1. Starting
Alumni Engagement
Before Orientation
by

2. Your
EDU
Core Student Engagement Motivators
Comfort
Broad interest connections on an
individual level (e.g. you like sports, I like
sports, let's be friends).
Connection
Contribution Relevant interest groups acting together
toward common outcomes (e.g. German
Club).
Contribution
Connection Giving back to the campus by consciously
leading and supporting the community.
Comfort
Prentiss Student Motivation Pyramid 2009

3. Alumni Department
1 Increase engagement between alumni and
Goals
the institution.
2 Increase alumni financial contributions to
the institution.

4. Your
EDU
highest
How? Reach For The Top
The top of the pyramid represents
community members with the highest
$ Contributions
level of engagement and the highest level
Engagement
of financial contributions.
Contribution To reach the top, each prior stage of
motivation must be fulfilled.
The goal is to support as many students
as possible through each stage of the
Connection pyramid towards the top.
Comfort
Prentiss Student Motivation Pyramid 2009
lowest

5. Your
EDU
Needs
An Audience
Contribution
A Group
Connection
A Friend
Comfort
Prentiss Student Motivation Pyramid 2009

6. Fulfill Needs: Comfort
Social comfort is the foundation of
engagement. The sooner students
befriend classmates like them, the better.
Even before an on-campus orientation,
the goal should be to facilitate as many
socially comforting relationships as
Do you possible.
play the I do!
Piccolo?
While many interests are often broad in
nature (e.g. Sports, Traveling, etc), the
more relevant and unique a shared
interest is, the stronger the one-on-one
relationships around it will be (e.g Horse
Riding, Piccolo, etc).
Comfort

7. Fulfill Needs: Connection
To build a deeper, longer-lasting sense of
Off to perform
engagement, students should be
a Piccolo concert introduced to affinity groupings [e.g.
in the quad! German Club, etc].
Affinity groupings will exponentially
increase an individual’s ties to the
institution through more relationships
with more shared experiences.
The same rule applies: the more relevant
Connection
and unique the common interests shared
by the group, the more engaged its
members will be (e.g Piccolo Club, etc).
Within campus affinity groups, student
leaders will emerge.

8. Here, Your
let me EDU
help.
Fulfill Needs: Contribution
After graduation, alumni can continue to
be institutional community leaders
Thanks!
through mentor/mentee relationships.
By default, alumni are set up as great
Contribution mentors for incoming students [e.g. been
there, done that].
By matching alumni with first year
students, a sense of lifelong community
engagement will start right away.
Again, the more relevant and unique
common interests a mentor/mentee
relationships are built around, the better.

9. I love playing
Piccolo,
let me
Financial Contribution
help.
S
Students who were more engaged during
The Piccolo their time on campus make larger
Club’s equipment financial contributions after graduation.
is so old.
Just like with individual social comfort
matching, and affinity group matching,
alumni financial contributions will be
higher the more relevant and unique the
request [e.g. Piccolo Club needs money,
you like Piccolo].

10. Your
EDU
From The Start
If starting before orientation, institutions
have an amazing opportunity to built a
sense of lifelong engagement among
students. A sense that an individual’s
legacy feeds into the greater legacy of the
whole institution. A sense that starts by
Contribution building social comfort, and ends with a
lifelong commitment to contributing back
to an institution in both knowledge and
financial donations.
Connection
Comfort
Prentiss Student Motivation Pyramid 2009

11. Increase Your Alumni Engagement
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