Alumni boards have historically been a leading source for alumni to receive tremendous personal and professional satisfaction by giving of themselves to their alma mater and to fellow alumni. These boards have roles and responsibilities including social events, networking, and raising funds for the college or university. Many alumni boards provide…

Alternative Breaks are service trips that occur at colleges and universities all around the United States, but little is known of their long-term impact on the participants. This study explored how alumni of Alternative Break programs were civically engaged in their communities post-graduation. The survey instrument, modeled on the Life After…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether giving to an institution by a graduate differs based on participation in various types of alumni programming. With the continuing cost pressures on higher education institutions, growing alumni donations is increasingly seen as a way to increase revenue. While alumni relations offices have…

International higher education student mobility can lead to social change in the students' home countries. This article examines the case of the Ford Foundation's International Fellowship Program Alumni Association in Ghana and how it has organized to affect change. Findings show that this association has assimilated many of the attributes of…

Political advocacy is comprised of speaking on the behalf of a cause or participating as part of a political action group (Weerts, Cabrera, & Sanford, 2010). Because state financial support for public higher education has not been maintained at previous levels, higher education (HE) institutions have been recruiting alumni in an attempt to win…

Encountering disillusioned alumni throws a wrench into the already complicated science of alumni engagement. From Kay O'Dwyer and Quentin Derryberry, III's dealings with disgruntled graduates of their institutions, Emmanuel College in Massachusetts and Boston University (BU) respectively, they have learned an important lesson: Alumni do not get…

International alumni relations is about recognizing an important population that wants to be connected but often feels disengaged. This article shows how to engage international alumni by customizing programs to meet their needs. It suggests four areas of programming: brand awareness; career and life networking; resource development (fundraising…

With roots going back to 1986, the Student Team on Alumni Relations or STAR was one of the first student-alumni groups in Canada and routinely attracted capable and enthusiastic volunteers. It offered to appreciative, albeit small, student audiences a suite of popular programs, including job shadowing and goodie boxes parents could send to their…

Graduation day often includes an oration by a Vice-Chancellor or President reminding the newest cohort of alumni to "keep in touch" with their alma mater. Often, graduates dismiss this invitation instead of embracing this lifelong opportunity. As the only constant -- and constantly growing -- stakeholder group of higher education…

Connecticut College for Women and its Progressive Era sister colleges (Douglass, Simmons, Skidmore, and William Smith) are distinctive for the prominent vocational and service elements each college had in its original mission and curriculum. Historians however have often left Connecticut College for Women out of the story of American women's…

Like any profession, advancement has its terms of art: "the ask," "prospects," "quiet phase." A relatively new one is "culture of philanthropy." As in, "We need to build a culture of philanthropy at this institution." The general idea is that everyone from the campus CEO to the students understands…

Jeremiah Stevens, director of alumni relations at Lake Forest Academy in suburban Chicago, contends with a bit of an unusual challenge. He must manage and motivate not one but two alumni boards. While alumni professionals may not share Stevens' particular circumstances, they certainly can relate to a struggle to jumpstart a languishing board and…

Last summer, the University of Liverpool welcomed the 4,000th graduate of its online programs to its alumni community. This is a significant milestone in the expansion of their international footprint, considering that just five years earlier the university had enrolled half as many online. Equally as important as the growth of their online…

The alumni relations profession has undergone profound changes in the past century. Alumni officers have responded to opportunities and threats presented by advancing technologies, shifting cultural norms, and unstable world economies. Innovations such as Facebook and smartphones have changed everything, and in a flat world, alumni relations…

When Tim Clevenger became executive director of the University of Oregon Alumni Association in 2011, he was dismayed to learn that revenue, including paid memberships, was steadily declining. The association staff and board of directors considered multiple strategies to boost earnings, with stabilizing and growing dues revenue high on the list.…