My name is Abby Rojas. I am the engagement director for University Advancement at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. We have a huge alumni base, two hundred and ten thousand living alumni worldwide. Like most in higher education, we're running with a very lean team. And so we needed to find a way to engage the the most alumni possible with limited human resources. You know, scaling engagement with a very lean human team, but then also finding a way for alumni to give back to students and reach that talent were the two things that that brought us to to People Grove. And one of my favorite stories is that the platform paired, an alum and a student that on paper did not seem like a great match. So the student is an actuary sciences major and the alum is a civil engineer and I distinctly remember the alum reaching out to me and saying why did you pair me with this person? And I told her, you know, please trust the process. And they are now entering their fourth semester together, working together. They've made a beautiful connection. They don't wanna work with anyone else. It's not about major, it's not about industry, it's about a human connection. That's what I love most about Panthers Connect is that it is rooted in mentorship, it's rooted in connection. You're not just going to graduate with a whole bunch of connections of people you don't know. You're going to graduate with alumni who you can actually reach out to and ask for support, ask for a job, a recommendation. Those are things you can't get on other social or professional networking platforms. Moving into this next fiscal year, my goal is really to be super data driven. How can we make that link from point of contact through to internship, job hiring, and then like future success, also reengagement of those alumni. Students that see that they have really strong support systems, once they graduate, they're more likely then to stay and work in Milwaukee, which we want. We need, you know, that talent to stay local. So our goal really is to get back into being a school that really reports carefully on how we're communicating, how we're engaging, how our alumni are giving back, and People Grove will obviously be able to us significantly with that. For someone thinking about bringing on People Grove to their campus, you're gonna have support, you're gonna have metrics, you're gonna have just people behind you that will help ensure that you're successful. And I've seen that in the last two years and I'm excited to see how it grows in the future.
