Lessons Learned: How to Successfully Manage a Volunteer Administrator

Sonal Patel RossiDirector of Product Management, Online ServicesMIT Alumni Associationsbpatel@mit.edu | 617.452.3824

MIT at a Glance MIT Alumni Association – Encompass by the #s Support for Volunteer Admins Volunteer Admin Access Timeline Lessons Learned & Considerations for the Future

Agenda

Founded in 1861, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- a coeducational, privately endowed research university -- is dedicated to advancing knowledge and educating students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

The Basics: Location: Cambridge, MA Type: Private Research University Students: Approximately 4,500 undergraduate, 6,800 graduate Employees: Approximately 11,840 (including faculty) Alumni: 132,000 (13,000 serve as volunteers for MIT) Divisions: More than 30 departments and programs spanning five

schools — architecture and planning/ engineering/ humanities, arts, and social sciences/ management/ and science.

MIT at a Glance

As of July 1, 2015:

180 sealed sub-communities ~ 60% active (most domestic alumni clubs, reunion-year classes, most affinity groups, some international)

700 alumni volunteer admins – some more “active” than others

25 MIT staff admins

Last fiscal year transactions:

12,400 event transactions totaling $807,500 in revenue (fee-based events only)

3,650 membership transactions totaling $180,000 in revenue

13.5 million emails sent (total recipients)

MITAA – Encompass by the #s

Online Services Sonal Rossi, Director of Product Management Kim Balkus, Director of Product Training and Documentation Nora Zheng, Associate Director of Product Management Kim Farino, Project Coordinator for Online Services

Alumni Relations 5 staff supporting 47 domestic and 44 international MIT alumni clubs,

and 12 area reps (where this is no formal club) 5 staff supporting 75 alumni classes (2015 – 1940’s) 2 staff supporting 11 alumni affinity groups, widows group, and Parents

Association Clubs and groups that need help setting up events and/or emails can

request support from Tracy Chen, Coordinator, Events and Marketing Technology (Alumni Relations)

Support for Volunteer Admins

Encompass Volunteer Toolkit (available to staff and volunteers) Includes live training schedule, recorded webinars, pdf documentation, short videos,

product release highlights, enhancement request form, and link to Confluence.

Club, Class, Group, Department Staff Liaisons Basic troubleshooting – most common questions are related to event reporting.

Online Services Help Desk Advanced training needs, complex troubleshooting, enhancement requests, etc.

Other services offered Admin newsletter 8-10x year Annual satisfaction survey Monthly staff user group check-in meetings Review & distribution of monthly product release notes

Support for Volunteer Admins

Volunteer names are submitted to Alumni Records for coding in Advance (which triggers access to the volunteer toolkits found on alum.mit.edu)

Volunteers submit the Admin Rights Request Form, found on the toolkit (often submitted on behalf of volunteers by staff liaisons)

Confirmation email is sent to members of Online Services team, who follow up with volunteers to ensure appropriate training has been completed (the request form provides options for live training or webinar training)

Online Services team codes the volunteer as having completed the training in the mailing list table in Advance, and then marks their Encompass records with the related admin access.

Online Services team codes the admins in Advance; currently revamping the process (ideally, a separate table would be created to house all online application administrative access)

Volunteer Admin Access Timeline

Better understanding of various email notifications that get sent out – what triggers them, who receives them, who can manage them, and if action is needed, who should be acting?

Live training vs. recorded training – pros and cons of each need to be weighed. Live offers a custom approach, but scheduling is difficult, esp outside of time zone and international. Recorded is more accessible, but volunteer doesn’t have same opportunity to ask questions in the moment.

It is not possible to export which volunteers have which admin/CMS rights – we have a custom report that is generated weekly, but it is just raw data, not in a manageable format. None of this syncs with Advance so we have a manual process, which means a lot of cleanup is needed at the start of the fiscal year. Would be better to think this through carefully from the beginning.

Consider providing templates – easier way for volunteers to get started doing their work, however, remember that you’ll have to then modify these templates for ALL gids

Think about the different levels of training needed – internal help desk, internal IT support, club and group staff liaisons, senior management, external campus partners, and of course, the alumni volunteer admins. Offer training at ALL levels, and often – refresher courses are helpful for those who use the tools infrequently, and also for staff.

Lessons Learned & Considerations for the Future

THANKYOU