The Royal Air Force: Elevating Culture and Community

The Royal Air Force’s trailblazing alumni network, RAF Galaxy, unites personnel across all career stages – serving, ex-serving, and reserves – to create a thriving, supportive community.

Military service fosters deep, enduring bonds that shape an individual’s sense of community. In this session, we'll explore how the RAF pioneered its alumni network, designed to sustain these lifelong connections and support relationships beyond active service

Join us to uncover expert strategies that can help any organisation elevate its culture and build stronger, lasting communities.

We  discussed:

• The first programmatic, digital approach to alumni in the military globally
• How to promote an alumni network as an innovation
• Engaging stakeholders, departments, and partnerships for organisational buy-in to an alumni program
• Amplifying your organization’s values, reputation and strengths

Elevating Culture and Community: How the alumni network took off for the RAF

Thank you to our guest speakers:

Shani Robinson, Alumni Development Manager, Royal Air Force
Air Commodore Chris Todd, Head of People & Family Support

Five Things We Learned About Elevating Culture and Community In The RAF

The RAF looks after its alumni when they leave ….

“We put a lot of effort into resettlement training, to help people relocate and find new roles. An important part of serving is how we look after those people as they leave the service and equip them to re-join civilian life …
Air Commodore Chris Todd

The RAF welcomes people back …

“People may come to us for a length of time, then move away and join a different organization. Galaxy provides the open door for people to return to the service in a very friendly way …”
Shani Robinson

Boomerang hires can save you serious dollar …

“If we are able to get a F-35 Lightning pilot back into service and therefore not had to train another, that's a saving in the order of around $10 million …”
Air Commodore Chris Todd

The RAFs alumni is open from 16-100 plus …

“One of our veterans was born in 1925, and I regularly attend freshers' fairs and graduations at RAF Cranwell. So we have literally from teenagers to 1925 retirees …”
Shani Robinson

Some people have seen it all …!

“When I joined and it was still the Cold War. I joined and the very next day the Berlin Wall came down. It'd be rude to say whether the two were connected!”
Air Commodore Chris Todd

Q&A

Who are the Royal Air Force today?

Chris: The Royal Air Force today is what the Royal Air Force has been for over 100 years – the world's first independent Air Force formed back in April 1918 from the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service. Our key role is defence of the UK’s airspace and interests, at home and around the world. We’re not as large as we have been in the past, but that core role about defence of the UK and securing air control for UK forces around the world absolutely remains the same as it always has done.

How are your alumni veterans dispersed?

Shani: We have alumni and platform members spread as far as Hawaii, Iceland, Australia and China, so we are a really far flung, but closely knit community.

Chris: Being in the military is the lifelong time of service. We take a real effort to ensure that our people leave well. Join, well serve well, leave well is really important to us. As part of that leave well process, we put a lot of effort into resettlement training, to help people relocate and find new roles. An important part of serving is how we look after those people as they leave the service and equip them to re-join civilian life.

What are the specific gaps that an alumni network is addressing for you?

Shani: People may come to us for a length of time, then move away and join a different organisation, learn a whole new skill set, then want to come back to the Royal Air Force through that sense of pride and community. Galaxy provides the open door for people to return to the service. They can dip a toe in and see if it's what they want to do. They can have a conversation with a potential mentor who can help support them in the process of returning. We can talk them through the legal processes, the potential impacts to pensions and so forth that come with a return to service in a very friendly way.

What does a boomerang career mean in the Royal Air Force?

Chris: In the same way the classical employment model has changed from joining a single employer and doing a long career, it’s changed for us as well. We’re more likely to see people joining for a shorter period of time, then switching between different employment types, and between service and civilian. People want to stay in contact, to keep that sense of community and family. That's one of the great strengths of the military and something we seek to develop using Galaxy as our alumni platform.

Do you have employee resource groups to extend some of the things beyond just the military?

Chris: Absolutely. While building that sense of community, there's that hard business benefit of keeping people warm. Given the cost and investment of training someone within the military, it doesn't take too many people to return to fully oversee the costs of the investment in the platform. For example, if we are able to get a F-35 Lightning pilot back into service and therefore not had to train another, that's a saving in the order of around $10 million.

Shani: We have some of the highest numbers of groups I have ever seen on any alumni platform, which is phenomenal. It's given us the opportunity to mirror all the networks and groups that people have when they're a serving member on Galaxy. You don't lose contact with your network support groups once you leave the service. We have groups for sports, squadrons, wings stations, signals … you name it. It's an ever-growing library because people are starting to realise the wealth of how important they are.

