Building meaningful relationships with students and alumni is important for the strategic growth and advancement of higher education programs. Though alumni typically move away from campus to pursue a career, they can stay in touch and build a global professional network. Current students at institutions benefit from the mentorship opportunities and improved job placement rates that engaged alumni bring. And institutions are able to partner with alumni to meet financial goals for scholarships and other campus developments. For example, in 2019–2020, 47.8 percent of Princeton University’s alumni community raised nearly $66.3 million—the fourth-highest amount in the university’s history.1
However, other colleges and universities are struggling to maintain strong relationships with alumni because they’re connecting to students after graduation—which is too late. According to the 2020 report from the Voluntary Alumni Engagement in Support of Education (VAESE), 68 percent of higher education institutions have seen an increase or no change in alumni requesting not to be contacted by the institution, with a 15 percent increase in those asking to be added to the “do-not-contact” list since 2015.2 As institutions continue to explore new digital solutions to better support students who are learning remotely, leaders have an opportunity to use technology to build engaging experiences and maintain a student-institution relationship across the student lifecycle and beyond graduation
