Why Alumni Teams Are Choosing Advize: A New Approach to Engagement and Storytelling

By Emily McSherry, Founder & CEO, Advize

Alumni teams face an impossible equation: thousands and thousands of graduates to engage with just a handful of staff members. While universities understand that alumni drive institutional success—hiring new graduates, representing the brand, and becoming major donors—meaningful engagement at scale remains elusive.

The traditional approaches of alumni panels, newsletters, in-person events, and annual giving campaigns aren't enough in today's world in 2025.

The Engagement and Content Crisis

Alumni engagement lacks authentic relationship building. Most universities struggle to build genuine connections with their vast alumni networks. Staff members are tasked with keeping thousands of alumni connected and volunteering, but without systematic approaches, most outreach feels transactional. Alumni typically only hear from their alma mater after they've achieved success, making future interactions feel purely extractive rather than relationship-based. For universities with bigger teams and larger budgets, it's still difficult to create authentic relationship-building at scale.

Content creation becomes a massive bottleneck. Alumni stories represent the most credible proof of institutional value, yet most universities don't systematically capture them at all. Those that attempt it find the process extremely time-intensive—often spending months producing a handful of videos that languish on YouTube or other channels without meaningful engagement or actionable data. The result is that the vast majority of powerful alumni stories never get told, or listened to, leaving institutions without their most credible proof of value.

Scale versus personalization creates false choices. Alumni teams believe they must choose between broad reach and meaningful connection. Mass communications feel impersonal, while personalized outreach doesn't scale. This leaves thousands of alumni disconnected from their institutions and institutions unable to leverage their greatest assets.

Development and advancement teams miss crucial early touchpoints. While relationships drive giving, most alumni engagement strategies focus on those who have already achieved success. The crucial early touchpoints—when alumni are most open to staying connected and building genuine bonds—are frequently missed, making future fundraising efforts feel transactional rather than relational. It's tough to be proactive while other parts of the job require more attention and time, such as setting up in-person events.

How We Accidentally Solved the Alumni Engagement Problem

When we founded Advize, we were laser-focused on helping students access authentic career information from real professionals. But as we built our platform to capture professional stories at scale, we discovered we had created exactly what universities needed: a systematic approach to alumni engagement that builds authentic relationships while solving content creation challenges.

Here's how our student-focused solution transforms alumni engagement:

Student-Led Engagement That Creates Authentic Connections

We hire and train current students to serve as the face of your university. Each student connects with 25-50 alumni annually, conducting structured 45-minute interviews that capture stories and build relationships. This approach creates genuine engagement because it provides immediate personal value to alumni.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive: "The facilitator I worked with, Annika, is a gem… If she's any indication of the other students conducting interviews, then you are in good hands."

Here's the most powerful insight: nearly all of our ~900 interviewed alumni have said they wish they'd had access to Advize as students. They recognize that hearing authentic career stories would have either led them to choose different career paths or given them much more confidence about their chosen direction. This personal connection makes alumni genuinely enthusiastic about participating—they're not just helping current students, they're providing the resource they desperately needed themselves.

Systematic Story Collection at Scale

Our structured interview process systematically captures the alumni stories that most universities struggle to collect. Each interview produces valuable content including industry insights, career progression patterns, and specific ways your institution contributed to alumni success. These become assets for admissions, marketing, and alumni engagement teams.

Videos can be delivered in multiple formats—TikTok clips, raw files, email embeds—creating massive time savings for ongoing programming efforts. Instead of organizing dozens of separate alumni panels or constantly sourcing new speakers for events, universities can leverage their growing video library across multiple touchpoints for years - or use the content to promote existing programming and drive ROI to events and panels. One alumni interview becomes a resource that enhances programming across departments, dramatically reducing the time and coordination required for ongoing engagement initiatives. The content can even assist with educating families and parents who did not go to college themselves and are hesitant to enroll and pay tuition for their child.

