How Saint Mary’s Scaled Volunteer Engagement with a Small Team

We recently hosted a virtual event with Saint Mary’s College to discuss a challenge that will feel familiar to nearly anyone working in alumni engagement, whether your role centers on events, volunteer management, or philanthropy. How do you meaningfully support and scale volunteer engagement when your team is small, your tools are fragmented, and expectations from alumni continue to rise? 

Our conversation with Grace Maher, Associate, Director of Alumnae Relations and McKenna Barndt, Associate Director of Special Events at Saint Mary’s College explored how their team moved from spreadsheets and scattered systems to a unified engagement hub powered by PeopleGrove. Their platform, known on campus as The Bridge, now supports volunteer management, events, mentorship, networking, and cross-campus collaboration, all in one place. 

If you missed the live event, the full recording is available: 
Watch the Recording 

Why Volunteer Engagement Has Become So Hard to Manage 

For many institutions, volunteers aren’t just helpful; they’re essential. They fuel regional clubs, reunion committees, class communications, events, and often philanthropy. But supporting them has become increasingly complex for three reasons. 

• Small but mighty teams are being asked to do more with less. 

• Volunteer expectations have changed. Volunteers are getting used to modern, self-service tools in every other area of their lives. 
• Disparate systems and manual processes slow everything down and make it harder for volunteers to get to work and feel supported. 

At Saint Mary’s, this showed clearly in Grace’s day-to-day work, where she supports nearly 100 volunteers across the country. 

When every email, list pull, and event recap required hopping between multiple systems (and often waiting on other teams), the experience became frustrating for staff and volunteers. High-traffic times of year turned into weeks of manual work. 

As Grace recalled, “A process that really shouldn’t take me longer than ten to fifteen minutes could take upwards of thirty… and that was just for one singular message.” 

The strain on staff was clear, but so was the strain on volunteers. Information was scattered. Access varied dramatically. And the experience didn’t reflect the value Saint Mary’s places on its alumni. 

Recognizing It Was Time to Modernize Volunteer Engagement 

Like many institutions, Saint Mary’s reached a turning point. Their volunteer coordination lived in spreadsheets, email threads, aging databases, and processes that “had always been done that way.” At the same time, the college was undergoing a rebrand, adding new team members, and searching for a way to digitally unite its 26,000+ alumni. 

It became clear that the solution wasn’t a new tool for one part of their work, it was a centralized space for all of it. A place where volunteers could lead, alumni could connect, students could network, and staff could finally gain visibility into the engagement happening across campus. 

That’s when The Bridge came to life. 

Centralizing Volunteers Inside PeopleGrove’s Engagement Hub Created Alignment, Autonomy, and Visibility 

Powered by PeopleGrove, The Bridge serves as the central gathering point for the Saint Mary’s community. Instead of navigating multiple systems, alumni and volunteers now have one intuitive space to: 

• join class groups, regional clubs, or affinity communities 

• connect with each other and with students 

• participate in formal and informal mentorship 

• register for events 

• for volunteers to manage communications, discussions, and group activity 

Grace posts monthly resource guides, updates, and reminders. Volunteers support one another and model best practices. The experience feels personal, yet it’s powered by technology that makes it scalable. 

As Grace shared, many volunteers now see the space as a modern, university-sanctioned alternative to informal Facebook groups, but with far better structure and oversight. 

Empowering Volunteers While Increasing Staff Visibility 

Before The Bridge, volunteers had virtually no insight into their own impact. They couldn’t see how their emails were performing, who was signing up for events, or whether their outreach was resonating. 

Now, all of that activity lives in one ecosystem. Volunteers can send group messages, post updates, promote events, and manage their communities with a level of autonomy that staff never had time to provide manually. 

 At the same time, the alumni office retains visibility and safeguards, ensuring that communication stays targeted, accurate, and aligned with institutional standards. 

McKenna captured the shift well: 
“We now have a balance between volunteers having more autonomy, and our office having more visibility into what they are actually doing, which allows us to be more strategic in how we support them.” 

This balance is powered by one of PeopleGrove’s biggest strengths: its reporting tools.  

In an era where data is a non-negotiable, institutions need accessible, accurate, and actionable insights. Engagement, whether through events, mentorship, volunteerism, or networking, is more valuable when it’s visible. With PeopleGrove, Saint Mary’s can finally see who is active, who is contributing, who is raising their hand, and where to invest their time. 

A Better Volunteer Experience Strengthens Alumni Engagement—and Advancement Results 

The shift to The Bridge didn’t just modernize volunteer management; it transformed the broader advancement strategy. 

Volunteers feel more supported and more connected. Alumni across generations, including many from the 1950s to the 1980s, have joined enthusiastically, thanks to patient onboarding, step-by-step guides, and the simplicity of the platform. Event visibility has grown because alumni who “didn’t know a group existed” now discover opportunities tailored to them. And students are increasingly finding alumni mentors through the same ecosystem, creating a full-circle experience. 

Centralizing volunteer activity on The Bridge hasn’t just improved the volunteer experience, it’s also strengthened Saint Mary’s advancement work. 

What Institutions Can Learn From Saint Mary’s 

Saint Mary’s offers a compelling roadmap for any institution struggling with the strain of volunteer management. 

By unifying their engagement ecosystem with PeopleGrove, they were able to move away from manual processes, give volunteers meaningful tools, and build a dynamic, accessible community space. 

Want to Transform Your Volunteer Engagement Strategy? 

With a unified engagement hub like PeopleGrove, you can: 

• Move away from spreadsheets and fragmented tools. 

• Give volunteers a modern, intuitive experience that respects their time. 

• Create a one-stop home for networking, mentorship, events, and volunteerism. 

• Surface engagement data that strengthens your advancement and fundraising strategy. 

• Do more with a small team, without sacrificing relationship quality. 

As Grace put it, the real win isn’t just fewer spreadsheets. It’s watching volunteers “reap the benefits of engaging with so many more people” and seeing alumni feel like part of a living, connected community. 

Next Steps 

If your institution is managing volunteers in spreadsheets, struggling with disjointed tools, or looking for a better way to support alumni and volunteer engagement, we’d love to talk. 

Reach out to our team to explore how PeopleGrove can help your institution.