Prepared by Giatonia Doffing and Zach Wong for Jason Gaboury, National Director of Alumni Relations
May 2026
The Question
What is the most meaningful type of engagement we can offer to our alumni based on their stated values, interests, and preferences?
The Answer
Engagement that lets alumni stay connected to the formative student-era experience that shaped them, while keeping InterVarsity's mission focused on current students. Alumni do not want a new menu of alumni-directed programs — they want to remain participants in the work, through prayer, professional and personal contribution, and the friendships and small-group bonds they already maintain.
What The Data Shows
Top Emotions Alumni Associate With InterVarsity
Belonging 30%
Connectedness 19%
Curiosity 9%
Other 42%
Salt & Wine Core Story Research, n=1,213, ±2.81 CI, 2023
62.9
NPS — in the "excellent" range for nonprofit brand loyalty
Salt & Wine, p. 42
97%
of alumni rate their opinion of InterVarsity as somewhat or very favorable
Hanover Key Findings, p. 2
Where Alumni Read Us
Prayer letters from staff
78%
Alumni newsletter
46%
Facebook
15%
Twitter
3%
Instagram
1%
Hanover Key Findings, 2019 baseline — social-media numbers may have shifted post-2020; structural channels are more durable.
74%
of alumni connected with a local church within six months of leaving InterVarsity.Hanover Key Findings, p. 5
34%
who have never donated say they would like to but lack resources.Hanover Key Findings, p. 4
Persistent post-college small groups — often via a simple text thread — are the durable structure underneath nearly every highly engaged alum.Yoon / Patrick Chan thread, 2020
Five Recommendations, Ranked
1
Treat post-college small groups as the primary unit of alumni engagement. Persistent peer ties — often text-thread-connected — are the durable structure underneath highly engaged alumni.
2
Reframe alumni messaging around scripture, formation, and the future-church framing. Salt & Wine's strongest predictors of brand loyalty and lifetime giving converge on these.
3
Address the millennial financial-peace and giving-friction issue directly. Practical stewardship resources, generosity practices, and clearer small-dollar recurring pathways.
4
Invest in the communications channels alumni actually use, with new surfaces for young alumni. Protect prayer letters and the alumni newsletter; pilot short-form video, national social accounts, and challenge-style invitations.
5
Honor the inclusion concerns surfaced in the qualitative data. A content-and-tone consideration that runs through everything else.
What we are not recommending: a new alumni association with dues, chapters, or a separate identity. Alumni want to remain part of the mission they joined as students.
Methodology
We reviewed the four-source corpus assembled by the Alumni Relations team: the Hanover 2019 national alumni survey, the Hanover 2022 alumni focus groups, the Salt & Wine 2023 Core Story research, and the forwarded Eddie Yoon super-alumni thread including the Patrick Chan interview. For each source we identified the claims it makes against the central research question and noted the strength of evidence. The Salt & Wine 2023 survey (n=1,213) was treated as the primary quantitative anchor, with the Hanover 2019 survey supplying durable structural findings. The 2019 Hanover material was given a contextual caveat reflecting the substantial cultural shift between 2019 and 2026. Recommendations were drafted to honor the convergences and address the tensions with the lightest possible programmatic load.
Bibliography
Alumni Survey — Key Findings. Hanover Research, November 2019.
Alumni Focus Groups. Hanover Research, July 2022.
InterVarsity Core Story Research. Salt & Wine, 2023.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Core Story. Salt & Wine, June 2023.
Eddie Yoon, super-alumni interview thread, forwarded May 2026.
