much easier to keep track of them later. A permanent e-mail address is similar to an 800 number. It never changes, no matter where the alum lives. And alumni enjoy the prestige of having an e-mail address which reflects their status as an alumnus. As an added benefit to institutions which provide permanent addresses for their alumni, qualified alumni and development staff (and *only* qualified alumni and development staff) may send mass messages, which are automatically forwarded to all participating alumni. Because the service is entirely external, it will not burden your staff -- or your mail server -- at all. Yet you will realize the benefits just as if you provided the service yourself. Permanent addresses cost less than $1 per month. The cost can be reduced even further by reserving blocks of 100 or more at a time. To get started, you may want to reserve just 100 addresses, then offer them in your next alumni magazine at whatever price you choose, or as a premium for membership in the alumni association. You may be surprised at the response. This is also an excellent service to provide for graduating seniors, who use e-mail almost universally, and often change addresses frequently after graduation. It is widely recognized that more and more alumni are using e-mail every year. It is also clear that institutions can communicate with alumni via e-mail far less expensively than by regular mail; and that alumni can (and do) respond to e-mail much more readily than to regular mail. Establishing permanent addresses for alumni will help colleges and universities, national fraternities and sororities, and professional organizations, prepare for the wave of the future -- with significant benefits. To request more info, contact: Snow & Associates encourages all educational, fraternal and professional institutions to establish permanent e-mail addresses for alumni, using a service like the one described above, or your using your own resources. Either way, it will improve your ability to communicate with alumni, and help you keep track of them when they move.
All text and images © 1995-98 by Snow & Associates.
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