Increase Income from Alumni: Are You Asking for Their Money (again)?
We’ve all got one. Heck, some of us more than one.
Increase Income from Alumni
Yes, I’m talking about friends.
To increase income from alumni, it is essential to highlight the successes of former students regularly.
Not your preferred type of friend. You know, I’m talking about that kind of friend. The one whose name lights up your phone after eighteen months of radio silence. For a split-second, your heart lifts. How lovely, haven’t heard from them for ages. So, you open the message, and they want something. A favour of some kind. An introduction. A recommendation. Perhaps sponsorship for something their kids are doing.
You might still help, but what initially felt like a reconnection now feels like a transaction. Not because you resent being asked for something, but because the relationship only functions when it’s useful to your “friend”.
Universities might want to think about that.
By understanding their alumni, institutions can better increase income from alumni in sustainable ways.
I’m Keith Rozelle; much of my career was spent in corporate tech sales before being asked to turn around the EMBA for a top-10 university. I’ve been super-excited about HE ever since!
Increase Income from Alumni: Here’s a Fine Example
One crucial strategy to increase income from alumni is to maintain contact with them through their professional journeys.
This week, you may have spotted that Hedge Fund Billionaire Ken Griffin gave a spectacular illustration of what can happen when one institutional relationship breaks down whilst another goes from strength to strength.
Moreover, to increase income from alumni, universities should communicate their impact and progress effectively.
Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, has committed $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University – the largest individual philanthropic gift in the history of higher education. $2 billion will launch a new Carnegie Mellon campus in Miami, while $1 billion will be invested in Pittsburgh, including $500 million in its School of Computer Science.
There is just one rather important detail.
Universities that maintain a strong alumni network are more likely to increase income from alumni over time.
Ken Griffin went to Harvard.
To truly increase income from alumni, institutions need to provide ongoing value and support to their graduates.
By creating engaging alumni events, institutions can leverage opportunities to increase income from alumni.
Indeed, Griffin had already given Harvard more than $500 million. But in 2024 he halted further donations, expressing dissatisfaction with Harvard’s response to antisemitism and criticising what he regarded as a move away from meritocracy and open inquiry.
Understanding how to increase income from alumni involves recognising their potential contributions beyond initial donations.
Whatever your view of those arguments, I’m less interested in the politics than in what happened to the relationship.
One university had decades of history with Griffin and more than half a billion dollars of previous philanthropy. Another had no alumni relationship with him whatsoever. Yet it’s Carnegie Mellon that just received the $3 billion.
Why?
The answer is much more interesting than pure philanthropy fundraising. The answer is Alignment.
Regularly surveying alumni can yield insights that help to increase income from alumni.
To effectively increase income from alumni, institutions must focus on building meaningful relationships throughout a graduate’s career.
Carnegie Mellon has particular strengths in areas Griffin clearly considers important: computer science, AI, engineering and applied research. Two-thirds of his commitment will create a campus in Miami, the city to which he moved Citadel’s headquarters and where he has already committed substantial philanthropic resources.
Understanding what drives alumni to give can significantly increase income from alumni.
CMU Miami itself is intended to organise education and research around major societal challenges rather than simply reproducing traditional academic departments.
It is equally important to nurture the emotional ties to increase income from alumni.
Griffin subsequently described supporting Carnegie Mellon as one of the easiest investment decisions he had ever made.
This doesn’t look much like somebody simply asking somebody for money; it looks like two parties discovering a vision they want to build together.
Read: The Impact of Number 10 North on Universities
History gives you a head start
Institutions that can effectively increase income from alumni are often those that celebrate their achievements.
A university degree creates an extraordinary starting point for a lifelong relationship.
Shared experiences, friendships and formative memories create an emotional connection most commercial organisations would spend fortunes trying to manufacture.
Ultimately, the aim to increase income from alumni should be part of a broader relationship strategy.
But history doesn’t guarantee a relationship.
I know the owner of a successful UK technology SME turning over around £25 million a year. Their observation about their alma mater has always stayed with me: the university seems principally to make contact when it wants money. That is the wrong way round.
If the first time an institution becomes particularly interested in someone’s success is when it thinks they might make a donation, relationship-building has started about twenty years too late.
I’ve also seen the opposite problem: A friend of mine and MBA alumnus for the top 10 Uni I worked with had risen to become CEO of a Fortune 1000 firm. When he’d spotted on LinkedIn that I’d started working with his alma mater, his reaction was very excited.
To increase income from alumni, institutions need to understand the shifting dynamics of alumni relationships.
“Amazing place!” Warmth, affection, and pride were abundant, but what was missing was a relationship, so after we’d caught up, a call was arranged with the Head of Alumni Relations and “C” was invited to London to deliver a major university lecture and subsequently became one of the institution’s key donors.
But the donation isn’t really the most interesting part.
The affection was already there. The institution had simply lost track of one of its own.
Ultimately, fostering a sense of loyalty is key to increase income from alumni.
Which raises an important question…how many more might there be like “C”?
The people you don’t know you already have
There is an odd asymmetry in the university relationship. At 21, an institution may know a remarkable amount about someone: what they studied, how they performed, what interested them and perhaps what career they hoped to pursue. Then they graduate.
