76 DEANS AND DEVELOPMENT is a vital step in friendraising, and friends are more likely to donate to your cause than strangers. Keeping in touch with your alumni main- tains bonds of loyalty they may feel to their University, college, school, major department, or even to individual faculty who supported them when they were undergraduates. If your development operation or that of your University is relatively new, an effective communications strategy between you and your poten- tial supporters is critically important; it should probably precede plans to raise significant amounts of money or to identify needs and solicit gifts for them. Most institutions publish alumni magazines on a quar- terly or semi-annual basis. The trend is towards more online forms of communication, particularly with younger alumni. You should work with the communications team, which is often part of the Advance- ment area, to inform them of needs you have defined for your college so they can create related articles trumpeting the accomplishments of your faculty and more successful alumni. Whether or not you can work closely with Communications staff, you should communicate regularly with your alumni to create new connec- tions and prospects. Your instruments need not be elaborate or espe- cially sophisticated: your main goal is to make your college a presence in the lives of your constituents. Alumni and supporters are often more interested in current students and other alumni than they are in faculty or their publications. A newsletter should also include an invitation to contact you individually to tell you about themselves or their experience of the college. Including a form for donations (and a statement that they be designated for your college) may not yield you many direct returns but reminds them about giving opportunities and that they can direct later gifts to your area. Even in this Internet era, you may have success with semi-annual newsletters of four to six pages that include a letter from the dean speaking in a very positive tone about recent exciting activities or successes in the college; one or two features about students who have an interesting story or accomplishment that can be told; and similar stories about faculty known to be popular. A simple but effective action you can take in building or reinforcing