Centralized Communications Technology
Overview
Organization: New York University, Office of Alumni Relations, Communications (AR Comms)
Collaborators: Alumni Relations Departments, IT, University Digital Communications, Event Managers, Fundraising, Finance, external vendors
Date: RFQ Began May 2017 - Launched November 2018
Goal: Ensure accessibility of all communications. Automate the flow of alumni information to reduce duplicate records and unsubscribe complaints. Reduce staff time spent supporting school-specific alumni relations departments.
Results: Empowered 13 teams to access and use accessible, brand-approved content to build their communications, saving the AR Comms team roughly 100 hours per month. Migrated website, emails, events, and donations to four integrated platforms. reducing duplicate records by 80% and customer service tickets about unsubscribing by 32%.
Opportunities / Risks
Between 2014 and 2016, the AR Comms team experienced rapid growth, producing more content and providing communications support to more school-specific alumni relations departments. With this growth, we were experiencing several challenges.
AR Comms and school-specific content did not adhere to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Two employees were each spending 50 hours a month providing support to five school-specific AR teams.
While those five offices worked with AR Comms, other school-specific alumni relations departments used a variety of tools, creating frustration for alumni trying to update subscription preferences and personal details in their alumni records.
The outdated technology AR Comms used for email, website, and events did not offer customization, seamless integration, accessibility functionality, or mobile-first design opportunities.
Developing a Plan
I led the AR Comms team in identifying how our current website, email, events, and donation platforms communicated with each other. We identified places where the system duplicated alumni records, opportunities for automation, and the ideal flow of information between tools.
Since so many schools were using different platforms, I met with each of their teams to understand what tools they were using, what needs they satisfied, and existing gaps.
All of this information enabled our team to collaborate on a robust RFQ that aimed to find tools to empower school-specific departments, integrate tools, and streamline information flow.
Action & Results
Empower School-Specific AR Teams
In collaboration with the AR Comms team, I created The Hub (link opens in a new window), a consolidated location for best practices, processes, templates, and content sharing.
This tool provided:
Detailed guidance about WCAG compliance.
Information on University branding.
Content library, increasing web traffic to school-specific content by 23%.
Processes for email marketing and event management, reducing AR staff time spent supporting school-specific departments by 100 hours per month.
Streamline Tools and information flow
Created presentations and materials for SVP to share with school-specific departments, generating buy-in from an additional eight teams. A total of 13 schools now use AR Comms platforms.
Collaborating closely with IT and vendors to assure the integration of three new platforms and legacy donation tool, reducing duplicate alumni records by 80% and complaints about unsubscribing by 32%.
Lead team in migrating nearly 400 website pages to new CMS on a strict timeline and with a limited budget. Assured all content was WCAG compliant, including captioning of all videos.
Designed mobile-first, fully accessible templates for event registration and email invitations that seamlessly integrated data from alumni records, streamlining the event registration process for alumni and increasing completed registrations by 24%.
