AlumniAcademy

Become the expert your alumni program needs

Corporate Alumni Management finally has a playbook.

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AlumniAcademy
Why it Matters Now

Corporate Alumni Has Become A Strategic Discipline

Staying connected to former employees used to be an afterthought. Not anymore: the world's leading organizations now treat their alumni as a serious source of business, talent, intelligence and reputation, and they expect the people who run those programs to deliver like any other strategic function.

Yet almost no one is trained for it. There is no degree in corporate alumni management, most people inherit the role and learn as they go.
AlumniAcademy is how you close that gap.

From Research to Practice

Designed with the academics whose research underpins the field

AlumniAcademy is built in partnership with AcademEx Management Consulting, founded by Dr. Alison Dachner of John Carroll University and Dr. Erin Makarius of the University of Akron. The frameworks you learn are not borrowed best practice; they come straight from their peer-reviewed research, published in the Harvard Business Review and the Academy of Management Review.

Course co-creators Dr. Alison Dachner and Dr. Erin Makarius on what the Academy is, who it is for, and why it matters now.

The research you will actually learn

  • Post-Separation Value (PSV)
    How former employees create, or destroy, value for an organization.

  • The Alumni-Organization Relationship (AOR)
    Why alumni stay engaged, and how that relationship is built and sustained.

  • The TRAILS framework
    A structured method for designing an alumni program that fits your organization.

 

What's Inside

From the Fundamentals to Expert Strategy

Three self-paced courses, about an hour each, designed as a progression. Start where you are: understand the value alumni create, design a program that fits your organization, then lead it strategically. Each course ends in an assessment and a certificate.

Course 01 · Foundations

Alumni 101

Why Alumni? Achieving Positive Value with Corporate Alumni

Make the business case for engaging alumni and understand the value they create for an organization.

 The business case for corporate alumni
 Post-Separation Value, positive and negative
 Why alumni stay engaged: the Alumni-Organization Relationship
 The role of the alumni program leader
4 modules · ~60–90 min 
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Course 02 · Design

Alumni Pro

Designing a Corporate Alumni Program for Success

Design and build a program that fits your organization, using the TRAILS framework to make the right decisions.

 Analyzing need and setting objectives
 Design decisions with the TRAILS framework
 Building a sustainability plan
 Implementation and measuring success
 
5 modules · ~60–90 min 
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Course 03 · Strategy

Alumni Expert

Strategically Managing Alumni Programs

Lead a mature program with greater influence, aligning alumni strategy to wider business priorities.

 Becoming a strategic partner
 Aligning alumni with talent management
 Shifting alumni perceptions and outcomes
 Building engaged community at scale
 
4 modules · ~60–90 min 
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What You'll Be Able To Do

Build, run, and prove a program that earns its place

AlumniAcademy is built for the reality of the role: often inherited, usually under-resourced, always expected to deliver. Each course turns peer-reviewed research into practice you can apply straight away.

Make the case that wins buy-in

Turn alumni from a nice-to-have into a credible business case, with the evidence and the language to bring leadership and budget on board.

Design with a method

Make deliberate design choices, grounded in a proven framework, that fit your organization's maturity, resources, and goals.

Prove the value you create

Set clear objectives and measure the outcomes that matter, so your program's impact is visible and defensible.

Lead with credibility

Bring an approach grounded in evidence and best practices, and speak about alumni with genuine authority.

Frequently asked questions

Anyone building, running, or growing a corporate alumni program, from those exploring the idea for the first time to seasoned alumni leaders. The three courses progress from foundations to expert strategy, so you can start wherever you are.
Three self-paced online courses of about an hour each, roughly three hours for the full pathway. You learn online, at your own pace and on your own schedule.
No. All three courses are free, with unlimited access to every module and no enrollment fees.
AlumniAcademy is produced by EnterpriseAlumni in partnership with AcademEx Management Consulting, founded by Dr. Alison Dachner and Dr. Erin Makarius. The content combines their peer-reviewed research with real-world practice from leading alumni programs.

No. The courses are just as useful for making the case for a program that does not exist yet as they are for managing a mature one.

Become the expert your alumni program needs

Start with Alumni 101 and build from the business case to expert strategy, at your own pace.

Start with Alumni 101 → Browse all courses