Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Title of entry: UC Berkeley Haas magazine

About this entry: UC Berkeley Haas is the alumni magazine for the Haas School of Business and a key component of our alumni engagement and marketing efforts. In it, we amplify the impact of Haas on the world, showcase community, and promote faculty insights. It’s published three times a year and is sent to alumni, donors, and peer business school leaders (who vote in certain rankings).

The magazine is our primary way to captivate alumni not actively involved with Haas. It purposely does not make any direct fundraising appeals, but we aim to be so inspiring that alumni will want to attend an event, volunteer, or donate. At the very least, we aim to spark pride and conversations.

In 2025, we announced our interim dean as the permanent leader (summer) and launched our new brand (fall). We also highlighted mentorship between students and alumni and graphically showcased our network in action—on-brand articles designed to appeal to alumni and be repurposed for prospective students.

In our readership survey, alumni saying that articles inspired a sense of pride was up an average 7% over 2024—and up 14% for the new dean issue. Those saying the magazine made them feel more connected to their alumni community was an average 11% higher than in 2024—20% higher in the issue with the network graphic and mentorship stories. On average, 7% said they made a donation after reading the issue (same in 2024). Anecdotally, readers told us they became a mentor and found networking opportunities within our pages.