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St. Paul Academy on Changing Your Alumni Council's Culture

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Alumni boards and councils are integral parts of well-oiled alumni relations machines. They're our liaisons to our communities, and they put in hundreds of hours in volunteer work every year.

But our hopes and dreams for our alumni councils don't always match reality.

St. Paul's Academy and Summit School, an independent school in St. Paul, MN, has revitalized its alumni council in the last few years to bridge that gap. We asked Jen Jung, director of alumni/ae programs, and Jennie Beadle, director of annual giving, about their efforts, which they discussed at their recent CASE NAIS panel, "Culture Change in Your Alumni Council."

How U Calgary Measures Alumni Engagement for Quarterly Reports

Measuring alumni engagement is beset with challenges.

How do we measure different types of behavior? How do we measure behavior? How do we convince our colleagues to report every point of contact with alumni?

When it comes to meeting these challenges, U Calgary is ahead of the curve. They have their process so figured out that they issue alumni engagement reports four times a year.

We caught up with Phil Johnston, alumni data and reports analyst at U Calgary, after his CASE VIII Conference panel, "Alumni Engagement Reporting," to find out how they do it.

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How McMaster Re-Engages Alumni and Donors Through Digital and Social Media

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Social media has enormous potential, but using it effectively requires careful attention to your constituents. 

McMaster University is using social media to reach alumni and donors on their own terms. Rather than reach out to alumni as a monolithic population, they strive to form individual relationships with each alumnus and alumna.

We asked Erin O'Neil, digital engagement alumni officer, and Dave Dawson, public relations coordinator, to discuss McMaster's strategy.

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How King's College Brings Students and Alumni Together Under One Roof

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Holding a major event takes a lot of work. It means coordinating across multiple offices and organizing alumni, volunteers, students, and faculty.

But that didn't stop King's College from taking on an ambitious project to combine fundraising, mentorship, and volunteering into a single event that has been so successful that it's become an annual tradition.

We spoke with Frederick Pettit, King's College's vice president for institutional advancement, ahead of his team's CASE D2 conference panel, "Honors, Dollars, and Role Models," to learn more about the event and how they pulled it off.

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Best Practices for Community College Alumni Relations and Fundraising

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Community colleges do some of the most important work in higher education in the country, and they have do it all on a shoestring budget.

The same is true of their alumni relations efforts.

We asked Doug Ferguson, director of alumni programs at Delaware County Community College, and Tobi Bruhn, associate vice president of advancement and executive director of the Foundation and Alumni Association at Bucks County Community College, to share what they've learned in their work.

Our Q&A is a preview of their CASE District 2 panel, "Best Practices for Community College Alumni Relations and Fundraising," which they'll be holding at 11:15 AM on Monday, February 8.

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How Babson Increased Reunion Class Giving Participation by 70% in One Year

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A few years ago, an alumnus at Babson approached the advancement office with an idea. He’d seen something similar at his prep school alma mater. “I think this can work at Babson,” he said.

The idea was a twist on the giving day formula: after alumni donate, encourage them to post memories, photos, and updates within their respective class year Facebook group. Donate, then connect. In FY 2015, Babson reunion classes saw a 70% increase in donors above the prior 5-year average for these classes.

Mike DeGuglielmo (Associate Director, Young Alumni and Special Gifts), Michael McPhillips (Assistant Director, Class Liaison), and Lindsey Athanasiou (Assistant Director, Class Liaison) presented on the strategy at the recent CASE D1 Conference in Boston. We asked them to share their takeaways.

"It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are." —Wendell Berry