In August 2020, the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, launched ChangeMakers, a strategy to encourage UQ’s alumni across 190 countries to engage with the university and fellow alumni from anywhere in the world. The ChangeMakers alumni community hosts events, fosters mentorship relationships, and encourages volunteerism. More than 70 alumni have become ambassadors to help spread the word.

In 2019, University of Georgia, U.S., Archivist Steven Armour launched the Black Alumni Oral History Project, a collection of personal recollections of African-American alumni. UGA desegregated in 1961, and “that milestone event changed our institution and the course of history, but the story stops there if we don’t delve deeper into what students’ experience has been going forward. What happened next?” Armour said.

To engage Buckeyes of the past and possibly the future, Ohio State University created Brutus’ Summer Reading Challenge, which first launched in the summer of 2020. Alumni registered their children (or grandchildren, nieces, or nephews), after which they received a “passport” with stickers and bookmarks to record their minutes read and earn prizes.

Incorporating role-playing into board training can help trustees and volunteers gain confidence and be able to anticipate roadblocks when fundraising for institutions. Here, Laura Grams, Director of Institutional Advancement at Berkeley Preparatory School, discussed how her school is applying the practice of role-playing to make for better advancement opportunities.

In the summer of 2020, when many students faced semesters of virtual learning ahead, President Claudia Schrader of Kingsborough Community College, New York, U.S., wanted to find a way to welcome new students to the KCC family. Thus, the KCC Welcome Wagon was born. Schrader has been visiting incoming freshman and transfer students—about 60 to 70 in total, she estimates—at their homes or workplaces across the five boroughs of New York City, and sometimes Long Island.