Elevating Inclusion Toolkit

Tools to adapt traditional alumni volunteer structures to meet shifting priorities and also create new alumni programming that resonates with an increasingly diverse alumni community.

North America is far more culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse than ever before. Demographic shifts have been felt across college and university campuses as record numbers of historically underrepresented students enroll in college and attain degrees. These shifting demographics have been slowly changing the face of our institutional profile across the last decade. The changes in our student and alumni demographic profile present significant challenges and opportunities for advancement offices, particularly in developing a more diverse alumni volunteer community. Advancement and alumni leaders need not only to recognize the necessity to adapt traditional alumni volunteer structures to meet shifting priorities but to also create new alumni programming that resonates with an increasingly diverse alumni community.

A cascading set of problems Understanding the cost of inaction TodayNext 3-5 YearsBeyond 5 YearsVolunteer ParticipationInability to
engage
increasingly
diverse alumniDiverse alumni
choose to
volunteer with
other nonprofitsNo bench of
diverse alumni for
leadership rolesAnnual GivingAlumni giving
rates
continue to
declineIncreased
cost to raise
a dollarAlumni direct
annual fund
gifts to other
nonprofitsMajor GivingAging
traditional
donor
demographicDrying of
major gift
pipelineInability to meet
campaign goals
due to lack of
diverse donor base

This toolkit is a compendium of diversity-related resources for advancement professionals to access when working with diverse alumni constituencies. It maps to EAB’s Elevating Inclusion study and contains relevant resources to help advancement professionals better understand the experience of diverse alumni and engage an increasingly diverse alumni base.

Institutions often have many diversity-related programs across campus, but rarely is there a single location where all diversity-related projects that may involve alumni are cataloged. This worksheet provides a template for advancement staff to identify all relevant campus partners who are active in diversity programming.

In doing this research it became clear to EAB that few advancement…