The American School of Barcelona (ASB) is a private, non-profit, coeducational day school serving students from 3-18 years old in Barcelona, Spain. ASB offers a university preparatory curriculum which provides its graduates with access to American, Spanish and other international universities. In 2021, they launched their first online community to keep alumni and former parents and staff informed about ASB, and also to provide a networking platform to encourage connections. In 2022, their website is now the central hub for information, news and events related to their 60th anniversary occurring next year, with over 500 alumni registered on their site. 

Encouraging sign ups to their new platform

The American School of Barcelona launched their new platform in May 2021, and segmented their communications between alumni and the rest of their community. They sent an email to their community to share the benefits of joining, such as catching up on the latest ASB news, registering for school events, connecting directly with friends, sharing or seeking career guidance and browsing all the photos from ASB events. They also incentivised sign ups with an exclusive Louis-the-Lynx plush toy to the first ten alumni who complete their profile, including uploading a profile photo. Their launch emails had an impressive open rate of 66%, and so far over 20% of their community has signed up to their online community! 

Creating a home for exciting alumni content

To encourage regular engagement, ASB has been publishing exciting alumni content, with over 70 articles featuring different former students and their achievements since leaving the school. They also share regular updates from the school, including charity drives, sports events and collaborations between alumni and students for careers and university talks. 

Supporting ASB businesses and entrepreneurs

The ASB community is filled with enthusiastic entrepreneurs and thriving businesses. Launching a new business directory will help to promote alumni and community owned businesses and encourage support, provide an important platform for connecting, and share special offers for the ASB community. ASB members can list their businesses for free on the site, after registering an online profile. There are currently 30 businesses listed, with over 1,000 views of different services and products offered. 

Building connections with current ASB students

The Professional Learning Programme, developed by ASB Class of 2022 students, aims to create opportunities for high school students to gain work and career experience by collaborating with the wider ASB community. The scheme will offer internships that enable students to learn about specific fields of interest, through experience that can exclusively be obtained through hands-on involvement, helping them attain a competitive advantage in future candidate pools. ASB recently shared an email detailing how the community can get involved, by volunteering as a guest speaker, hosting a site visit, acting as a mentor for students, or accepting high school students for assigned periods of work experience. 
 

ASB has a thriving community that is supporting one another in a number of ways, and we are excited to see their network expand and connect more people. To find out more about building a community that gives back, speak to a member of the ToucanTech team.