Written by Prerna Aswani, Project Lead at inHive, in collaboration with Mastercard Foundation Alumni Network Committee Members.
This time last year, inHive and the Youth Engagement team at the Mastercard Foundation were on-boarding the pilot committees of the Mastercard Foundation’s Alumni Network in Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda. When we started the planning process early 2020, little did we know the world was about to change in a fundamental way. We found ourselves, like other organisations, having to think about what it would mean to pivot in the reality of a virtual world. A year on, and together with members of the Alumni Committees we reflect on the successes and challenges of building an online alumni community during COVID.
Building a virtual community is challenging when you are expecting it. It’s a whole different ball game when you aren’t. The first words that come to mind when you think of the word community, at least for me, are relationships, strong ties, and close bonds. Each of these are built over time, and real human interaction feels so important to nurture them. But if there is one thing the year of COVID has taught us is that we, as human beings, are incredibly resilient and adaptable. Speaking from my personal experience of living at home and working at home, I count myself incredibly lucky to have been able to connect with new people and formed real close bonds, despite meeting mostly virtually, whether this be with new friends or new colleagues. But a network by nature means lots of people and lots of connections, and developing connections en-masse in a virtual environment is small task!
Speaking to some of the Mastercard Foundation Alumni Committee members in Ghana, they tell me that when they first started, they shared what they thought leading this network would mean –
‘I thought we’d be doing a lot of impact programs like outreach in rural villages as well as seeing and interacting with alumni from other networks and different countries, but COVID did not allow.’ – Elikplim, Ghana Alumni Committee member
Adjusting to building a virtual network has been a process of reconceptualising what an online community could look like, despite the limitations. Limitations notwithstanding, the three pilot committees certainly have been creative in coming up with virtual events to keep their members engaged and invested!
From Zoom parties (with poetry and dancing!) in Uganda, to developing a transition series to guide network members into the next stages of their career in Ghana, the Alumni Committee members have thought of it all.
There have been a few defining factors of the committees’ early success in driving online engagement and attendance at virtual events:
- Promoting events on multiple channels: email, WhatsApp, Telegram, and social media to get the word out.
- Keeping members engaged between events: An important way the country committees have kept their network members engaged in between events has been periodic newsletters (like the one below) giving alumni an overview of past and upcoming activities as well as how members can get involved.
- Robust process of collecting data at each event to have a database of members for future events.
- Leveraging Mastercard Foundation partners, not only to spread the word about their events, but collaborating with them to run events. For example, the Ghana committee’s very first event was on transitions to postgraduate education, where they invited speakers from the University of Edinburgh to speak about postgraduate opportunities and funding available for these with them. For a network in its early days, where its identity among members is not as well established, getting big names to speak at their events has been a game-changer.
It’s not all smooth sailing, though.
Both building a virtual network, and working with your team members within the committees virtually has come with its own challenges:
- Team Coordination
At face value, it may seem that team coordination is easier virtually; you just find a mutually convenient time and hop on the phone to plan next steps and activities for the network. But the resounding message from committees was quite the opposite: virtual meetings meant that they were not able to demarcate chunks of time where the committee would meet in person, hash out their plans and move ahead. Instead, in the virtual world, committee members found themselves juggling multiple tasks at the same time; from their full-time work, home responsibilities and commitments to advancing network activities. Added to this frequent poor connection on Zoom calls, and things being lost in translation meant that planning virtually consumed more time than less. Victorine describes to me how virtual event after event, meeting after meeting, saw the Ghana committee’s energy dwindle for a while, especially when it became challenging to match the schedules of 7 committee members to find time to meet. It has taken a lot of rethinking, and restructuring, having buddy check in systems within the committee to check in on each other, hold each other to account, and boost each other’s motivation to keep the show running.
- Internet Connectivity and Inclusion
The reality is that not all Mastercard Foundation Alumni have access to strong, stable internet or can afford to pay for substantial data charges, which makes this a real barrier to inclusion for the less digitally connected alumni. With inclusion being at the core of Mastercard Foundation’s values, this has been the most significant challenge we continue to wrestle with: how do we create a virtual network that those in the remotest areas and least digitally resourced can also access and benefit from? Whilst a perfect solution has by no means been found, we continue to strive for better: in Ghana and Uganda the alumni committees have recruited regional ambassadors to get the word out locally, and raise awareness of the network and opportunities to engage at local levels.
- It’s hard to build a sense of belonging in mass virtual engagements
Virtual engagements like Zoom parties can be good fun and learning events like transition series and opportunity arenas with guest speakers sharing their professional expertise can be insightful, but none of these approaches build strong relationships amongst participants. Zoom webinars don’t organically create the space for casual networking, or the accidental bump in with someone at an in person event that can spur an hours long conversation. This is where the committees have really seen the limitations of large virtual events.
Despite all this, there are solutions and ideas to be built on. Once the committees build a large database of their members and their interests, they can match up those with common interest to connect in smaller virtual ‘rooms’.
Virtual or not, networks are part of a long term strategy. It takes time to set up the right structures and process for regular engagement, data collection and experience of facilitating events to enable members to make connections and for these to result in collaborations where, members ‘Make Africa great together’. With the national alumni chapters having been up and running for merely a year, the first and foremost indicator of success is for the leaders of the networks, our committee members, to be confident in their skills to develop the right structures and processes to lay the foundations for sustainable alumni engagement. With their newsletters, social media engagement, and data collection structures all set up, they are, without a doubt laying the foundations for empowered, alumni-led networks for years to come. As, Sandrine, from the Rwanda Committee shares with me –
“We took advantage of the lemons that the COVID-19 pandemic gave us, and we made our delicious lemonade!” – Sandrine, Rwanda Alumni Committee member