How are you achieving buy-in from key stakeholders given the, historic or traditional nature of the military institution itself?

Chris: Sheer dogged persistence and energy is a large part of it. A large chunk is plugging away and keeping that energy going, keeping that persistence going, not to be put off.

Where does government interest or support lie in relation to how Galaxy is maintained?

Chris: The government has absolutely made a commitment to the importance of veterans and ensuring that care, support and opportunities for veterans are properly coordinated. Galaxy is the first of its type to be managed and delivered in this sort of way within any military context, so that's put us quite far ahead. For veterans and alumni, that ensures their support and building of both community and practical support.

Veterans and alumni are often out on a limb, even with good intentions once they finish serving. What do you hope this signals or signifies to other military forces worldwide?

Shani: I think it’s the understanding that even once somebody leaves the service, it's not the end of their relationship with the service. That sense of pride, community, and above all family never leaves. And an understanding that we can continue to reach out, communicate, collaborate with anybody who has left the service. It doesn’t become and end of an era. It opens the door to the start of a new era.

What is the age range of your alumni network and how do you go about building a community that reaches alumni and veterans who have presumably such different interests and abilities?

Shani: Our demographic is massive. One of our veterans was born in 1925, and I regularly attend freshers' fairs and graduations at RAF Cranwell. So we have literally from teenagers to 1925 retirees. Reaching out to a disparate demographic in terms of age, there's no change in terms of interest. An airplane geek is always going to be an airplane geek. Somebody who's interested in engineering will love to know about the progress and changes to their trade. Although they might be disparate in age, they're not disparate in their interests. They want to know more of what's happened since they left.

How you are recruiting from alumni, and how is the alumni network impacting recruitment?

Shani: The alumni platform has allowed us to specifically target adverts and roles and through the data scrubbing process we’ve been beta testing. It means that we can specifically target people with the correct experience and qualifications who would be perfect for the job rather than relying on them hunting for a job.

What are your long-term goals for keeping people close?

Chris: The ex-military population within the UK is just over two million, and ranges from 16 to 100. All of those are alumni of the military. The strategic picture is about moving that traditional employment pattern of: train, serve, leave into one that recognises a much more modern way of working, where someone perhaps steps up or steps down their levels of commitment. We need to move from a one-way door to a two-way connection of people being able to move out and then move back in again. The ability to target someone directly rather than just relying on them coming back has been a real game changer for us.

Shani: The great thing is maintaining contacts with the skills, resources and knowledge. There is a finite point with a military career when people have to retire. But through welcoming the reservists, it means that we can harness that 50, 60 plus skill group to provide mentorship for the new groups. Without extending the service across the platform, we would lose that resource.

How do you communicate with your alumni, given you have so many different demographics?

Shani: We communicate through different newsletters for different purposes, and my army of content creators!

What advice do you have for running a corporate alumni network?

Shani: People love knowing what everybody's got been getting up to. Once they've left the service, they love to know how what career they've gone into, how have they developed, what have they been getting up to. Our alumni stories are fabulous. We are so lucky that people leave wonderful alumni stories on the platform for us. I use those in newsletters and reach out articles to give people a flavour of what everybody's been getting up to. They are very popular.

How do you ensure you continuity in government interest, especially with shifts in priorities from one administration or minister to the next?

Chris: Demonstrable benefit has got to be the really short answer. We have people all around the world demonstrating that we can value our people by building those connections and ensuring that none of them are feeling left out on their own. Within government, priorities change, so flexibility is key. It’s remaining flexible and adaptive and understanding your key value. Although the priority might broadly change, what makes it a valuable platform and what makes it a unique asset stays the same.

Is there a big difference between wartime and unrest versus peacetime?

Chris: That's that's a big question! Ultimately our job is to defend the nation and protect its interest at home and abroad. In what form that takes changes over time. When I joined and it was still the Cold War. I joined and the very next day the Berlin Wall came down. It'd be rude to say whether the two were connected! I've seen it go through the Cold War into the more counterinsurgency-based approach in Iraq and Afghanistan, having served there as well. Now there is a war in Europe and in the Middle East. So our context changes, but what we do in defence doesn't change. Our mission remains the same. How we do it changes, and course that does affect our hiring approaches.

What are your goals for the months ahead?

Shani: One of my goals is to very much increase the platform numbers. We've got nearly 5,000 people on the platform at present. There's two million veterans in the UK. Not all of them will join, but I would like to see a good proportion of them on there. So that's one of my big goals. I’d love to say that I could find an F-35 pilot. Please don't put that in my midyear, though!