What’s at the heart of affinity with alma mater? It’s a big question, but with a pretty simple answer, I think. It’s friends.
Friendships are at the heart of what strengthens connections around class year. It’s not the year itself, of course. It’s always the relationships that bring people together. The same is true for other affiliations we establish with student organizations or academic departments.
The relationship we have with alma mater through affinity programs is often the strongest because of the friendships we establish through shared affiliation. In his Keynote this week, Patrick Auerbach noted the difference between affiliation and affinity. The latter is more about the strong connection that tugs at our heartstrings, born of experiences that sparked long-term relationships. Affiliation gives rise to future shared affinity because it’s at that level that our friendships take root.
A few years ago, I put on a reunion for the guys who graduated around the same time I did from the University of Richmond and were brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE). The fraternity organization is the origin story for most of my remaining college friendships. I stay in touch with probably a dozen college friends, and they’re all SAE brothers.
Here’s the thing, though. The reality is that if SAE had a reunion at UR and my friends weren’t attending, then I would almost certainly not attend myself. It’s the same for the Class of 2003. I haven’t attended my last three milestone reunions because they aren’t important to the friend group I stay in touch with.
So let’s reverse-engineer this a moment. What happens if we start with the friend groups and then layer the affiliation on top?
I’m imagining that March is “Alumni Friends Month” each year. We have opportunities for friend groups to do service projects together or host mini-reunions. The first 100 alumni to register their friend-group reunion get a branded party kit. In my imagination, the approved submissions not only get a branded party kit but also a recorded video from a faculty or staff member, or even a student who’s connected by affinity. This can be a message of praise, congratulations, or just affirmation.
If the friendships transcend any clear affinity, then thoughtful messaging from university leadership would still work well and spur pride.
This reverse-engineering of affinity for friendships, and then finding unique, scalable ways to bring that affiliation to friends, presents untapped opportunities to engage with both breadth and depth.
What do you think? How can we focus more on friendships as a core value in our work bringing together alumni and donors?
On Speaking Engagement
We have agreements with leaders at 13 universities who have opted in to join the community this year, and we just passed the 200-subscriber mark. This early momentum is all very exciting. I’m excited to get your feedback on the content and experiences.
To that end, we’ll begin reaching out to schedule 15-minute partner feedback Zooms with the individuals most engaged with the Speaking Engagement content. The goal is to design for the people getting the most value.
On the next Keynote
I’m thrilled to announce that our Keynote speaker for the June 8th is Nathan Chappell, co-author of The Generosity Crisis. We’re kicking off our Book Club this week, and what better way to start than hearing from the author? As a reminder, if you want to receive emails about The Book Club, you can sign up here.
