Alumni leaders met online during Alumni Network Management Course (ANMC)

SI and Sweden alumni networks consists of highly motivated alumni who work for sustainability in their local context. 2021 there are 47 certified alumni networks in 36 countries! Each network is managed by a board, a group of people who’s role is to coordinate the network’s activity and create cohesion among it’s members, a sometimes challenging task.  

During the first half of 2021 the Swedish Institute together with Hyper Island invited these individuals to attend a course in network management, especially developed for the Sweden Alumni Networks. The course, that ran for the second time this year, offered the board members a platform to discuss network management.  As a result of the recent year’s pandemic situation one of the modules was also particularly dedicated to finding constructive methods of working in a remote setting.  

After finishing four of the five modules an evaluation survey of the course was conducted among it’s participants as a way of gaining an overall picture of their experiences and gathering feedback and input of ways to improve it. In this survey 75% of the answering participants gave the course the highest or second highest grade. 

“The course provides practical knowledge and skills that are useful in strengthening the network.” says one of the participants.  

The fifth and final module of the course was held after the summer as a concluding session with focus on best practice. In this module the participants were encouraged to share stories and experiences from their own engagement in an alumni network. Another goal of the session was to build relationship and create community between the networks, which could be a valuable resource for the board members in their future work.  

“Everything has been very well curated. The 7 min talk about yourself and asking others to share what they could curate was an interesting concept. Also how we can work on team building and improving interaction through the online platform.” says another participant. 

The pandemic has been challenging, but it has also led to a number of positive things, such as being able to meet and share experiences with fellow SI and Sweden Alumni across the world. The course has contributed to creating a platform for a global alumni network, resulting in many regional and interregional activities between networks on their own initiative.