So you want to start an Alumni Association?

Contacting the National Headquarters

The process for starting an Alumni association begins when you contact the National Headquarters at nhq@sinfonia.org to let them know you are interested in beginning the process. Once the National Headquarters has heard from you they will determine in what province the prospective alumni association would reside based on existing province boundaries, which apply to both alumni associations and collegiate chapters, and consultation with the National President. Following contact with the National headquarters, the area Province Governor and Province Alumni Coordinator will also be notified. Finally, the interested person(s) will be put in touch with existing associations in the area or other interested alumni who have previously requested information from the same area.

Contacting Other Sinfonians

The first step to bringing a group of brothers together starts with locating and contacting alumni in your area. Options for identifying Sinfonians include the following:

• MySinfonia contains a variety of tools that the Fraternity has provided to its members. You can log on to onto the MySinfonia website, http://www.mysinfonia.org, MySinfonia gives you access to a variety of information about Sinfonia membership. In order to access MySinfonia, you will need to register, which requires your member number and established password. Once you have accessed the MySinfonia tools, you will be able to change your password, update your profile, access alumni lists, and view other Sinfonians’ screen names. This will allow you to download addresses for Sinfonians living in particular zip codes, for example, or find out the comprehensive list of members from a particular chapter, both collegiate and alumni.
• The Province Alumni Coordinator can help you get in contact with other alumni in the area as well as to the chapters’ alumni relations officers.
• The Province Governor can provide you with contact information from various chapters in the province.
• Local chapters may have information on area alumni as well. In addition, they can be a great resource for new alumni as the collegiate brothers graduate from school!

Initial “Meet & Greets” to establish an interest group

Once you have established a list of local alumni, you are ready to prepare an introductory message (for a mailing, group email, or phone calls) that includes:

1. A brief personal introduction.
2. The reason you are contacting them.
3. Measuring local interest in attending and participating in get-togethers.
4. A short survey asking about the level of involvement in Sinfonian activities in which the person would be interested, the types of activities in which he would want to participate, when he is available to attend events, updating current contact information, and whether he knows of other area Sinfonians who would also be interested in events.

Once a group of people interested in alumni activities is identified, begin planning for the first gathering to establish an interest group. Consider the following:

• Choose a date that works well for those who are interested.
• The gathering should be informal.
• Possible events might include: lunch or dinner at a reasonably priced restaurant, cocktail hours, concerts, local chapters events (if a chapter is in the area).
• Don’t expect a lot of people for the first meeting and don’t get discouraged. A successful event may be where you and one other Sinfonian attend.

Mailings

Mailings are going to be key tools to let those Sinfonians in the community that interest exists in forming a local alumni group and receive vital contact information and future activities if they are interested in participating in the group’s activities. Through MySinfonia, you are able to locate the names of those persons who live in a particular area and get a print-out of addresses. This can be the first step towards establishing a database of Sinfonians in the area that can be modified as time goes on. Depending on where you reside, the number of Sinfonians may vary greatly. You are also likely to find that there are a large number of brothers for whom the Fraternity does not have current addresses. Finding those addresses may require some investigation. Free websites such as www.switchboard.com and www.whitepages.com can be quite helpful in finding addresses. There are also websites that locate addresses for a set fee per address. Your Province Alumni Coordinator or Province Governor may be able to provide you with information as well. Because the address list for your area may be very large, you may need to choose a sample group to mail and, gradually through subsequent mailings, reach all alumni in your area. You may choose to target the A’s through the F’s, or everyone who was initiated before 1980, for example.

The mailing is your introduction to the alumni in the general area, and it may be that this is the first mailing that the alumnus has received from the Fraternity in several years. With that in mind, it would be most beneficial to have as much valuable information as possible in the first mailing. Your contact information, National Headquarters address, website address, phone number, announcements about upcoming interest group meetings, information about how to receive the Sinfonian, etc. would be information important for the recipient to have. A vital piece of the mailing is the inclusion of a questionnaire or survey that allows the sender to return something to you, and include questions pertinent to interests, availability, contact information, interest in level of involvement, etc.