This week I spent two fun days in Hanover, New Hampshire, with the Alumni Relations leadership team from the Dartmouth Advancement Division. The conversation at Dartmouth right now, along with many schools around the country, is about how to engage young alumni and boost declining engagement. We know that recent Gen Z graduates leave college without the same sentiments toward their alma mater as generations past. The Harris Poll has some interesting insights on Gen Z and how they contrast with Millennials.
Although Dartmouth enjoys extraordinary school spirit and alumni engagement feels like it’s part of the fabric of the school much more so than others, it was interesting to listen to discussions about the best way to generate a focused set of strategies that strengthens a “for life” approach, and really hone-in on this part of life — those years immediately post graduation. Even schools that have broad alumni loyalty are struggling to keep recent graduates connected after they toss their caps in the air at Commencement.
Our clear opportunity to boost young alumni engagement
At the heart of the opportunity with young grads is actually the same fundamental dynamic that should shape broader engagement across ages and life stages: average lifetime giving to alma mater is significantly higher among alumni who volunteer.
Howard Heevner’s research and that of my colleagues from CMAC and Washburn McGoldrick around The National Alumni Survey has really elevated the discussion around this important fact about alumni volunteerism. In the recently released Volunteering Signals Engagement and Giving Potential: Supplemental Report to the 2026 National Alumni Survey Annual Report, Heevner and team note that alumni are volunteering, just not with their alma mater. Higher education ranks eighth in the Top 10 Volunteer-Supported Causes.
Schools must scale volunteerism through Alumni Messenger programs.
I contend that the big reason young alumni aren’t as engaged as they could be is that there simply aren’t enough fun and meaningful opportunities to help. What opportunities exist feel like a heavy lift, like a chapter leadership role, or uninspired, like a digital ambassador social sharing program that’s more about the reshare than the advice.
Every educational organization needs at least one Alumni Messenger program. These are programs where the principle volunteer ask if for a brief amount of time (an hour or less, perhaps) to provide advice, reflection, and/or praise to students or others in the community. Within this classification of programs examples include:
Alumni writing congratulatory postcards to accepted students
Alumni making welcome phone calls to students who have deposited
Grads interviewing prospective or admitted students
Graduates writing advice on cards that are pinned to the doors of first-year students at move-in
Alumni volunteers providing feedback on scholarship applications
Alumni recording short videos of welcome, encouragement, or congratulations that are distributed to students by text or email
Technology like Protopia that scales alumni-supplied advice to students and faculty
We need to be thinking about thousands of volunteers, not hundreds.
These programs that I’d classify as micro-volunteering are what every university needs: at least one Alumni Messenger program that provides a joyful and accessible way for alumni to help in short bursts of time, no matter where they live. These strategies require creativity and resources, but I’m certain that they’re essential to modern approaches to alumni engagement because they represent both an on-ramp and re-engagement because they can scale and help develop a culture of generosity.
Our main challenge is that we need more volunteer opportunities. Our young alumni aren’t ready to make gifts of treasure, and we’ve not done a good enough job providing avenues for anyone who wants to help to make a gift of time by sharing their reflections, advice, or offering words of encouragement.
This feels like an easy fix, but then again, there’s plenty we’ll have to stop doing in order to start and dedicate resources to Alumni Messenger programs.
About Speaking Engagement
If you’ve come to find our SE community valuable as a professional development resource, there are a few ways that we could use your help spreading the word.
Consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts for the Keynote podcast. This helps more people find Speaking Engagement that might be looking for content on advancement engagement.
Follow and share Speaking Engagement on LinkedIn recommend our Page to your network.
Download the Substack app for your phone and consider recommending the Publication to your network.
I’m trying to get better at posting Notes in Substack. If you’re a Substack fan, please consider chiming-in! That aspect of Substack is kinda like X/Twitter, which I’m not sure how I feel about. More on that…
About the next Keynote
I’m psyched to share my interview with Liz Gross, Ph.D. Liz is the Executive Director, Strategic Enrollment Services at The College Board and an expert on social intelligence in higher education. During our discussion, we hit on how modern web functions to elevate different conversation that are happening about institutions, often without schools knowing it.
Watch for the episode to drop on Monday at 7 am ET.
Upcoming Member Events
Agora
Behind the Scenes of a Signature Alumni Event: Lessons from the Bentley Alumni Conference
Date: Thursday, September 3 from 12 - 1 pm
Speaker: Allison Kerivan, Executive Director of Advancement Relations at Bentley University
A great alumni conference can do more than bring people together — it can create the conditions for relationships to grow, alumni expertise to strengthen the institution, and university priorities to become meaningful and relevant to graduates.
In this Agora, Allison Kerivan will take attendees behind the scenes of the Bentley Alumni Conference, the university’s flagship professional development and networking experience, and share how it has evolved into a strategic platform for alumni engagement and donor cultivation.
Learn more
Faculty-in-Residence
For six weeks beginning August 17 - September 25, Speaking Engagement welcomes Mallory Erickson — executive coach, creator and host of the What the Fundraising podcast, and author of the book by the same name — as our inaugural resident. We’ll have a final live Symposium event for members on September 23.
