How Union Theological Seminary scaled student & alumni engagement 300% with a small team

About Union Theological Seminary

Union Theological Seminary, located in New York City, is a globally recognized center for theological education and social justice. Founded in 1836, Union offers graduate-level programs that prepare students for ministry, academia, and advocacy work. Its diverse community of scholars, activists, and faith leaders is united by a commitment to progressive theology and inclusive education. Union is a small, independent institution with under 100 faculty and staff and around 500 total learners across credit and non-credit programs.

The challenge: High expectations, limited resources

Union faced a familiar challenge: how to deliver meaningful, scalable engagement with both current students and alumni, despite limited staffing and resources. Like many small institutions, Union operates with a lean team yet it serves a broad and diverse student community and alumni network with a wide range of professional interests and support needs.

Students and alumni pursue varied paths, from pastoral leadership to nonprofit management and advocacy. Many attend virtually or live across the country and around the world making community-building more complex. 

Union needed a centralized solution that could:

• Support growing career development efforts and offer job-seekers and hiring organizations with a user-friendly job board
• Unite students—both degree-seeking and lifelong learners—and alumni in a shared space for community and career support
• Deliver personalized, ongoing engagement opportunities
• Leverage existing cross-department collaboration to minimize increased administrative burden

The solution: A unified platform for community engagement and career support

Union launched UTS Connect, powered by Gravyty’s Graduway platform—a centralized, branded digital hub for career support, networking, and community engagement.

With Graduway, Union was able to:

• Launch a custom job board and career groups to serve alumni and students across programs and areas of practice
• Promote and enhance lifelong learning opportunities, including alumni-led workshops, short courses, and virtual events
• Facilitate community-building through discussion boards and resource libraries
• Enable cross-campus collaboration between Alumni Relations & Development, Career Services, Student Affairs, and Online Education & Learning Innovation
• Deliver a seamless experience for students and alumni, whether attending virtually or in person

The platform was introduced during a major reunion event to maximize visibility and adoption, and has since become a core part of Union’s community strategy.

Impact at a glance:

• 300% increase in platform engagement
• 820+ users across the student lifecycle—up from 200 alumni-only users in 2023
• 77% of recent graduates joined UTS Connect in its first year
• 20–25 active job postings on the platform at any given time
• Expanded from an alumni-only audience to a connected community of students and alumni
• Cross-departmental collaboration boosted engagement and operational efficiency

Now, Union is building on this success with a roadmap that includes launching a mentorship program, enhancing student-alumni relationship building tools such as shared-interest groups, better supporting new and historically underrepresented learner communities, including currently and formerly incarcerated alumni, exploring regional and international engagement hubs, and expanding collaboration further across departments  to foster continued engagement and impact.

Solution spotlight

Gravyty is the AI-powered engagement platform purpose-built for higher education, K-12 schools, and nonprofits. From first engagement to first gift, Gravyty empowers institutions to deliver smarter, faster, and more personalized engagement at every step of the student and donor journey. With solutions for 24/7 student support, alumni engagement, fundraising and stewardship, Gravyty helps teams scale their impact, break down silos, and provide always-on support without burning out staff.

Graduway enables higher education institutions to connect with their alumni seamlessly through automated outreach, career networking, and digital engagement tools. By integrating with existing systems, Graduway provides institutions with a single platform to monitor alumni interactions, engagement levels, and career development.

Want to see how Gravyty can help you deepen alumni relationships and increase engagement? Let’s talk.