Here’s what they say:
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After 20+ years as a Development Operations professional I thought I'd seen it all. Jennifer introduced me to a new part of our industry that I hadn't fully appreciated. Her insights into alumni engagement revealed its true potential beyond the usual events and outreach. She showed how a strategic, intentional alumni relations program isn't just a nice-to-have - it's a powerful engine that drives development and cultivates a ready, engaged pipeline for philanthropy.
Leslie T. Gonnella, Associate Vice President, Georgia Tech
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Jennifer came in and mobilized the team at Lehigh for the next generation of data-driven alumni relations work. She made smart process improvements, advocated for alumni needs, and yet always found a way to foreground industry best practices and the priorities of the institution. She positioned career and affinity programs to reach new heights and evolved time-honored Lehigh traditions to have renewed staying power. If you're looking for someone to stand alongside you and help bring your alumni relations dreams into reality, look no further!
Megan K. Stevens, Assistant Vice President, Annual Giving and Alumni Engagement, Stevens Institute of Technology
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Jennifer really changed how our department thought about alumni engagement and using data to measure what we were doing. I learned a lot from her and really appreciated the work she did for Cornell.
Laura Toy, former VP of Alumni Affairs & Development and Principal Gift Officer at Cornell Universitye Source
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Jennifer and I rebuilt the nominations process for our Board of Directors together. It seemed like a daunting task at first, but thanks to Jennifer's expertise and experience, we now have an efficient and democratic process that ensures transparency and inclusiveness. She also navigated our existing Board's feedback with the right balance of leadership and diplomacy. As a result, the Board had a very good pool of candidates to select from! If you're looking for help reimagining nominations for your Board of Directors I highly recommend her!
Tim Phillips, Co-Chair, Nominations Committee and Board Member, CAT-Coalition for Appropriate Transportation
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I had the good fortune to work with Jennifer during her tenure as head of the Alumni Relations function at Lehigh University. As an Alumni Trustee and a co-founder of the largest Lehigh professional alliance, I worked in close partnership with Jennifer. She is a true professional; someone who cares passionately about the quality of her work and that of her team, and who is always looking for ways to take things to a higher level. I have always been impressed by Jennifer’s entrepreneurial spirit, which you don’t find very often in a large educational institution. She and the team that she built brought the Alumni Relations function to a whole new level, providing us with support and data to help us achieve our goals. I would recommend Jennifer to any organization looking for someone to help drive meaningful engagement with its key constituencies.
Michael Connor, former Trustee, Lehigh University; Co-founder of the Lehigh Wall Street Council; former CEO, Market News International; former CEO, Gimme Credit LLC
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Jennifer is fabulous. I also participated in her webinar. She's creative, clear, and fun! Her passion and knowledge for this work really shows and inspires.
Survey response from Adademic Impressions conference
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As the head of a minority alumni affinity organization for four years with a notoriously low participation rate in university sponsored alumni activities I found Jennifer to be an extraordinary ally in both crafting programs that proved to be more appealing to my constituency as well as both selling these programs to the University and arranging for supports that ensured their success. Over the course of our collaboration, I came to view her as a dear friend, rue her loss to my university, am grateful for the legacy that she leaves behind and, am confident that she will leave a wake of success among those who she serves in this her new incarnation!
Reginald Jennings, Former President of the Black and Latino Alumni Network for Community and Excellence (BALANCE)
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Well organized with key points of action presented. * Opportunities for attendees to ask questions after each section of the presentation with excellent group engagement. *Transactional vs. tranformational volunteers is a GREAT concept. * Excellent speaker with LOADS of knowledge!! Loved it. *I've already spoken to my Director about bringing you in to help our team!
Survey responses from 100% 5-star reviews at the Lehigh Valley Nonprofit Impact Conference
About 18 years ago, I put my Seattle-based resume writing and copywriting business on hold to parent our biological daughter and our adopted son. We had just brought him home from Guatemala when an ice storm hit our area, knocking out power for days. We coped, mostly, but it was our third natural disaster out there. Plus, just about all our relatives lived back east. It was time to move. We decided that I would look for a job and my husband would stay home with the babies.
Miraculously, the perfect job came up on my alma mater’s website! Cornell University was looking for the next Director of the Cornell Entrepreneur Network. I had been the president of my chamber of commerce and had worked with dozens of startups to write their websites. I had also done a lot of volunteering for Cornell and was still connected to the university. So it seemed like the perfect fit.
They thought so too! I got the job and was at Cornell for nine years, leaving as the Senior Director for Metrics+Marketing in Alumni Relations. In 2016 I joined the team at Lehigh University to lead the Alumni Relations team and over the 9 years tripled the size of the team, doubled annual alumni engagement, evolved the alumni association board into university ambassadors, designed an awards program to highlight the most accomplished graduates, created first-generation and legacy commencement programs, and launched new affinity programs to engage women and diverse alums.
Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in a lot of industry extracirriculars. I’ve been a leader with the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), serving as Commissioner, District Board Director, and Faculty Instructor. I’ve also written a few articles for their magazine, CURRENTS. I’ve spoken at several Academic Impressions conferences. I led the Private Colleges and University Alumni Director (PCUAD) Data Team for three years, and have consulted countless peers and colleagues who were just starting their engagement data journey.
In the local community, I’m the Vice President of CAT-Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, which advocates for less reliance on automobiles. I also serve as a Judge of Elections and I’m the Youth Programs Coordinator and the President-Elect for the Morning Star Rotary Club.