Cultivating and Utilizing Alumni in Key Positions (click here for a PDF version of this article)

One in every 140 California residents holds a degree from UCLA. Such an amazing statistic illustrates the reach that UCLA has throughout all regions and industries of the State. In a growing number of cases, our alumni are rising to positions of key importance within their companies and other fields of endeavor. As we forge relationships with these alumni, it is important to consider how their positions can help to champion closer philanthropic and research ties to UCLA within their companies.

Executive alumni at corporations are usually able to call upon resources that might otherwise be unavailable to UCLA. Traditional funding of universities by corporations has come from the university or academic relations program, a matching gift program or a community relations program. Having executive alumni who are engaged and part of an ongoing dialogue with UCLA development officers and administrators can result in research funded through business units or marketing budgets. Executive champions can open the door to competitive proposal submission for multi-partner grants and offer the opportunity to engage in contractual research on proprietary issues of importance to the company.

The Office of Corporate, Foundation and Research Relations works with executive alumni and also engages numerous other campus entities to identify additional UCLA "rising stars" of industry. Please contact Janet Lustig at extension 42314 if you feel that we can be of assistance in helping to develop a strategy for engaging alumni and the corporations and foundations that employ them.

UCLA Office of Corporate, Foundation and Research Relations
10920 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1400
Los Angeles, California 90024-6502