All it takes is a little…push

As of 19 April, we have raised S$9,138, from 72 generous donors. If we manage to keep this momentum going, 25K isn’t that far away :D

But first!

Let’s recap:

1. The Alumni Fundraising Drive has a target to raise 25K, raised by the Alumni population.
2. A “Mysterious Donor” will match every dollar donated up to 25K, bringing our kitty seed amount up to 50K. We have until the 30th of June to do this. We will endow this 50K and the 3% returns will be used to throw fundraising events to grow our “Endowed Gift”.
3. MOE will also match the original 50K, funnelled into the SUTD Development Fund. This fund is used to provide Financial Aid, Scholarships, and Bursaries.

Don’t Say TL;DR

Now that we know where the money is going, our next task is to make it clear to all potential donors. One can’t understate the value of effective communication in a drive such as this.

We have shared some information about this fundraiser before via email, and during the CNY dinner. But we have communicated neither the purpose nor the allocation of money before (TBH we jumped the gun with the initial communiques).

But for all the poor souls who cry TLDR, we know that some infographics are required to make this admittedly complicated process easy to grasp and understand. So, not for the last time, we employed graphic designers from amongst our own Alumni! These wonderful people took time out to help us create two different posters. Following a thorough internal review (We design students can be a little touchy), we finally went with the following poster:

This poster has been emailed to all the Alumni and hopefully, with greater clarity, will come greater generosity.

Better by Association

This entire time, a small group of alumni, supported by SUTD’s Alumni Office, have been performing these tasks and responsibilities. This fundraiser brought us together in a more motivated manner, but there is still a lack of structure.

So, we have decided to form an official Alumni Association, with a constitution, set of values, and leadership. The motivation behind this, is to provide structure and vision for the future batches of alumni (Alumni are going to outnumber the school population by next year). The process of associating has begun, starting with the drafting of a constitution, and we will keep you updated on that as well from now on.

To kick-start the writing of our constitution, we decided to try and answer a few guiding questions for our Association. If you have any more suggestions, don’t hesitate to put them into the comments.

What do I want the association to do for me?

Being alumni ourselves, we took this question quite seriously. One of the main, if not the main, purposes of the Association should be to serve the Alumni. There were a lot of great ideas in the room, which can be categorized into the following:

1. Initiative
   The association needs to provide a way for aspirational alumni to fulfil their aspirations, in any field. We are our best support.
2. Growth
   As young adults, at the start of our careers, we still have a lot of room for skill improvement, leadership development, and networking. Add to this the valuable personal guidance that can be sought from fellow alumni. The association will have to facilitate this.
3. Chill
   We can’t ignore the fact that (eventually) we will have our own clubhouse.
4. Giving back
   The association can be a great conduit for alumni to donate towards causes.
5. Co-operative
   Why spend $200 a month on a for-profit insurance, if the association can find a way to lower that cost by providing a non-profit one? Initiatives such as these, run by the association will improve the lives of our alumni, while making the association self sufficient.

What can the association do for others?

We aren’t selfish, so we did consider what we can do for others. Once again, they have been categorized for your reading pleasure:

1. Financial Aid
   For those whom the association deems worthy.
2. Design Thinking
   In recent years, Design Thinking has become increasingly important in every aspect of society and our own lives. As previous students, we have thinking already ingrained in our DNA, and by conducting workshops, events and propagating this idea, we could spread this way of life to the rest of the world.
3. Co-working spaces
   The association can make itself the hotbed of innovative activity.
4. Recruitment Platform
   Put Alumni in touch with potential recruiters (external companies or even Alumni)
5. Shopping and Food
   When we (eventually) build our clubhouse, we can make it a location where you’ll want to spend the weekend and reconnect with each other.

We then went further into identifying the various stakeholders in this association, and classified them into Potential Members (Alumni, Students, Ex-scholars, Professors and Staff, and Public), Non-members who are part of the Ecosystem (Members of other Unis, Government Agencies, members of the co-operative), and Non-members who are very loosely affiliated with the association (VCs and Entrepreneurs).

These questions and the answers to them, provide us with a basis to start working on the vision and mission of this association.

Our niche

We have advantages as compared to the entrenched alumni associations out there. Yes, they have a larger population, and yes, as a result of the population they have more money. But to really differentiate ourselves, let’s focus on what we have going for us.

The majority of the SUTD alumni population is within the ages of 23 and 27. At this young age, we are capable of taking more risks, are more immersed in technology, and highly nimble. As this city moves towards becoming more tech-oriented and smart, the association and its members, from leadership all the way down will have a working knowledge of influential technology for the foreseeable future. With our combination of skill and energy, this association can be set up to influence the future of Singapore in an impactful way for years to come.

Leave a response below if you have any interesting ideas on how to grow the fund! If you would like to join the team, feel free to drop any of us an email. Love, your fellow alumni.