Alumni relations vs. advancement engagement — and why it matters
Over the last four years, I’ve had the chance to get to know Chris Marshall as we’ve worked together on consulting projects of all shapes and sizes. We understand each other well at this point and often discuss our idiosyncrasies and even our rhetorical quips.
There’s a particular statement that Chris has routinely used with audiences when we’re doing strategic planning that I think really captures the current moment we’re in with respect to the field of alumni engagement. Chris will often say,
“Alumni can help a college or university in many ways — enrollment, retention, career support, internships, brand awareness, and philanthropy. We must be unapologetic about the importance of philanthropy as a part of what we do.”
We’ve discussed lately that, at least at one point, his comment was somewhat provocative: that alumni leaders must be contributors to the work of raising philanthropic dollars. There are still plenty of chief alumni officers out there who have this same sentiment in mind that philanthropy should be part of their work, but it’s certainly not the whole thing.
Advancement leaders want to flip the script, particularly at institutions that struggle to hit fundraising goals.
The campaign has nothing to do with me.
That comment, shared by a vice president of advancement and spoken by their senior alumni leader, captures a challenge all too common across higher education. At many institutions, the bridge between alumni relations and the core philanthropic mission of advancement remains wide.
If alumni engagement has many outcomes, and one of them is philanthropy, then there’s a permission structure to prioritize other strategies and impact areas. Maybe that’s acceptable at schools with significantly more resources. Perhaps it’s okay for alumni leaders at elite privates or top publics to make philanthropy just one of their goals, since they always meet lofty targets.
However, I can think of several instances where the alumni leader and vice president were not on the same page.
Although the gap remains wide in some instances, there’s a rhetorical shift that can help shape a new approach — one that emphasizes advancement engagement.
Now imagine tweaking Chris’s initial quote just a bit.
“As part of boosting generosity and securing investment, our alumni donors can make an impact as volunteers assisting with programs designed to help increase enrollment, retention, improve brand awareness, and career support.”
This reframing centers philanthropy not as a separate pillar or impact area for alumni engagement, but as the animating force that connects everything together. When alumni volunteer or advocate for students, they’re reinforcing a culture of generosity.
The rest of the advancement leadership team doesn’t understand what we do in alumni relations.
I’ve heard this one many, many times. And it makes total sense, from the perspective of the senior development leaders. Their job is to secure philanthropic investment, and it’s not one of many outcomes. It’s the whole job. It’s also how the VP is measured.
What this means in practice is that a deeper alignment of strategy and structure is necessary. Instead of defining engagement by activities, we define it by outcomes that feed the pipeline. Are we cultivating generosity? Are we advancing institutional priorities? Are we building relationships that make future investment more likely? These are the new measures that matter for alumni pros working in advancement engagement or what we’ve come to refer to as “integrated advancement.”
Advancement engagement requires an inside-out approach to cultivating donors.
For years, alumni relations have operated alongside development in a parallel structure. Development officers focus on the top ten percent of donors, providing highly customized engagement experiences and personalized cultivation. Alumni relations, meanwhile, is expected to engage everyone else. That dynamic naturally produces an outside-in strategy. The work begins with broad alumni audiences and tries to pull people deeper, hoping that a small portion will eventually rise into the pipeline.
An inside-out strategy for advancement engagement turns that model on its head. Instead of starting with the masses and pushing inward, it begins with the institution’s strongest supporters. Current donors, volunteers, and advocates become the starting point. The focus then moves outward through their networks, their influence, and their enthusiasm.
The advancement engagement approach is not about narrowing the audience. It’s about sequencing the strategy to create stronger alignment and integration.
When engagement efforts begin with the people already demonstrating generosity and commitment, the work becomes more aligned, more measurable, and more connected to institutional priorities. The shift from alumni relations to advancement engagement is really a shift from managing activities for everyone to activating the people who are already leaning in. I realize that might be controversial, but it’s really the next step for integration.
My sense is that when institutions adopt this inside-out approach, something important changes internally. Alumni engagement no longer looks like the department tasked with planning events or managing an alumni board. The unit becomes a driver of generosity, reputation, and momentum. The bridge between engagement and fundraising becomes shorter because both start with the same core group and build outward together.
That is the real meaning of moving from an outside-in to an inside-out strategy. It is not a slight adjustment in language. It is a reordering of how we think about audiences and build a culture of generosity. And if we can make that shift, we may finally stop hearing alumni leaders say, “The campaign has nothing to do with me.”