Understanding Alumni Relations as an Essential Growth Function
When speaking with people about their potential interest in pivoting to an alumni engagement role, they will sometimes say things like, “I could do events!” The flattening of the discipline is disheartening and happens more often than you might think.
I’ll write elsewhere about why events alone are not a strategy. In this article, I focus on something more foundational: the need to recognize alumni engagement efforts as essential top-of-funnel institutional work. It’s more than social gatherings. Alumni engagement work develops sophisticated upstream, early stage relationship infrastructure.
Alumni Engagement as Top-of-Funnel Infrastructure
Whether you view alumni engagement as the beginning of the post-grad roadmap to philanthropy or not, it’s useful to think of alumni relations as top-of-funnel marketing.
At the top of the marketing funnel, consumers reside in the awareness stage of a journey. Within the higher education context, alumni are forming (or reforming) their understanding of an organization’s relevance, credibility, and values. Alumni are developing their identity outside an institution that helped shape them.
For recent alumni, the questions are often, What does this place mean to me? What impact did the institution have on where I am today? Would my voice be heard as a young alumnus? For veteran alumni, the questions are more likely, What does this place stand for now? Is there overlap between my legacy and theirs?
The alumni relations function helps answer these questions through sustained exposure to community, stories, and values in action.
A Tool to Build Community
One of the most immediate ways alumni relations operates at the top of the funnel is by helping alumni build community after graduation. There are 15 alumni chapters at my current institution, all supported by volunteers who work with my office to bring a bit of Loyola (and New Orleans) into the cities and regions where alumni now live. Other institutions also do this through professional networks, affinity groups, or hybrid and regional programming.
Regardless of structure, the purpose is the same: to remind alumni that connection doesn’t end when they walk across the commencement stage. Before alumni volunteer or give, they need to feel a sense of belonging. Belonging and resonance are early conversion signals in the funnel.
Storytelling as Trust-Building
Another core top-of-funnel function of alumni relations is storytelling. Alumni stories build social proof. Whether through official campaigns, partnerships with faculty and administrators, or staff relationships cultivated beyond campus boundaries, alumni relations offices amplify stories of alumni success. This work provides legitimacy and maintains a positive reputation, things alumni value. This work is also relational.
When alumni see peers recognized, they see proof of the institution’s impact. When alumni see their own stories, they experience validation. The validation is not just of their success, but of the education and foundation that helped make it possible. Over time, these stories build trust. They create pathways for deeper engagement and service. And importantly, they do so before any transactional expectation is introduced.
Brand Appeal Through Values in Action
Brand appeal in alumni relations is often reduced to aesthetics or messaging. At Loyola, the institutional identity is grounded in Jesuit values. Each year, our office mobilizes alumni for Wolves on the Prowl, a coordinated nationwide service project. This year, 100 alumni made an impact in the lives of nearly 3,000 people. These actions are powerful demonstrations of the brand.
This top-of-funnel work invites alumni to act in ways that reinforce beliefs about themselves and their institution. The loyalty that grows values alignment is durable, because it’s rooted in shared purpose.
What Gets Lost When Alumni Relations Is Haphazard
When alumni relations is framed primarily as events or stewardship support, institutions experience the consequences. In acknowledging changes are not always initiated from an altruistic frame of mind, I implore administrators to understand that lacking strategy can mean losing a channel capable of demonstrating the tenets of their work, the core beliefs which shape their legacies. More broadly, lacking of alumni engagement strategy begets shallow engagement, inconsistent advocacy, and fragile donor pipelines.
Without sound alumni engagement strategy, constituencies are unsure of what they should champion. During moments of institutional challenge, the absence of a deeply connected alumni base, and evidence of top-of-funnel neglect becomes visible very quickly.
Why This Matters Now
Institutions are operating in an environment of declining trust, enrollment volatility, and increasing competition for philanthropic attention. Simultaneously, alumni expectations are shifting. Alumni want transparent practices and alignment with their personal values. In this context, alumni relations is a risk management and brand stewardship tool.
Institutions that invest early in establishing identity and building trust are better positioned to weather late stage, downstream pressure. Those that don’t are forced to rely on short-term tactics to compensate for long-term relational gaps.
Alumni Relations Is Upstream Work
Alumni relations is not just about events. Alumni engagement is about building the conditions under which advocacy, service, and philanthropy become natural next steps. When alumni relations is understood (and well resourced) as top-of-funnel infrastructure, it strengthens everything that follows. When it’s reduced to stunted programming, institutions lose far more than attendance numbers.
In my next article, I’ll focus on volunteer management, the underpinning beneath this work. I look forward to delving into why alumni relations doesn’t function without it.