Alumni Officer

Role Context:

The British Council has a long history of designing and managing a range of scholarship programmes for international students.

The British Council has been awarded a contract by the FCDO to become the supplier to provide administration services for two prestigious scholarship programmes: the Chevening Scholarship programme, owned by the FCDO; and the Marshall Scholarship programme, funded by the FCDO and owned by the MACC – an arm’s length body of government. Both programmes offer postgraduate scholarships and a small number of fellowships to international students to study in the UK. Under Chevening, around 1,500 scholarships or fellowships are awarded annually to students from across the world. Under Marshall, around 50 scholarships are awarded to US citizens. Details on each programme can be found at www.chevening.org and www.marshallscholarship.org

The British Council took on responsibility as supplier for these programmes on 1 September 2023. The contract award is for 4 years with a break clause at 2 years.

The services required to be delivered in the contract include: Communications; programme promotion; scholar selection; scholar placing assistance; pre-departure services; support to scholars in the UK; alumni engagement; impact reporting and MEL; financial reporting; partnership development; and ensuring social value.

The British Council delivers a wide range of programmes in international higher education that promote cultural relations and understanding. These include grant-funded programmes supporting international student recruitment to the UK, trans-national education, and alumni engagement. Delivery of the Chevening and Marshall programmes will complement these activities and serve to demonstrate the British Council’s value as a partner of UK government and as a partner for the UK’s higher education sector. Facilitating the long-lasting and deep relationships between people across the world and the UK will strengthen individual and subsequent institutional connections as well as ties of friendship.  

Role Purpose:

The focus of the post of Alumni Officer is to support the management of the global network of 57,000 alumni of the Chevening programme, together with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and key internal stakeholders. This includes ensuring high-quality content for online alumni sites, regular communications with alumni, and maintenance of the central alumni database. They will also provide advice, guidance and tools for Embassies/High Commissions to use to engage with alumni locally, and for alumni groups to function effectively. The postholder will demonstrate a strong commitment to delivering a genuinely world-leading international scholarship programme and to higher education.

The postholder coordinates the delivery of an annual events programme (online and some face-to-face) for alumni, ensures that case-studies and examples of impactful alumni work are captured, and curates the alumni newsletter. The postholder also supports the annual Chevening Alumni Project Fund (CAPF) bidding process, providing guidance to the FCDO in utilising alumni to campaign for Chevening funding and promoting the scheme.  In addition, the postholder will support the delivery of campaigns to reconnect with alumni and celebrate their achievements.

The role is a point of contact for the large network of Chevening Alumni worldwide and plays an important role in supporting the implementation of a global alumni strategy agreed by the FCDO and the British Council. It supports successfully transitioning current Chevening Scholars into the alumni network, with the objective of them becoming engaged alumni. The post holder will support alumni relations best practice at the Chevening Secretariat.

Main Accountabilities/Responsibilities but not limited to the following:

The postholder will be required to undertake all reasonable duties in accordance with the role’s purpose which are likely to include

• Support colleagues in over 160 Embassies/High Commissions, providing advice and guidance to help alumni engagement in country and provide support for new processes and tools to enable them to deliver against a plan for alumni engagement globally.
• Work with Communications Teams to deliver a robust alumni communications strategy that meets the needs of the global audience. Monitor the Chevening alumni database and online platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn), for the alumni audience, ensuring consistent and regular contact with active alumni and content which may attract alumni who have drafted away. Maintain an alumni section on the Chevening website.
• Draft a variety of communications for alumni e.g., newsletters, social media postings, and monitoring the public-facing alumni email account and social media platforms, ensuring messages are responded to with good customer care.
• Coordinate events and value-added schemes for alumni, including support for career and skills development, and coordinating alumni transitioning for awardees coming to the end of their Chevening experience.
• Maintain a set of resources for alumni to use to promote the programme and encourage greater promotion during the annual application period.
• Provide support for the Chevening Alumni Partnership Fund (CAPF) scheme on behalf of and under direction from the FCDO’s Scholarships Team. Constantly seek to create improvements in the administration of CAPF and ensure that it meets all FCDO compliance requirements.
• Liaise with all official alumni associations in other countries and maintain records of key contacts. Support existing alumni groups and where feasible, support further alumni groups to self-organise in locations where no official alumni association.
• Collaborate effectively with colleagues of main functional areas at Chevening to identify opportunities to leverage alumni contacts for the benefit of the programme.

The role holder may be required to take on other reasonable duties in support of both the Chevening and Marshall scholarship programmes.

Role Specific Knowledge and Experience:

Minimum/essential

• Degree educated or equivalent experience with an understanding of the experience and needs of international higher education students
• Demonstrable commitment to ensuring the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion are incorporated into work plans and delivery
• Experience in planning and organising small to medium to scale events
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and databases

Desirable

• Relevant experience of working in a higher education institution or educational office environment with an understanding of the role of alumni relations

British Council Pay band: 6

Benefits Include, but are not limited to:

• 32 days annual leave, in addition to public holidays
• 3 days volunteering leave
• Career average defined benefit pension scheme
• An unrivalled opportunity for you to get to use all the experience you’ve built up working in and/or leading global organisations to support us in building trust across the world.

Department:  Cultural Engagement

Contract type:  Fixed Term, until August 2025

Closing Date: Wednesday, 15th May

Location: Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh or Manchester.