Enhanced Alumni Insights for Strategic Engagement

Our alumni portal (coming soon) surfaces interview transcripts and searchable insights that go far beyond LinkedIn profiles, capturing what alumni actually say about their skills, industries, and career journeys. This eliminates the guesswork when sourcing alumni for opportunities like panels, mentoring programs, or volunteer roles.

Instead of sending mass emails to 100 random alumni hoping someone might be interested, teams can search based on what alumni actually shared about their expertise, passions, and interests during their interviews. This targeted approach dramatically improves response rates and ensures better matches between opportunities and alumni who genuinely care about specific topics.

Accessible Ways to Give Back (With Career Value Added)

Not every alumnus can attend campus events or make major donations, but anyone can share their story in 30-45 minutes. We've made meaningful contribution accessible and scalable. As a bonus, alumni gain access to a library of 10,000+ career-focused videos and can connect directly with relevant professionals—providing immediate career value that strengthens their connection to the engagement experience.

One alumna said: "I love the mission of the company… Being able to participate in something like this makes me motivated and excited."

Proven Results in Action

Sacramento State University: We partnered with their Alumni Association to capture stories for grant requirements. We interviewed 15+ alumni in under one month, producing 150+ video clips that were featured at live student events. The program is expanding to include 50+ alumni.

ASU W. P. Carey School of Business: We employed an ASU student to source and interview 50 alumni, creating 600+ video clips. These videos will be embedded in required career classes this fall, reaching 5,000-10,000 students. Reflection assignments and data reporting will demonstrate which alumni stories prove most impactful.

"Partnering with Advize has allowed us to let our students explore career opportunities in a fun creative way. Hearing from alumni provides realistic insight to what our students could achieve with their futures."— Brianna Miloz-Pabst, Associate Director, Career Services Team

The data supports this approach's effectiveness:

• 880 alumni interviewed since launch (10,000+ short-form career story video clips)

• 4.91/5 average experience rating (based on 150 survey responses; ~17%)

• Alumni consistently describe the process as easy, organized, and enjoyable

• ~10% of student interviewers secure jobs or internships through these connections

"The interview process was great, and I think the overall objective of the interviews and your company as a whole is inspiring and exciting!" - Alumnus Advizer Interviewee

The Content and Relationship Imperative

In today's higher education environment, institutional survival depends on proving educational value through authentic alumni success stories. Universities need modern approaches that systematically capture these stories while building genuine relationships at scale.

Alumni represent living proof of institutional mission and educational impact. Yet without systematic approaches to engagement and content creation, most of these powerful stories remain untold, leaving institutions without their most credible proof of worth to prospective students, employers, and policymakers.

Moving Forward

The traditional trade-off between scale and personalization no longer needs to exist. With systematic approaches to alumni engagement, universities can build authentic relationships, capture compelling content, and demonstrate institutional value—all while providing meaningful ways for every alumnus to contribute.

This approach transforms alumni engagement from a resource-constrained challenge into a scalable system that benefits everyone: students gain networking experience and learn directly from alumni about careers, alumni enjoy meaningful engagement, and institutions build the authentic proof points they need to thrive.

And I'll leave you with a question... what is the cost of not authentically engaging 100 or 200 alumni and capturing their career stories on video?

Ready to see how your alumni team can capture stories, scale engagement, and inspire the next generation? [Schedule an intro demo call with our CEO today]

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References:

1. Cowley, Jennifer. "Higher Ed's Accountability Moment." Inside Higher Ed, August 20, 2025.

2. Alexander, Bryan. "Campus cuts, mergers, and closures from spring 2025." Bryan Alexander Blog, 2025.

3. NPR. "A looming 'demographic cliff': Fewer college students and ultimately fewer graduates." January 8, 2025.

4. Wikipedia. "List of University of Texas at Austin alumni." University of Texas at Austin statistics, 2025.

5. Deloitte Insights. "2025 Higher Education Trends." 2025.

6. Cowley, Jennifer. "Higher Ed's Accountability Moment." Inside Higher Ed, August 20, 2025.