5 Alumni Association Platforms for Directories, Networking, and Events

Software comparisons

An alumni association needs a way for graduates to find classmates, meet people in their field, and stay involved long after a reunion. The platform you choose should make those activities easy for members and manageable for the people running the community.

A volunteer-led alumni association may start with a directory and an events calendar. A university team may also need formal mentoring, chapter administration, fundraising tools, and connections to its existing alumni database. This guide compares five platforms around those different priorities.

Compare the five alumni platforms

Swipe across the table to compare use cases and pricing.

Published prices are in USD. Starting plans have different features and service levels. Ask for the total cost of your required modules, migration, integrations, payment processing, and ongoing support. Follow the linked vendor pages for current terms.

1. Soorse: For alumni discovery and everyday engagement

Soorse is a candidate for associations whose first priority is helping alumni find and connect with one another. Its free organization offering includes a directory, posts, events, and engagement insights. Members can start free, with optional Soorse Plus upgrades and limits on some free member features. See Soorse pricing.

School and alumni group directories include a class-year range filter. Class years appear when a member's education profile contains a matching school and graduation year. Professional profiles add context for alumni who want to reconnect or explore a possible career conversation. Explore Soorse’s class-year directory features.

A practical starting point: Invite a reunion cohort into the association's group, ask members to complete their school and professional details, and share the reunion event. Alumni can find classmates and continue participating through group posts and conversations.

Before choosing: Review the member experience on each plan. Ask specifically about formal mentor-program management and the exact CRM connection you need. Optional paid features and revenue transactions have separate terms; nonprofit revenue sharing has eligibility requirements.

2. Hivebrite: For a branded alumni community

Hivebrite is worth evaluating when your institution wants its own branded community and a configurable structure for regional chapters, class groups, and affinity networks. Its alumni offering describes searchable profiles, groups, events, mentoring, and career opportunities. Hivebrite’s alumni offering.

The Focus plan starts at $8,000 annually and includes unlimited members, a directory, messaging, events, and community content. Its pricing page lists a branded mobile app, email campaigns, and WhatsApp as separate channels at $2,300 per year each. Hivebrite pricing.

Before choosing: Have the team price your actual chapter and mentoring requirements. The Custom offering lists advanced sub-community structures, mentoring, and CRM integrations; the starting Focus price should not be treated as a quote for all of those capabilities.

3. Almabase: For alumni engagement tied to advancement

Almabase is a candidate for school or university teams that need alumni engagement to connect with events, giving, and constituent records. Its product documentation describes directories, mentorship, communications, event management, and online giving, with particular emphasis on two-way synchronization with Raiser’s Edge NXT. Almabase’s platform overview.

This is a useful direction to investigate when alumni relations and fundraising staff need to understand the same person's participation without maintaining disconnected records.

Before choosing: Request a quote for your selected modules and ask for a demonstration using your CRM. Confirm which records synchronize, in which direction, and how duplicate or conflicting updates are handled. The reviewed product page does not publish a starting subscription price.

4. Graduway: For an alumni hub with formal mentoring

Graduway from Gravyty combines a branded alumni community with events, interest groups, communications, and both formal and flash mentoring. Its public pricing FAQ describes custom quotes based on institutional needs and alumni community size. Graduway’s product and pricing FAQ.

For associations running a defined mentoring program, its documentation describes application forms, matching options, and milestones. Those workflows make it worth investigating when staff need to administer mentoring relationships as a program. Graduway’s mentoring and platform guide.

Before choosing: Ask what the quote includes for mentoring, group administration, migration, and integrations. If fundraising or video outreach is part of the plan, clarify which functions are included in Graduway and which involve other Gravyty products.

5. PeopleGrove: For student-to-alumni career connections

PeopleGrove's Engagement Hub is aimed at colleges and universities connecting students and alumni throughout their education and careers. It describes informal, formal, and managed mentoring, alongside alumni directories, business listings, events, and engagement reporting. PeopleGrove Engagement Hub.

We would evaluate it when alumni relations and career services share a goal: helping students and graduates reach people who can offer guidance, experience, and professional connections.

Before choosing: Define the program you want to run and who will staff it. Ask which mentoring services, integrations, and reports are included in your package. The reviewed product page does not publish a starting price, so request a proposal based on your institution's scope.

Bring three real tasks to every demo

A feature list becomes more useful when you can see a member and an administrator complete the same task. Use these examples to evaluate the platforms on your shortlist:

1. Reconnect a reunion cohort. Find graduates from a specific class or year range, open a profile, and show how they discover an event. Check what happens when a school or graduation year is missing and who can see contact information.
2. Start a career conversation. Find an alumnus with relevant professional experience and show how someone requests a conversation. For a formal mentoring program, also demonstrate mentor opt-in, matching, staff oversight, and progress tracking.
3. Run a chapter event and report on it. Show what a chapter organizer can manage, how members register, and how staff distinguish registrations from attendance. If data needs to reach your CRM, demonstrate the actual transfer and the fields included.

Run the demo with the permissions and plan your organization would buy. Include the time required to clean existing alumni records, invite members, and maintain the community after launch when comparing costs.

Start with your association's first priority

For an association beginning with classmate discovery and participation, Soorse is a practical option to evaluate. For a branded community with more complex structures, consider Hivebrite. If advancement workflows are central, investigate Almabase. For formal mentoring and connections between students and alumni, include Graduway and PeopleGrove in your evaluation.

Pick a first program you can support consistently—a reunion cohort, a regional community, or a mentoring initiative—and evaluate the software around the people who will run and use it.

Also evaluating membership administration for a nonprofit? Read our comparison of five nonprofit membership tools.