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Laying the foundations: Networking that spans geography and industry
American School of Barcelona (ASB), an international school in Spain, faced the challenge of building a connected and engaged alumni community. With a global network of former students, Director of Development & Alumni Relations Michelle Collin aimed to create a virtual space where graduates could reconnect, network professionally, and stay involved with the school.
Michelle began with a clear goal: provide alumni hubs based on university, industry, and location. This structure allowed members to find peers with shared experiences, and it resonated strongly-especially with new alumni, who became the most active within the network.
Effortless data integration and year zero engagement
Migrating alumni contacts and content-like digitized yearbooks and old photo albums-was smooth and stress-free. Michelle emphasized how helpful the responsive support has been along the way.
“It was very easy to migrate our data at the beginning. The online support team is always quick to respond and willing to help or offer suggestions.”
With everything in one place, the team could focus on engagement: promoting registration to graduating seniors, publishing yearbook archives, and launching alumni profiles with business, education, and location details.
Improving ongoing engagement
A steady stream of content is one of the key drivers of alumni return visits and platform activity:
- 240+ articles shared with the community
- Regular newsletters with alumni stories, event recaps, and school updates
- Alumni-focused Instagram account as a complementary channel
- Yearbook and photo gallery uploads, consistently popular across year groups
“We always share regular newsletters with our alumni community with links to articles and photographs. Our Instagram alumni account currently has the most engagement.”
Amplifying value through powerful features
Michelle and her team have been experimenting with features that provide meaningful value to alumni while giving them ownership of the community.
- Business Directory: 40+ alumni businesses showcased and shared with the current school community
- Mentorship hub: In development to connect alumni with students and fellow graduates
- Alumni-led events and content: Encouraging contributions, stories, and photo uploads from members
“We want our alumni to use our online community as a tool for networking, as well as a hub for promoting their own goods and services. The Business Directory is working well for us, and we’re excited to launch a new mentorship feature soon too.”
Measuring success with meaningful insights
Michelle uses reporting tools to track what’s working-and how engagement is evolving. These metrics help her fine-tune ASB’s strategy and spotlight active members and content formats.
“At ASB, one of the ways we measure the success of our alumni engagement is by the number of opt-in records we see on our online community. Our online platform also shows us useful metrics, like the percentage rate of opening emails, number of new registrations, number of event registrations, and number of connections which help us understand how engaged our alumni are.”
Advice for schools building from scratch
- Start with a clear purpose-define who you’re trying to connect
- Offer niche hubs-people gather around shared interests and locations
- Create a steady flow of content-news, galleries, and stories keep members returning
- Build features that inspire ownership-business directories, mentoring, event hosting
- Use data reporting to guide decisions-focus your effort where it’s working
