Campus Partnerships: Why Development and Career Services Should Work Together
Development offices are tasked with driving philanthropic success. While that mission is always front and center, one pillar underlies it: building relationships is the key to achieving the mission.
Building relationships with philanthropic investors often starts with breaking down silos on your campus. In a recent article, we talked broadly about building intentional partnerships across campus. In this article, we explore how partnering with your career services office can unlock opportunities and strengthen relationships with alumni, parents, and friends.
When advancement and career services work together, everyone can benefit.
Engagement Leads to Fundraising
Not every alum or parent is immediately ready to make a philanthropic investment. However, many are eager to support in meaningful ways connected to their expertise or professional experience. Career services creates natural opportunities for that involvement.
An alum may want to host student interns at their company. A parent might be willing to speak on a career panel or mentor students interested in their field. Another graduate may enjoy participating in networking events, mock interviews, or workshops.
These are valuable touchpoints for supporters. It’s a way to deepen relationships, communicate your college’s mission, and create shared purpose around student success. In many cases, philanthropic support follows that meaningful engagement.
Shared Information Leads to Better Relationships
Strong collaboration also requires communication and information sharing.
Career services offices often know which alumni and parents are highly engaged professionally, eager to mentor students, or actively recruiting talent. Advancement teams may know which constituents are loyal volunteers, donors, or highly connected within certain industries.
Development and career services are natural partners because both offices are fundamentally relationship-driven. Both aim to connect people to the mission and long-term success of the institution.
When those offices work together strategically, engagement becomes more meaningful, students benefit, and institutions strengthen the relationships that ultimately fuel long-term philanthropic success.
At AdvancementEDU, we help colleges, universities, and independent schools build advancement strategies rooted in authentic relationships, collaboration, and long-term engagement. Strong fundraising programs don’t operate in isolation—and neither should advancement offices.
Strategic Pitfalls to Avoid
While engagement opportunities are valuable, be careful to not create competition between engagement and philanthropy.
Picture a situation like this: You meet with a prospective donor with the intention of asking for a major gift. Early in the conversation, you ask if they would speak on campus. They volunteer to mentor students. Perhaps they agree to host an event at their home or country club. Then, when you later seek the major gift, the answer is predictable. “I’ve already committed to several things… let’s discuss the gift at a later date.”
Sometimes the best strategy is to encourage engagement opportunities that naturally lead to stronger philanthropic relationships. Other times, it makes sense to favor a major philanthropic investment rather than focusing on volunteer opportunity.
The goal between advancement and career services should be to coordinate opportunities to generate institutional success. When the two groups work together, all ships rise.