How SUNY New Paltz transformed its alumni events

See how a small team at SUNY New Paltz overhauled alumni engagement, hosting 25+ events a year with smarter tech and fresh event formats.

Published:

April 29, 2025

Updated:

Summary

• Rethink event focus beyond class years: SUNY New Paltz significantly boosted engagement by organizing events around shared career fields, majors, and existing affinity groups like Greek life, making connections more meaningful for alumni. • Bring students and faculty into the mix: Inviting current students and professors to alumni events creates richer experiences, as alumni love to mentor and reconnect with their former mentors. • Streamline your event setup and registration process: They cut event setup time to under 10 minutes and made registrations smooth, which tackled frustrating crashes and manual data entry, improving the experience for everyone. • Integrate events with your CRM for smarter data: Switching to a new system allowed them to seamlessly integrate event data with Raiser's Edge NXT, saving hours of manual work and preventing lost records. • Offer an easy way for spontaneous donations: Adding a "gift ticket" option directly on event registration pages led to an unexpected boost in donations, turning event engagement into direct support for the institution. • Communicate clearly and consistently: Setting clear expectations and maintaining consistent branding across all event communications helped alumni feel informed and welcomed from the start.

When you think of a nearly 200-year-old institution like SUNY New Paltz, you think of history and tradition — and rightly so.
But what makes them stand out today is how they are building on that foundation with fresh ideas and a modern approach to alumni engagement.
At a recent webinar, Alyson Hummer (Alumni Engagement Officer) and Angelica McIntyre (Associate Director of Operations and Research) shared how they are reimagining alumni events to create even stronger connections.

✨First, a quick look at SUNY New Paltz and its event landscape

Nestled in the scenic Hudson Valley of New York, SUNY New Paltz is home to about 74,000 alumni and 120,000 total constituents. They have a small but mighty advancement team, with just 3.5 staff members dedicated to alumni relations (one of them part-time, of course).
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And yet, despite its size, New Paltz hosts an impressive 25+ events every year. Some noteworthy events include:

• 40 Under Forty Awards: Celebrating rising alumni stars.

• Alumni Reunion: Their biggest and most complex event, drawing 380+ registrations in 2024.

• Regional gatherings: Connecting alumni pockets across states like California, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, and New York.

• Distinguished Speaker Series and Hudson Valley Future Summit: Big ideas and timely conversations.

• Golf tournaments, development gatherings, and student-alumni events: Keeping alumni connected at every stage.

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💡What are they doing differently?

Alyson and Angelica decided to rethink their approach to events altogether, and here’s what changed:

• Shift the focus from class year to career field and major: Instead of organizing reunions by graduation year, they connected alumni through shared professions and passions, leading to more meaningful interactions.

• Lean into affinity groups like Greek life: Greek organizations already had strong bonds. New Paltz tapped into that loyalty, driving greater attendance and enthusiasm.

• Invite students and faculty to alumni events: Alumni valued the chance to mentor students and reconnect with faculty, making events feel even more rewarding.

• Consistent, transparent communication: From clear email branding to setting the right expectations upfront, every event invitation helped alumni feel informed and welcomed.
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__wf_reserved_inherit — A picture from their Greek Life affinity group event.

🎯What challenges did they face?

Behind the scenes, the old way of managing events was becoming unsustainable.

• Event setup was slow and complicated

• Registrations sometimes crashed the system, leading to frustrated alumni

• Manual data entry after events led to errors and lost records

• Finance reporting was inefficient

• Check-ins were done manually using paper sheets

Simply put, they needed a better way to scale their impact without scaling the chaos.
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🚀Moving to Almabase

Reimagining the experience was one thing. Executing it smoothly was another. That’s where Almabase came in. After switching to Almabase, SUNY New Paltz was able to:

• Streamline event setup to under 10 minutes for most events.

• Simplify registrations and payments, avoiding crashes and frustrations.

• Integrate seamlessly with Raiser’s Edge NXT, eliminating tedious manual data work.

• Enable instant check-ins, even for walk-in guests.

• Create a better experience for both their team and their alumni.
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Alumni consistently rated the registration process highly, with an average score of 4.6/5.

In just 10 months, they completed 21 events through Almabase!
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🎁They also added a "gift ticket" option to every event registration page and have already seen an uptick in spontaneous alumni donations.
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__wf_reserved_inherit — A snap from their alumni reunion.

Success didn’t happen overnight. While Almabase made event management much simpler, Alyson and Angelica co-led the rollout, introduced staff in phases, and set up easy processes so that everyone on the team could confidently create events with minimal training.

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Want to learn more? Watch our recent webinar with the team at SUNY New Paltz ⬇️

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