Alumnae Speakers actively engaged in the campus ecosystem in one year
Alumnae Speakers for Career Day Growth
Alumnae reviewed and provided their contact information over 16 months
What happens when a 119-year-old institution pairs its high-touch traditions with the connectivity expectations of Silicon Valley?
You create a scalable partnership.
Castilleja recognized that to truly honor its mission of Women Learning, Women Leading, the alumnae network needed to evolve. By partnering with Almabase, the school transitioned its robust internal data into a dynamic, front-facing digital ecosystem. This move empowered alumnae to take a more active role in the community’s growth while allowing the Advancement Department to scale its impact without adding staff.
• Founded in 1907
• Independent school for girls (included resident students until 1995)
• ~4,000 alumnae worldwide
• 3,000 contactable
• Motto: Women Learning, Women Leading
Castilleja is one of the nation’s leading 6-12 independent schools, dedicated to educating motivated young women to become confident thinkers and compassionate leaders with a sense of purpose to effect change in the world.
Castilleja has always focused on alumnae relationships. Yet to meet the needs of a modern, global community, the school needed to evolve how it manages and shares information. The centrepiece of this shift was Casti Connect, built on Almabase, which transformed the school’s alum database from a back-end administrative tool into a front-facing resource for the entire community.
Using Almabase’s platform, the school created new tools to connect alums with one another and create an impact:
→ Real-Time Data Ownership: Alumnae can now directly update their own information, such as their locale, college, and graduate school. This keeps the school’s records dynamic while allowing alumnae to find and support one another on their own.
→ Capturing the "Hidden" Network: Beyond basic contact info, the platform allows alumnae to contribute a richer layer of data. Graduates self-identify their fields of expertise, employers, willingness to mentor, and specific volunteer interests.
→ A Two-Way Value Proposition: This shift provides the school with actionable insights to curate meaningful programs, while providing alumnae with a searchable, professional network of peers.
The launch of Casti Connect provided the alum community with a centralized digital home. This moved the focus from administrative data entry to high-value relationship building.
→ Self-Service Empowerment: Alumnae manage their own profiles, ensuring the community’s "source of truth" is accurate.
→ Removing Bottlenecks: By facilitating direct peer-to-peer discovery, the Advancement Team can focus on high-level strategy rather than manual list-sorting.
→ Inclusive Networking: A platform that serves everyone—from retirees and entrepreneurs to career changers—across all professional sectors.
Castilleja and its alumnae have partnered to turn the network into a nascent professional powerhouse. By making expertise and mentorship interests searchable, the school created a culture of mentorship that benefits both current students and alums.
→ Direct Mentorship: Alumnae search for peers by industry, facilitating professional growth within the community. Other areas of the platform that can be used in networking efforts include Alumnae Spotlights, Bookshelf, and the Small Business Directory.
→ Campus Presence: This digital visibility has translated to physical engagement, with 57 alumnae returning to campus as speakers in 2025 and a similar number in 2026.
→ Full-Circle Leadership: Career Day has transformed into a signature event where alumnae leadership is the primary driver for student career exploration.
Castilleja creates consistent, scalable touchpoints that keep alumnae engaged year-round.
At the core is a simple but powerful loop:
Content → Discovery → Engagement → Participation → Repeat
Using Almabase, the team brings together three key layers of the alum program:
a. Communication That Drives Awareness
• Monthly Digital Digest
• Quarterly eNews
These act as the primary distribution channels, ensuring alumnae consistently see what’s happening across the community.
b. Content & Community That Drive Discovery
• Digital Public Spaces with ~20 posts per month
Content includes:
• Alumnae stories and highlights
• Small business and creator visibility
• Event announcements and recaps
• Community milestones
Castilleja and the alum can determine which information is public and what requires a login to see. This increases curiosity and return visits.
3. Participation That Drives Deeper Engagement
• Events
• Directories
• Profile interaction
Once alumnae discover content, they have clear next steps:
• Register for events
• Explore the directory
• Update their profiles
• Connect with peers
As a result, Castilleja saw a significant increase in profile updates, stronger peer-to-peer visibility, and higher event participation, all while maintaining continuous engagement. This allows the advancement team's focus to move to more strategic efforts.
Castilleja is shifting toward a co-owned model where alumnae take active roles in shaping the platform’s future. This distributed leadership ensures the community's longevity and geographic reach.
→ National Reach: A virtual alumnae board and regional leadership groups allow for participation beyond the local campus.
→ Curated Excellence: Alumnae help curate specialized directories (e.g., Small Businesses and Authors), turning the platform into a resource for mutual support.
→ Strategic Growth: By empowering class reps and board members with better tools, the school has created a wider net for engagement.
By integrating events, communications, and data syncing into Almabase, Castilleja streamlined partnership workflow.
The Integrated Workflow:
→ Unified System: Event registration, email marketing, and SMS outreach now live in a single ecosystem.
→ Strategic Segmentation: The school can now empower board members with specific data to reach out to their own regional cohorts.
→ Data Integrity: Event attendance metrics sync with Raiser’s Edge NXT, as does contact information, helping the Advancement Team to see a broader and more accurate picture of an alum’s engagement.
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Beyond metrics, the biggest shift was visibility and momentum. Alumnae engagement is becoming more visible, more valuable, and increasingly participatory across the community.
→ 57 alumnae speakers engaged in one year
Students are now consistently learning from alumnae who have shared a similar experience, making career paths more relatable, tangible, and inspiring.
As Liz says, “When you have more alumnae mentors on campus than students in a graduating class, you aren't just hosting speakers—you’re building a bridge to the future.”
→ Career Day evolved from 4 alum speakers amongst 20 to 15+ alumna speakers amongst 20.
Creating a powerful full-circle moment: alumnae returning to campus, students seeing themselves reflected in real journeys, and the school deepening relationships with engaged alumnae.
→ Event participation has grown significantly
A multi-channel, targeted approach made it possible to reach respective local alumnae at the right time: something that would have been extremely difficult to achieve manually.
→ 46% of contactable alumnae have reviewed and added to their profiles in Casti Connect
Over 1,300 alumnae have actively engaged with their data on the platform: updating information, increasing reachability, and improving the overall quality of the database in ways that would not have been feasible through manual effort alone. When 1,300 women raise their hands to say “I’m here and I’m reachable”, that is more than a list. That’s an amazing network of women helping one another.
→ Stronger pathways for career connection and mentorship
Alumnae are increasingly open to being contacted by fellow alumnae and students, creating more opportunities for organic mentorship and peer support.
→ Greater visibility of alumnae impact across the community
From students to prospective families, alumnae presence is more visible — reinforcing the strength and continuity of the Castilleja network.
What began as an effort to strengthen connection has evolved into a more structured, scalable approach to alumnae engagement, one that continues to grow as participation deepens and the community becomes more connected over time.
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