Introduction to the topic: Responding to a world in crisis – leveraging your community in hard times.<\/span><\/p>\nGroup survey shared with participants asking what people are struggling with most:<\/p>\n
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Three points about how people are reacting to COVID-19:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Uncertain times paired up with unavoidable change<\/b>\n
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\n- How to change and how long will it take us to adapt to the new environment?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- We are all going through collective loss<\/b>\n
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\n- Sense of mourning (darkness\/sadness intertwined)<\/span>\n
\n- Jobs<\/span><\/li>\n
- Family<\/span><\/li>\n
- Activities<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Communication needs to be sensitive to this<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Where before we used to go out to join new groups and events, we can’t, and ties to the university are now more relevant than before. <\/b>We need to embrace common ground and acknowledge the university has become more important to users<\/span>\n
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Three Changes of Paradigms\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n\n- Prioritizing speed over accuracy\u00a0<\/b>\n
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\n- No need to create the perfect mailing campaign<\/span><\/li>\n
- Use smart segmentation to personalize comms<\/span><\/li>\n
- No need for the perfect wording<\/span><\/li>\n
- If you can\u2019t respond quickly you fast become irrelevant<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Approach carefully: now all treading in unknown waters<\/b>\n
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\n- We don\u2019t know how people will react to initial approaches<\/span><\/li>\n
- Do not give yourself too ambitious goals, but go in with an aim to innovate and test. Start from zero to test the waters.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Audit and analyse what the team is doing currently<\/b>\n
\n- Unis are offering platforms as a lifeline for those who are struggling, especially staff\/colleagues<\/span><\/li>\n
- Alumni teams and Career teams are some of the best people to help build communities<\/span><\/span>Ideas<\/strong>\n
\n- Share with ideas and approaches with other teams<\/span><\/li>\n
- Create a protocol<\/span><\/li>\n
- Introduce the platform<\/span> and ask what users need from this platform. Make it work for them.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Current themes:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n\n- Create spaces for mental health<\/b>\n
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\n- Faculties are putting great effort into academic online life<\/span><\/li>\n
- There is no community for users to discuss struggles<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Uncertainty for recent graduates<\/b>\n
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\n- How to provide something tangible for them?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Everyone wants to help: <\/b>How to provide opportunities for people to help each other?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
SPOTLIGHT<\/b>: UWE Initiatives related to COVID19<\/span><\/h2>\nNoor Nixon, Alumni Engagement Manager, University of West of England talks about their initiatives.<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
UWE presented their Coronavirus Emergency Fund, Key Worker Campaign and shared how they are supporting their finalists.<\/span><\/p>\nUWE have 30,000 students and 3,000 staff. They h<\/span>ave been acting quickly and developed\u00a0<\/span>4 campaigns:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \n
\n- Main initiative: <\/span>Keyworker campaign<\/b>\n
\n- Share pride, inspire others and celebrate talent<\/span><\/li>\n
- Uni has Nightingale hospital on campus and has<\/span> training students (nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals) stepping in there to help<\/span><\/li>\n
- Share stories from students and graduates<\/span>\n
\n- alumni, students & staff share short, sharp 1-minute videos to share their name, role and the pride they feel in being connected to the uni. <\/span><\/li>\n
- asked what they enjoy most about their roles and top tips for self-isolating<\/span><\/li>\n
- Create a very positive movement<\/span><\/li>\n
- Want to be organic, and generate more videos<\/span><\/li>\n
- They are encouraged to post on own platforms, in order to remain GDPR compliant using their # so they can be reposted\/reshared by the university<\/span><\/li>\n
- Have been emailing directly<\/span><\/li>\n
- If you want to see the posts related to this campaign and others search for the #teamuwe hashtag on Twitter<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Have had a few posts, and have had a lot of interest<\/span>\n
\n- People want to share their stories<\/span><\/li>\n
- Once shared, UWE follow up to get them to join the community, to mentor and share experience<\/span><\/li>\n
- This is a stepping stone to connect to other things as well<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Question: What were the number of posts? How did that impact traffic to where you wanted it to go?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- \n
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\n- 5 posts so far<\/span><\/li>\n
- They posted in different places, sharing to different people, hard to track<\/span><\/li>\n
- Have emailed 100+ alumni asking for support in sharing with their contacts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Coronavirus emergency fund\/hardship fund<\/b>\n
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\n- Fundraising usually is run by the alumni team and usually used to support community projects and hardship funds. <\/span>\n
\n- They now merged all funds to create an emergency fund specifically for this<\/span><\/li>\n
- UWE contributed \u00a360,000+ to 350 students<\/span>\n
\n- In two weeks all funds were gone<\/span><\/li>\n
- Put out a call to funding database as well as partners and local businesses through careers and research and innovation departments<\/li>\n
- There were 30+ donations in the last week prior to the roundtable<\/span><\/li>\n
- Santander made a donation of \u00a325,000<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Partners, careers, research<\/span>\n