King’s College London launched its online platform, King’s Connect, in February 2014. Based around the eMentoring module, King’s launched a targeted recruitment campaign focused on specific faculties and alumni living in key areas abroad and in London. Within six months of launching King´s had over 1,000 alumni members, 200 active mentors and over 300 student members on the platform.
King’s ran several initiatives surrounding their mentoring offering from training workshops, massive events, mentoring clinics, recent graduate mentoring introduction events and international trips focused on King’s Connect to SE Asia and the USA annually. Over 600 alumni attended these initiatives every year.
Since then, these numbers have risen to over 3,000 alumni members, over 700 active mentors and close to 800 students have been a part of the platform.
King’s Connect has served as a key tool for engagement for alumni from all faculties, based in more than 80 different countries and at all life stages. There are four main areas where the platform has made a significant impact on the objectives of the Fundraising and Supporter Development function at King’s:
- Data gathering: 60% of alumni joining the platform provided new data for the University (particularly addresses, email contact and business details).
- Identifying key alumni: King’s Connect has allowed the King’s to find and connect with alumni doing amazing work around the world and connecting their professional endeavours with the innovations taking place at the University.
- Cultivation and stewardship: King’s Connect has allowed alumni that are prospects and donors to connect with students at an enriching level, allowing them to give back by sharing their experiences with others.
- Enhancing the student experience: The mentoring programme at King’s has become a tool for Careers and Academic faculties to support student journeys and bring in relevant commercial awareness know-how into campus through our pool of active mentors.
- Fundraising: The King’s Connect platform was pivotal in attracting a £90,000 donation from an alumnus, to further support mentoring.
King’s Connect has opened doors to King’s that we did not even know existed. It has allowed us to connect with alumni and students doing amazing things, and sharing that with the wider King’s community in an incredibly meaningful way through mentoring and community building events. – Maria Gutierrez, Alumni Volunteer Manager
August 2017