Over the following twenty years, that person accumulates experience, expertise, relationships, influence and perhaps capital. They start companies. Employ people. Lead organisations. Conduct research. Enter public service. Build charities. Move around the world.
Their potential value to the university community may increase enormously. Yet the institution’s knowledge of them can move in the opposite direction. The worrying thing isn’t simply that universities lose contact with alumni.
It’s that they may have no idea what they’ve lost contact with.
And by value, I don’t simply mean money.
The undiscovered alumnus might employ hundreds of graduates, create internships, mentor founders, open doors internationally, support research, introduce corporate partners or bring decades of expertise back into the classroom.
And yes, occasionally they may become a major philanthropist. But philanthropy should be an outcome of the relationship, not its purpose.
The relationships between alumni and their institutions must evolve to increase income from alumni effectively.
The uncomfortable concept of Students as Customers
By prioritising alumni engagement, universities can increase income from alumni through various channels.
There is a commercial concept that is beginning to appear more frequently in conversations I have with Universities: customer lifetime value (“CLV”).
Now, this terminology might make some academics decidedly queasy. Fair enough. A student is not simply a customer, and their relationship with a university should be considerably richer than a conventional commercial transaction or donor/recipient relationship, but the underlying concept is useful.
Most organisations don’t assess the value of a relationship solely by its transaction value. They consider what that relationship might become over an entire lifetime, and Universities can have an extraordinary insight into this…or not.
An undergraduate may arrive at 18 and retain some connection with the institution for another sixty years, yet most of our institutional attention is concentrated on just getting them through the front door.
Consider the average student recruitment and conversion funnel:
Strategically, increasing income from alumni requires a long-term vision and commitment from the university.
Enquiry → Application → Offer → Acceptance → Enrolment.
We measure movement between stages, worry about conversion loss- the “melt” – and invest substantial sums in understanding signals or intent. Then something happens.
Enrolment → Graduation → Alumni → ?
At precisely the point when someone’s professional experience, networks, influence and capacity to contribute begin increasing, the university’s visibility of them can start declining.
Finally, to achieve success, universities must continuously evolve their strategies to increase income from alumni.
That is an extraordinary way to manage lifetime value and lifetime value in a university context surely has to work in both directions. The question isn’t simply what value a graduate might eventually provide to the university; it is what continuing value the university can provide to the graduate.
Lose the second and, eventually, you shouldn’t be surprised to lose the first.
So what are you telling them before they leave?
Perhaps this is where alumni strategy really begins. Not when somebody appears on a rich list. Not when Advancement discovers a former student successfully exited their company. Not when a capital campaign needs funding, but in the weeks leading up to graduation.
What does the university usually tell them at this stage? There will be information about gowns, ceremonies, certificates and careers. There may be an invitation to join the alumni network, but there could be an institutional moment that matters that says:
Ultimately, universities should aim to increase income from alumni by fostering a sense of belonging and community.
Building a strong community of engaged alumni is crucial to increase income from alumni.
You’re leaving us as a student, but you’ll always be a member of this community.
Furthermore, to increase income from alumni, institutions should provide alumni with career advancement resources.
More importantly, does the university then spend the next thirty or forty years behaving as though it meant it? All relationships need continual investment: Attention. Relevance. Recognition. Opportunity. Shared purpose. Reasons for both sides to remain interested.
That doesn’t mean bombarding graduates with irrelevant communications, nor does it mean treating every graduate as a future donor. It means recognising that graduation changes the relationship rather than ending it – and retaining enough connection to understand how that relationship itself is changing.
By recognising the achievements of alumni, universities can effectively increase income from alumni.
It is vital for universities to find innovative ways to increase income from alumni beyond traditional fundraising approaches.
The Ken Griffin story illustrates the principle beautifully. Yes, Harvard had the history but Carnegie Mellon had the alignment.
And alignment isn’t permanent either. People change. Institutions change. Values and ambitions change. The relationship has to keep earning its relevance.
Who is Already Waiting in Your Alumni Community?
To state the bleedin’ obvious, Universities are under considerable financial pressure right now, not just in the UK but globally. That makes philanthropy, partnerships and alternative sources of income increasingly important to an institution’s long-term sustainability.
But financial pressure can produce precisely the wrong instinct. When organisations urgently need something, they start asking, like that friend we described at the beginning. People notice stuff like that.
Perhaps the more interesting exercise is not to begin with:
Who can we ask for more money?
But to start with:
Who are our alumni?
What have they become?
Where are the relationships strong?
Where are the weaker relationships?
Which relationships should we invest more in?
And where is extraordinary goodwill sitting completely untapped?
That isn’t really a fundraising question; it’s a relationship management question.
Somewhere among this year’s graduates could be a future founder, FTSE or NASDAQ CEO, philanthropist or an employer of many thousands of people.
But there is a more immediate thought.
Somewhere in your alumni community, that certain somebody is already there – do you know who they are? Do you know what they think about you? And are you still giving them reasons to care?
Because twenty years from now, when the university’s name appears on their phone, the important question isn’t whether they’ll recognise it. It’s whether their heart lifts…
…or sinks.