Alumless

Hey listeners! We have a great show for you with special guest Thomas McArthur, Associate Vice President for Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving, at the University of Buffalo. We chat with Thomas about the challenges of ushering in a new framework for alumni engagement at a large, complex, state university like UB.

We've got an excellent show for Alum-Less listeners this week! Chris and Ryan explore all things annual giving with special guest, Adam Compton, Executive Director of Annual Giving at NC State University. They discuss annual giving trends with Adam and review the recent and successful NC State Day of Giving.

For our one year anniversary episode, we have a unique and exciting guest on Alum-Less! This week we're featuring Caryn Davies, three-time medal winner (two golds and a silver) on the U.S. Rowing team, and current President of the U.S. Olympians and Paralympians Association.

Hey, Alum-Less fans! This week, we've got a great episode featuring special guest Dan Olds, Vice President for Alumni Relations and Information Systems at Bowdoin College. Our focus this week is on volunteer pipeline development. We'll discuss everything from managing and motivating alumni boards to micro-volunteer strategies. 

Dan and Chris also share how the strategic planning project they’re engaged in, including important focus groups with students, has helped form and inform a new mission and vision for the future. Finally, we hear from Dan on his work leading the Information Systems team at Bowdoin and how he imagines that work intersecting with alumni engagement. 

Hear these topics and more in this new edition of Alum-Less. Subscribe to the podcast edition of Alum-Less for our bonus segment with Dan. 

A new episode of Alum-Less is here featuring our first overseas guest. Join Chris Marshall and me for a conversation with Chris Kendrick, Deputy Director of Alumni and Supporter Engagement at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). We discuss the changing landscape for engagement and what that means for building strong international alumni networks. We’ll also hear from Chris Kendrick about LSE’s evolving strategy around content co-creation and what that means for scaling engagement worldwide.

This episode of Alum-Less features special guest Dori Sonntag, Associate Vice President for Organizational Effectiveness in University Advancement from Gonzaga University. With the NCAA College Basketball Tournament almost upon us, we explore alumni engagement around athletics. The men's and women's basketball program at Gonzaga are both perennial favorites to make the tournament. We'll discuss with Dori how they've developed a playbook for March Madness that gets refined each year.

Our special guest on Alum-Less this week is Todd McCubbin, Executive Director of the Mizzou Alumni Association. Hear our conversation on the evolution of engagement programs. Chris and I discuss with Todd how leaders should be thinking about the digital vs. in-person components of alumni engagement strategies and the challenges that exist when considering pathways for activating more alumni.

This week on Alum-Less Ryan we got into the weeds with a legend in the alumni biz. Checkout our conversation with special guest, Howard Wolf, Vice President for Alumni Affairs at Stanford University, on the purpose of alumni engagement. We discussed with Howard how he thinks about engaging alumni at Stanford, and why their approach might be different or contrasting to the views of leaders at other schools. We also dissected what success looks like at Stanford, and the obstacles that still remain stubbornly in the way of progress.

In this episode of Alum-Less, we chat with special guest Patrick Auerbach, Associate Senior Vice President for Alumni Relations at the University of Southern California. Although our conversation was be wide-ranging, we discussed with Patrick the challenges of developing a more inclusive, accessible approach to engaging alumni, including reimagining regional engagement.

Happy 2023 Alum-Less Listeners! We are back this week with special guest Sue Cunningham, President & CEO of CASE. We're psyched to start the New Year with a bang and a convo with a true global leader in advancement. We explore with Sue many of the themes from her new book, "Global Exchange: Dialogues to Advance Education." In particular, we'll focus our conversation on how alumni engagement is becoming enmeshed with marketing and communications, and how the CASE Alumni Engagement Metrics have been a game-changer for the profession. This week we're making our full, 1-hour conversation with Sue available on both LinkedIn Live and on the podcast.