From one-size-fits-all to Aston for Life: Refocusing alumni relations and development at Aston University

This paper will show the advantages of a strategic approach for a development and alumni relations function, including how to gain maximum benefit for your alumni, your team and your institution throughout the process itself. Using the Aston for Life strategy as a case study, the paper will outline how Aston University set the direction for alumni and development, creating a distinctive, clear and impact-driven offer. No dusty filing cabinet for this strategy: it has informed major investment and allocation of resources, team roles and structure, measures of success and provided a springboard for the role of alumni and philanthropy in the ambitious new institutional strategy Aston 2030. The paper also includes a deep dive into the development of the major initiative within the strategy, the Aston for Life platform, to demonstrate one way in which the strategy was put into practice.