Sometimes the best publicity for your institution has nothing to do with the institution.

When six Macalester College alumni couldn't travel to Minnesota to visit their alma mater, they gathered at one alumnus's home in Arizona for a wine and cheese party and chatted on the phone with the college president in a virtual town hall—along with thousands of other alumni worldwide. In Wisconsin, Beloit College recently hosted its annual on-campus folk and blues festival—and nostalgic alumni watched remotely from home. From class reunions to networking, more and more universities are getting savvy at hosting virtual events. Here's how eight institutions are doing it right.

Succession planning is as prevalent in the corporate world as balance sheets and annual reports. Corporate boards want to keep business churning after the sudden departure of key executives, so identifying and grooming potential replacements is common practice. The concept hasn't taken off in advancement, but given the department's critical roles in building external relationships and generating resources, the topic is gaining traction.

For Hannah Brencher, postcollege life in New York City wasn't what she expected. Depressed and struggling to find purpose, she reached out to others with words of kindness and support by leaving anonymous spirit-lifting love letters throughout the city. In October 2010, she blogged about the experience and promised: If you send me your address, I will write you a letter. Her email inbox filled up. Eleven months and 400 letters later, the project turned into MoreLoveLetters.com, a website where people can request love letter bundles for people in need or volunteer to write them. More than 20,000 volunteers—including students belonging to the site's 60-plus Campus Cursive chapters—have helped send more than 100,000 letters to people around the world. Brencher's memoir, If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers, comes out in paperback in spring 2016.

When Nancy Hullihen was promoted to executive director of alumni relations and development at the University of Miami's business school, she needed help training fundraisers who were new to the university—and often to major gifts. One of the school's strongest volunteers and donors, Pat Barron, stepped forward.

We thought we were on the right track. After months of preparation and construction, Friends' Central School in Pennsylvania launched its revamped website in fall 2014. The responsively designed site aimed to show off the Quaker school's offerings and give us an advantage in a highly competitive market: The percentage of students enrolled in the greater Philadelphia area's more than 130 private schools has decreased by 5 percent in the past 10 years. We needed to focus on the first impressions of prospective parents and make our value proposition clear.

Where's the proof? With growing concerns over student debt, rising tuition, and the perceived high costs of higher education, prospective students and their families are clamoring for evidence. It's a reality that's forcing institutions, long accustomed to touting their academic strengths, to emphasize career preparation, job placement, value, and return on investment.

Each week, two women in their 90s ride the bus to Ithaca College from the nearby Longview retirement community to audit a course at the New York institution. Residents of the retirement community Oak Hammock at the University of Florida take language courses—and arrive by the busload to attend football games. Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at American University in Washington, D.C., volunteer to lead study groups or contribute to the newsletter.

Here's a scenario familiar to many higher education communicators: You're at a conference listening to a panel of reporters from major media outlets bemoan how flaks like us shouldn't bother them with pitches. Any email you send will be too long, and don't even think about calling. They don't have time.

The Library frequently receives questions about alumni student mentoring programs, particularly on how they are structured and managed and on best practices emerging from successful programs. In light of these requests, we have developed this resource collection with accompanying sample material.