Cross-campus alumni relations is a lot like space flight. You may have several satellites—your unit communicators and alumni and development officers—receiving and transmitting information with alumni, but without regular maintenance and care, you could be losing valuable data.

In 2011, the Alumni/ae Council at St. Paul Academy and Summit School in Minnesota was nearly nonexistent. Other than holding monthly meetings and a lackluster fundraising phonathon, the council sponsored no programs or events; it did not follow its bylaws and had no reporting structure or processes for recruiting new members. Most of the 11 council members were suffering from volunteer fatigue, particularly the president. Few members attended meetings, which were unproductive. The council frequently discussed the need to recruit new members but never developed an action plan.

The CASE Library has developed a resource collection on grant development and grant management in community colleges.

This collection from the CASE Library includes a selection of samples featuring landing pages for community college grant offices, sample grant management guides and sample grant development handbooks.

It's an exciting time to join the development office as its new vice president. The university is gearing up for a campaign that will transform the campus with new academic programs, buildings, professorships, and aid for students. Every trustee has pledged leadership-level gifts. The $1 billion target is a stretch but doable because the last campaign brought in $800 million.

Grinnell College alumni love talking about their alma mater, but that enthusiasm hasn't always translated into high reunion attendance. Advancement staff members at the Iowa college saw a way to increase alumni engagement by creating more opportunities to help out at reunion, beginning with revamped training for its 50th reunion volunteers. With better structure and more-detailed tasks, the program led to an overall higher level of engagement.

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.

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.

The CASE Library often receives questions about corporate and foundation relations best practices, metrics, giving trends, and the administration of gifts, grants, and contracts. This collection was developed to bring together resources on these topics.

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.