It’s a perennial question for advancement teams: what are the latest activities (that actually work) to engage this generation of young alumni? In the CASE Communities online discussion boards, alumni relations professionals shared these ideas. 

The CASE Library has developed a resource collection on advancement in independent schools. The collection offers information on general trends, advancement, alumni and parent engagement, communications and marketing, and fundraising. This collection also includes a guide to all the CASE Library's sample collections that feature sections for independent schools samples. We encourage you to visit the Schools hub for additional resources and news from CASE.

The CASE Library maintains this collection of young alumni samples. It includes samples from awards programs, advisory boards and councils, young alumni giving initiatives, and events and alumni programming. Materials from the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards are included as available.

This sample collection includes material on parent councils, such as brochures, applications and role expectations, as well as material on parent giving campaigns, parent newsletters, parent welcome and orientation guides and material specifically for parents of international students.

The CASE Library maintains this collection of online samples for all CASE members. It includes examples of homecoming and reunion planning and communications materials as well as CASE Circle of Excellence Award winning examples from the alumni relations and special event categories.

From tracking alumni engagement to presenting fundraising data to leadership, dashboards are creatively solving problems and making day-to-day work more efficient for advancement professionals. Here, five Circle of Excellence Award-winning dashboard creators provide a deep dive into the origins, execution, and successes of these projects. 

The most recent classes of graduates, shaped by pandemic interruptions to their campus experiences, present a unique set of challenges when it comes to reconnecting with their alma maters. Find out how alumni relations teams are rising to the challenge, with innovative programs and strategies for engaging their newest young alumni.

Advancement professionals share stories of data in action. They are using the metrics and insights that come from participating in CASE’s industry-leading surveys to set strategy and goals, benchmark against peers, target constituent groups, enhance programming, meet campaign goals, and add new staff.

Institutions’ Circle of Excellence Award-winning projects used nostalgia to engage alumni in fun, new ways. Explore how advancement teams broadly balance looking back and looking forward, why nostalgia works well to engage alumni, and what takeaways advancement teams can apply to their own work.

In fall of 2016, the CASE Commission on Alumni Relations created the Alumni Engagement Metrics Task Force to address the need for an industry-wide framework to measure alumni engagement. The result was the Alumni Engagement Metrics survey, CASE’s first truly global survey. Now, with results from three years of AEM, advancement professionals who work in alumni relations are benefiting from measuring their results in four areas: volunteerism, experiential, philanthropic, and communication. The ability to document positive outcomes is already elevating the profession. In this article, we hear from CASE members who participated in AEM and how it is changing their work for the better.