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Customer Stories:

From Career Moves to Meaningful Alumni Recognition at Scale: How Western Kentucky University Transformed Engagement with Personalized Video Outreach

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WHO:

Recognition feels more meaningful when people feel seen in the moments that matter to them. At Western Kentucky University, the Alumni Engagement team understood that a career milestone isn’t just a data point, it’s an opening. An opportunity to reach someone at a moment of pride and remind them of the institution behind their journey. That insight helped transform alumni career data into a scalable, relationship-driven recognition strategy that deepened connection long after graduation day.

THE CHALLENGE:

The University saw an opportunity to use alumni career move data to create more personal and timely recognition, but scaling that effort came with real challenges.

The team needed to manage and verify large volumes of data, sometimes more than 800 career moves in a single cycle, while ensuring accuracy and avoiding outdated or incorrect job information. They also needed a process that could support personalization without becoming overly manual or unsustainable for a small team.

At the same time, expectations across the organization continued to rise. The team needed to balance autonomy for fundraisers with consistent execution against ambitious goals, while maintaining authentic, relationship driven engagement at scale.

WHY EVERTRUE:

Western Kentucky University used Signal along with ThankView by EverTrue to turn alumni career data into scalable, personalized video outreach.

Through ThankView, the team built a structured system for recognizing career milestones with personalized video messages. The platform enabled segmentation by career stage, allowing tailored messaging for promotions, new jobs, and retirements.

It also helped streamline a previously manual process, supporting more efficient video production while improving consistency, scalability, and personalization.

The Results:

Western Kentucky University built a structured and repeatable workflow that allowed them to recognize more than 800 alumni career moves in a single cycle.

-Recognized 800+ alumni career moves in one cycle

-Built a student led QA process to verify LinkedIn data and ensure job accuracy

-Improved segmentation across promotions, new jobs, and retirements

-Saw strong engagement, especially from young alumni and retirees who frequently respond with gratitude

-Expanded use of career move data across communications, stewardship, and academic units

-Increased cross campus collaboration through shared reporting and data access

The Full Story:

The University wanted to create a more meaningful way to recognize alumni by turning career milestones into moments of connection.


The team identified career move data as a key opportunity and built a structured system around it. Each cycle begins with a list of alumni updates that goes through a detailed quality assurance process led by a student associate, who verifies LinkedIn information and confirms job accuracy before outreach begins.


Once validated, the data is segmented into promotions, new jobs, and retirements. Each segment follows a slightly different approach to ensure messaging feels appropriate to the milestone.


Over time, the process evolved from a highly manual workflow to a more streamlined system using segmented sends and a structured video recording approach. While the full cycle can take several weeks to a few months, ongoing refinements have improved efficiency and consistency.


The impact has been strong. Alumni frequently respond with appreciation, especially young alumni early in their careers and retirees marking major transitions. Many reply directly with thank you messages that reinforce the personal nature of the outreach.


Internally, the program has expanded beyond alumni engagement, with career move data now shared with deans and academic leaders to support broader stewardship and engagement efforts. What started as a targeted recognition strategy has become a cross institutional approach to celebrating alumni success in real time.

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