How best to engage alumni ahead of significant anniversaries, reunion events and school milestones.
No matter whether your school or university has been in existence 20 or 200 years, anniversaries and other school milestones present a great opportunity to connect with former alumni.
Every single member of your alumni community has played a role in shaping your institution’s history. To create an engagement campaign for your significant anniversary, reunion event, or school milestone and make it a success, it’s crucial that your alumni feel invested, involved, and have a sense of ownership.
Why are significant anniversaries, reunion events and school milestones the perfect opportunity to engage your alumni?
Shared experiences/history
School milestones provide an opportunity for alumni to reconnect with their classmates/cohorts and relive their shared experiences. Sharing experiences is known to strengthen relationships, as well as strengthen their sense of community and connection to their alma matter.
Nostalgia
Milestones and anniversaries can be a time for reflection and nostalgia, which can make alumni more receptive to reconnecting with their school, college, or university. They may be more likely to attend events or contribute to fundraising campaigns at these times.
Recognition
School milestones and events often involve recognising and celebrating the achievements of those that once attended the school. This can help to foster and encourage a sense of pride and loyalty to the institution. This recognition also serves as a powerful motivator for alumni to reach out and connect with their old school or university.
Building relationships
Engaging alumni during school milestones can be an opportunity to build long-term relationships. By staying in touch with alumni, you can keep them informed about current events and opportunities, and encourage them to give back to their alma mater in the future.
Anniversaries, reunion events and school milestones can provide a unique opportunity to engage with alumni and foster lifelong connections. By leveraging these opportunities, schools can build a strong and supportive alumni community that benefits both current and future students.
But how do you effectively engage with alumni ahead of and around the events?
Here are a few of our suggestions.
Create a database.
If you don’t already have a database of alumni contacts, this is the perfect opportunity to start creating one. This should include email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses but can also include additional useful information such as what they studied in their time with you and which extracurricular activities they took part in. It’s also an opportunity to understand more about your alumni community, identify ‘lost’ alumni, and consider different ways of getting in touch.
Develop a communication strategy
Develop a communication plan that outlines the messaging, frequency, and channels you will use to engage with alumni. This could include email newsletters, social media updates, postal invites etc. Be sure to include details about the anniversary, reunion, or milestone events, the dates, locations, and any activities you have planned.
Use social media
Social media platforms are powerful tools for engaging with alumni. Use social media to share news, updates, and photos, and use these channels to direct them to your specific anniversary, reunion or milestone websites or channels.
Personalise your communication
Personalise your communications by using alumni names and include specific details from their time with you in your messaging. This will help foster feelings of nostalgia and connection which have been shown to make messaging significantly more effective.
Organise local get-togethers
Organise local meetups for alumni to gather and reconnect ahead of any main events you are running. These don’t need to be physical meetups but could also be digital. With alumni spread across the globe, delivering a digital option allows all alumni to feel involved.
Create a website or online platform
Create a website or online platform specifically for the anniversary, reunion, or school milestone. This could include details about the events, the background of the celebration, the schedule, and to also provide a way for alumni to connect with one another before and after the event.
Encourage alumni participation
Ahead of the events, encourage alumni to submit their own memories, photos, videos, or documents from their time with you.
Use your history
Anniversaries and major milestones are all about celebrating the history of your institution and nothing is more interesting to your alumni than the history of their time with you. Ensure you have a way to capture that history and use it to support all of the steps above, it will not only make your engagement more effective but by capturing the memories for posterity you can use them to support your ongoing alumni works and the next time you’re celebrating a significant occasion.
With these simple steps, you can create a powerful alumni engagement strategy that encourages maximum participation from your former students in your institution’s upcoming anniversary, reunion, or school milestone event. By doing so, you can foster a strong sense of community and lifelong connection with your school, college, or university.
In addition to the points above remember to stay organised, think creatively, and most importantly, have fun! With the right approach, you can make your event a huge success, boosting alumni engagement and not only celebrate memories of the past, but create lasting memories for the future.
If you have any questions or want to learn more about how SocialArchive® can help boost engagement, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re here to help you make the most of every event and milestone.
Key Takeaways
Milestones unlock nostalgia and pride, making alumni more receptive to reconnecting.
Start with a clean, central alumni database and clear consent/opt-in paths.
Build a multichannel comms plan (email, social, mail, event pages) with dates, roles, and CTAs.
Personalise by cohort/era and reference memories to increase open and response rates.
Offer local and digital touchpoints so global alumni can join in before and after events.
Encourage user-generated content (UGC): photos, videos, stories that fuel visibility and belonging.
Create a dedicated milestone hub (microsite/page) for schedules, sign-ups, and story sharing.
Leverage archives to showcase cultural continuity and trigger reconnection.
Tools like SocialArchive help schools capture, organise, and share content with the right alumni, surfacing personalised stories through a dedicated online hub.
Summary
Significant anniversaries and reunions are prime moments to re-energise alumni relationships. Success comes from strong data foundations, personalised outreach, inclusive online/offline formats, and a steady flow of authentic stories that highlight shared history and values. By pairing a clear comms plan with easy ways to contribute memories and connect, schools can turn one-off events into ongoing engagement. With SocialArchive, institutions can capture alumni voices and media, organise them by cohort or theme, and surface personalised stories in an online hub, ensuring the right content reaches the right people before, during, and after the celebration.
FAQs
Why do milestones work so well for alumni engagement?
They spark nostalgia, pride, and a sense of shared history, powerful drivers for reconnection and participation.
What should be in our pre-event communications plan?
A timeline of messages across email, social, and mail; clear CTAs (RSVP, submit memories, volunteer); and tailored notes by cohort/era.
How can we include alumni who live far away?
Offer digital options: livestreams, virtual meetups, recordings, and an online hub where alumni can engage before and after the event.
What kinds of content perform best before a milestone?
Era-specific photos, short alumni stories, teacher interviews, and then/now visuals that show continuity of values.
How does SocialArchive support milestone campaigns?
It helps schools capture alumni memories, organise content by theme or cohort, and share it with the right people. SocialArchive also provides the online hub where alumni can explore, connect, and contribute stories around milestones.
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