The Zurich group on a walking tour

How to connect with your global community

There are lots of ways you can connect with other local alumni – digitally, at events, or through our international network of groups and associations.

When there isn't an existing group near you

If you live in or are travelling to an area without an existing group, but don't want to commit to starting your own group at this stage, here are our top tips for connecting to alumni near you:

 

Ways to connect without an official group

Connect on Imperial Plexus

Imperial Plexus is our free online community for alumni where you can connect, collaborate and discover alumni where you are. Network for professional or social reasons, safe in the knowledge everyone on the platform is part of the Imperial community. 

Connect on LinkedIn

You can use both the main Imperial LinkedIn page and/or the private alumni group to find fellow alumni. The latter is exclusive to Imperial alumni and students and provides a forum for discussion and connecting among the alumni community. You can send a message to individual alumni, or post about a career opportunity or event. You can use the alumni tool on the main Imperial LinkedIn page to search for alumni by different categories, for example, by industry or location. While everyone in the private group has been verified, please note that not everyone who lists Imperial on their profile has been verified. 

Organise a local event

If you'd like to organise a local gathering for alumni and a group doesn't exist, get in touch. We can share with you the number of alumni in your area and discuss whether interest has been expressed by others. If you and the Alumni Relations team decide that it is a viable prospect we will walk you through organising your first eventYour first social alumni gathering should aim to: 

  • Test the appetite for local events 
  • Find out if being an event organiser is the right volunteering opportunity for you 
  • Begin to develop a local alumni network 
If your first event goes well and you would like to organise another, we can help you to plan a different type of event with more content which aims to further strengthen local connections. See the guidelines in the group tier guidelines for advice on the types of events you could run. 

Host an alumni event

Are you happy to offer your home or office to host an alumni gathering (which you may or may not organise)? Please get in touch with us to find out how you can help: alumni@imperial.ac.uk

Other opportunities

There are also other ways you can connect with the College from your current place of residence.

For example:

  • Supporting student recruitment
  • Answering student questions through Ask an Alum
  • The Alumni Mentoring Scheme
  • Employing Imperial students

Find out more about these and other volunteering opportunities.

There may be additional ways in which you can support the College internationally – please get in touch if you have ideas you’d like to discuss: alumni@imperial.ac.uk

When you'd like to start your own group

If you've already run your first event and it seems clear that there is ongoing interest in the network we can discuss the possibility of creating a new alumni group.

When you're involved with an existing alumni group

Staying in touch with one another is one of the most important functions of an alumni group, and there are a lot of different ways that this can be achieved. It’s worth thinking about what works for local alumni, and also bearing in mind that some have different communication preferences. Don't forget to read our guidelines on how to run a successful event.

Communicating via Imperial Plexus and the Alumni Website

Screen grab from Imperial Plexus

Imperial Plexus

Imperial Plexus is our free online community for alumni where you can connect, collaborate and discover more about your online benefits. There is a dedicated discussion board under the 'Collaborate' menu called Alumni groups & regional activity. We encourage you to promote your events and activities on this board and to share photos after your events. It's also a good idea to keep an eye on the Activity feed as alumni moving to a new area will often reach out here for local advice and networking opportunities. Please respond to them and make them feel welcome if they're in your local area.

Screenshot from website

Alumni website

Your group will be listed on the Find your local group page of our website. If your group isn't listed here, please contact Eilidh Campbell, Alumni Engagement Officer, to add a new listing. You should include a key contact for your group as well as links to any social media channels you look after. Remember to let us know if any of these details change so that we can update the website.

If you run an event, be sure to let us know so that we can add it to our Alumni events webpages.

Communicating via Email and Social Media

Screen grab of a group email

Emailing alumni in your area

We send a monthly events e-newsletter to all alumni and we encourage you to submit the details of your events to be included in this email. Please get in touch with Eilidh to find out more about the schedule and the deadlines for submissions. When you're planning an event, keep this schedule in mind to be sure your event will be promoted as widely as possible.

Please do not build your own separate mailing list for your group - it is very important to adhere to data protection legislation and the most up-to-date source of contact details and consent is our database. If you would like to discuss emailing alumni, always get in touch with us in the first instance.

Social media icons

Social media

Some alumni groups set up their own social media accounts (for example LinkedIn, Facebook or WeChat). If you want to do this for your group, please consider the following:

  1. Remember to add your contact at the College to your group so that they know what is going on
  2. Assign a member of your committee or another volunteer to keep the platform updated
  3. Get in touch with us to help brand your group - we can provide you with a logo for your group and offer advice

We are generally happy to promote your event on our social media channels. Get in touch with us if you’d like to find out more.

Photography

We love it when you share photos of your events on Plexus or social media, and we encourage you to send them to us as well to share on our social media channels, the website, and occasionally other publications. Please remember to let everyone at the event know you will be taking photos and that they could be used for these purposes, and give alumni an opportunity to ‘opt-out’ – either by speaking to you, or, in the case of larger events, wearing an identifiable badge/sticker or similar, so that we know not to use any photos they may mistakenly appear in. If there are children or young people at your event (anyone under the age of 18), please obtain written permission from their parents.

An important note on data protection

We maintain an alumni database and work hard to ensure that the details we hold are up-to-date, and that our data security practices are in line with our privacy policy. We ask you not to maintain your own mailing lists or databases (including spreadsheets and other similar formats). With appropriate notice, we can always help you to reach out to local alumni within the guidelines relevant to the tier that your group falls into. 

When you do need to email a group (for example, to update attendees on an event), it is important to respect their right to privacy, and to keep in mind data protection legislation. Always use the BCC option rather than CC unless you have permission from your contacts to share their information. That permission should be written down and recorded somewhere safe.

Please feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions about holding or using alumni data.