ACSI Research Fellow Program

At North Raleigh Christian Academy (NRCA), we believe our mission doesn’t end at graduation. We’ve seen firsthand how alumni continue to impact their communities and the world for Christ — from doctors and pastors to artists, athletes, engineers, and educators. And because of this, maintaining strong, meaningful connections with them isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a vital extension of our mission.

We are Tiffany Benson and Devon Corey and we are the NRCA Alumni Directors. We both graduated with the NRCA Class of 2010. Tiffany has been working at NRCA in many capacities for 9 years and Devon just joined our team in October 2024. Together, we run all the aspects of the Alumni program.

Here are some of the best practices we’ve learned and implemented at NRCA to foster deep, lasting alumni relationships — practices we believe anyone can adapt and make their own.

1. Start Before They Leave

Alumni engagement begins while students are still on campus. We view each senior class as the next generation of future alumni, and we recognize that their final year on campus is the most engaged they may ever be with us—so we make the most of that time to build strong, lasting connections. Our team builds relationships with seniors before they graduate, laying a personal foundation that makes future communication easy and natural. These connections ensure that wherever life takes them next, they feel rooted in their NRCA experience.

2. Track and Celebrate Their Journeys

After graduation, we keep in touch using a variety of tools — including live events, social media, and even direct campus visits to alumni at nearby universities like UNC and Liberty University. Alumni can update their contact info on our website anytime, and we keep a living directory to track milestones, careers, and family updates.

We don’t just collect this data for record-keeping — we use it to celebrate. Our alumni are making incredible contributions in virtually every field, and we love shining a light on how they are truly “impacting their society for Christ.”

3. Create Purposeful Touchpoints

Events are central to our alumni strategy, but we don’t just “host” them — we design them to be memorable, relational experiences. Some of our most meaningful touchpoints of the year include:

• Homecoming Weekend: Our biggest event of the year, drawing over 150 alumni. We set up a tent on the track next to the field and eat food, reconnect, do giveaways, and offer door prizes throughout the homecoming game.
• Alumni Night at the Varsity Basketball Game: Held in a room overlooking the court in a box seat environment with a catered meal and a half-court shootout competition for prizes — it’s a fun, family-friendly gathering that alumni look forward to.
• Alumni Reunion Dinners: Our 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year reunions are large, celebratory dinners where we reconnect, reflect, and celebrate with former classmates and faculty.
• College Campus Visits: Our team personally visits alumni at local universities to check in with them, encourage them, share a meal, and see how they are plugged in.

This next school year, we’re also launching an alumni mentorship program that connects NRCA alumni who are current college students with recent NRCA graduates who are incoming freshmen at those schools. This creates a built-in support system to help alumni navigate their transition, get a campus tour, find a local church, and plug into a Christian community on campus.

4. Communicate Consistently

We stay in touch year-round with emails, social media updates, and — beginning this summer — a quarterly alumni newsletter. These updates share school news, alumni highlights, upcoming events, and ways to get involved. It’s not just about keeping them informed; it’s about keeping them included.

5. Invite Them In — Often

Some of our most powerful alumni moments happen not at large events, but in simple, meaningful invitations:

• We ask alumni to speak in chapels and share how their faith has grown post-graduation.
• Speak in a panel at our Senior Seminar every year right before our seniors graduate.
• We love seeing alumni return to NRCA as teachers or staff — an incredible full-circle testimony of impact.
• Many alumni are now enrolling their own children as Knights — the most rewarding endorsement of all.

One of our most cherished traditions is our Worthy Servants Campaign, an annual opportunity for alumni to give back — not just financially, but relationally. Through this program, alumni bless faculty and staff with year-end gifts and notes of encouragement. It’s a powerful reminder that our teachers are planting seeds that bear fruit for years, even decades.

6. Show Gratitude and Make It an Experience

If we had to boil it all down to four essentials, they’d be:
Engage. Communicate. Show Gratitude. Curate Experiences.

Too often, alumni relations can become transactional or surface-level. But when you invite people into something relational, legacy-oriented, and spiritually significant — they respond. They don’t just come back. They give back, they serve, they lead, and they pray for your continued success.

In Conclusion

Alumni aren’t just your past. They’re your proof. They demonstrate what it looks like when Kingdon Education works — when young men and women are equipped to navigate the world with wisdom, conviction, and compassion. At NRCA, we’re deeply honored to walk with our alumni long after they cross the graduation stage.

Whether you’re just starting to build your alumni engagement program or looking to take it to the next level, we hope these practices inspire you to see your graduates as part of your mission and still part of your story and legacy.