Most advancement teams spend their weeks reacting to whatever's next on the calendar. The teams that do truly great work do something harder: they step back and design the conditions that make excellence possible.

In this episode of Alumless, Ryan and Chris sit down with Shara Freeman Hoefel — Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations at UC San Diego — to talk about exactly that. Shara shares how "unreasonable hospitality" changes the way an alumni team connects, how she uses CASE metrics without losing the human side, and how she makes giving feel like belonging rather than a transaction. Plus: why she treats her alumni board as a cabinet rather than a rubber stamp, and how the way you gather can quietly elevate people's sense of belonging.

Alumless is brought to you by our Season 4 presenting sponsors — Protopia, AlumnIQ, Givzey, and Richmond Associates. We're grateful for their support.

Every alumni organization eventually hits a season where everything seems to change at once. For Northwestern, that season is now.

In this episode of Alumless, Ryan and Chris sit down with Lindsay Vahl Dean — Assistant Vice President for Alumni Engagement and Executive Director of the Northwestern Alumni Association — to talk about leading through it. Lindsay shares how she approaches organizational change management, integrates engagement with fundraising strategy, and builds a culture of advance planning that supports both alumni and staff. Plus: why succession planning and governance at the club level deserve more attention than they get.

Alumless is brought to you by our Season 4 presenting sponsors — Protopia, AlumnIQ, Givzey, and Richmond Associates. We're grateful for their support.

At institutions with centuries of history, traditions can be both a source of strength and a barrier to change. On this episode of Alumless, Ryan and Chris sit down with Carolyn Gray Kimberlin, Vice President for Alumni Relations at Dartmouth College, to explore the tension between preserving institutional identity and evolving alumni engagement for a changing community.

Carolyn reflects on what makes Dartmouth’s alumni culture distinctive, how traditions shape the day-to-day work of engagement, and why leading at a 250-year-old institution requires a different approach to innovation and change management. The conversation explores how institutions can modernize engagement without alienating loyal alumni, and what it takes to bring skeptical stakeholders along during periods of transition.

In the bonus segment, the discussion turns to Dartmouth’s uniquely deep culture of volunteerism, including its network of class, affinity, and regional organizations. Carolyn shares how her team thinks about scaling engagement beyond formal leadership structures and balancing digital engagement with a community rooted in in-person experiences.

Alumless is presented by Protopia, AlumnIQ, and Givzey, and Richmond Associates.

On this week’s Alumless, Kim and Chris sit down with Scott Rosevear, Senior Vice President for University Strategy and Advancement at Bucknell University, to explore what happens when advancement is positioned as part of the institution’s strategic core, not downstream from it. The conversation centers on a simple but consequential shift: aligning engagement, philanthropy, and institutional priorities before a campaign ever goes public.

Scott offers a candid look at what it means to operate across cabinet, trustees, and volunteer leadership while preparing for a campaign launch, and why engagement goals need to be treated with the same rigor as financial targets. Along the way, the discussion surfaces a bigger idea — that advancement isn’t just responsible for outcomes, it helps define them.

Alumless is presented by Protopia, AlumnIQ, and Givzey, with support from Richmond Associates.

In Australia, university philanthropy is still finding its footing, which makes it one of the most interesting places to watch what comes next.

On this episode of Alumless World, Ryan sits down with Margo Powell, Chief Advancement Officer at La Trobe University, to talk about what it really takes to build a campaign in an environment where donor culture isn’t fully formed yet. Margo pulls back the curtain on La Trobe’s campaign, including the deliberate work behind aligning leadership, reshaping internal thinking, and building a culture of philanthropy from the ground up. Along the way, she makes a clear case that alumni are not just donors — they are connectors, advocates, and participants in a much broader exchange of value.

The back half of the episode leans into the harder questions: how to engage alumni who don’t feel connected, how to balance digital and in-person experiences, and what a modern engagement journey actually looks like when it’s built around the individual, not the institution. By the end, you start to see where this is going — toward a model where giving is a byproduct of relevance, not the starting point.

Alumless World is presented by Protopia, AlumnIQ, and Givzey, and Richmond Associates.

What does it take to truly align a campus around alumni engagement?

On this episode of Alumless, Ryan and Chris sit down with Kris Bosman, Chief Alumni Officer at the University of Utah, to explore how collaboration across campus can create scale and deepen alumni connections.

Using Utah’s 175th Anniversary as a case study, Kris shares how her team led a university-wide effort that brought together colleges, units, and athletics to create coordinated programming and shared momentum. The conversation dives into why collaboration is often so difficult in higher education and how leadership can reinforce a culture of shared ownership.

In the bonus segment, Kris highlights programs like Bringing the U to You and Ask an Alum as examples of scalable collaboration, discusses the role of volunteers in expanding reach, and reflects on how institutions can balance central strategy with local customization. She also looks ahead to what a fully collaborative alumni engagement model could look like in the years to come.

This episode of Alumless is made possible by our season sponsors Protopia, AlumnIQ, Givzey, with additional support from Richmond Associates.

In this special announcement, Ryan Catherwood introduces Speaking Engagement — a new professional development designed as a “conference on engagement that never sleeps.” Speaking Engagement brings together weekly Keynote interviews, Breakout conversations, articles, and live Agora events to create a continuous learning experience for engagement professionals. Instead of attending a conference once a year, this is an opportunity to stay immersed in ideas, trends, and strategies every single week. Ryan also shares how listeners can become part of the founding group — offering the first 50 Alumless listeners free lifetime access to the members-only version of the platform ahead of its official launch. If you’ve ever wished conferences didn’t end, this is your invitation to stay in the room.

What does it really take to step into a new advancement role and chart a new course in year one? This week on the show, Ryan and Chris Marshall chat with Jim Broschart, Vice President for Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement at the University of Louisville, to reflect on the realities of leading through transition. Jim shares what he saw in his first year at Louisville and how he assessed the health of the advancement operation. Our conversation explores how leaders decide what to change, what to preserve, and what it means to rethink the donor pipeline and engagement strategy in a new institutional context. We’ll discuss the challenges of aligning teams, breaking down silos, and introducing cultural shifts that support long-term growth. He reflects on lessons learned in his first year and what’s next as Louisville continues to evolve its approach to philanthropy and alumni engagement. This episode of Alumless is made possible by our season sponsors Protopia, AlumnIQ, Givzey, and Richmond Associates.