forging a new alumni community.

The Challenge

The Stanford Alumni Association was rethinking all alumni services and the best methods to represent them online. They wanted to turn a new chapter in alumni relations and transform the traditional alumni experience into something that could become a more meaningful part of an alumni’s life. The Stanford Alumni Association came to SolutionSet with the challenge of designing and implementing a complex set of social networking systems to help alumni better connect with each other and their alma mater.

The Solution

SolutionSet partnered with Stanford’s internal development team to build new functionality, improve and expand the existing functionality, and upgrade the infrastructure.

SolutionSet wrote thousands of project design document pages, created hundreds of wireframed pages and design comps, authored a comprehensive style guide, and architected an extensible database schema. The new community, comprised of 27 different functional modules, allows alumni to easily connect with each other and the University and gives each of them control over their own alumni experience. Some of the modules include an online directory, event setup and registration, and clubs—all held together by a custom social networking platform with robust privacy settings that allow for general, high-level or very granular privacy control.

SolutionSet enhanced the alumni directory from a place where alumni would primarily update contact info to a place where they could display groups they are a part of and utilize sophisticated quick search functionality to see people they may know, people nearby, and classmates—all sorted by who they were most likely to have a connection with. SolutionSet also integrated Stanford’s Travel/Study program, including the ability to place online trip deposits, and the award-winning Stanford Magazine, incorporating the capacity for alumni to comment on magazine articles, add discussions, rate the articles, and email them. SolutionSet also added blogs and discussions. Now, alumni can take advantage of popular features of the site include reconnecting with old classmates, joining groups, signing up for events and trips, sharing photos, participating in discussions, and sending messages.

The Result

Stanford Alumni now have an online destination to connect with each other, learn about the University, and engage with Stanford in a consistent and meaningful way. Alumni participation has increased and alumni staff can better serve the alumni now that they can reach more people and more types of people with increased efficiency.

View Stanford Alumni Association Website