Routine communications

Techniques of keeping in touch with your graduates range from very personal efforts, such as regular phone calls, to more generic efforts, such as adding the graduates to your e-mail list for all meeting announcements and press releases. Some graduates will be more inclined to stay in touch and will contact you as they see opportunities to get involved.

A few communities invite graduates to either the opening session or graduation ceremony for the next group of participants. Either approach helps these community advocates to build on their connections within the community. In one city, a small group of academy graduates is spearheading a community development effort drawing on their individual areas of expertise.

Board and Commission appointments

Many communities undertake citizen academies with the express goal of developing a qualified pool of applicants for their appointed boards and commissions. For this reason, many communities ask all participants, near the end of the program, to complete a form indicating their interest in serving on a board and commission. Elected officials often give preference to academy graduates in filling future openings on these boards and commissions, confident that these candidates have a better-than-average understanding of the organization.

If your clerk's office does not keep interest forms on file, staff might choose to send the graduates announcements of all board and commission openings as they occur.

Going the extra mile

Some programs are especially well received, and the participants themselves ask for the chance to get together again after graduation to learn more. At least two versions of "continuing education" programs were identified in the survey:

• An annual reunion of all graduates, featuring time for networking and an update on any changes in policy or local government topics that are in the news.
  
  
• A more casual "drop-in" event on a quarterly basis on a single topic, open to all graduates but with no expectation that every graduate will show up for every session.