Alumni, employers, neighbours and the people you forget

The audiences with no service relationship are the ones an institution hears from only when something has already gone wrong.

Alumni are not a fundraising list. They are the largest group of people who will ever describe your institution to a stranger, and most of them have not heard from you except to be asked for something. Employers who take your graduates rarely receive anything at all, despite being the group whose opinion determines whether the next cohort finds work. The households around the campus hear from you when the carpark changes and never otherwise, which guarantees that every contact is a complaint.

These audiences are cheap to serve because their expectations are low and specific. Alumni want occasional evidence that the place is still doing serious work and an honest way to stay connected. Employers want to know what changed in what graduates can do, and a named person to call. Neighbours want advance notice of anything that affects their street and a channel that is answered by somebody with the authority to fix it. None of that requires a campaign. It requires a schedule and a person.

Regulators and funders belong on the same list, and the discipline they impose is useful: they read what you publish and compare it with what you record. An institution that keeps its public statements aligned with its internal facts has already solved most of its external communication problems, because the only claims left standing are the ones it can support. Note that advertising and public statements carry obligations that vary by sector and jurisdiction, and those should be checked with the appropriate body rather than assumed.