Community guide
How to make a monthly alumni network update your grads actually listen to
Keep your alumni network engaged with a warm monthly audio update.
Turn your alumni news, class notes, and event invites into a warm 5–8 minute audio update grads actually finish — no microphone, no editing.
Your alumni already ignore the email newsletter. Open rates for advancement and alumni-relations mail keep sliding, and the long roundup of class notes, fund milestones, and event invites rarely gets read past the first scroll. But the same person who archives your email will happily press play on a five-minute update during their drive home or morning coffee — audio meets your grads where they already are.
The Alumni Network Update template turns that monthly roundup into a friendly two-host audio digest. You paste in the month's news — new appointments, class notes, the homecoming date, the giving campaign total — and Pollinator Studio writes a warm, on-brand script, voices it with two AI hosts, mixes in light background music, and hands you a finished episode plus an RSS feed grads can follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music. No microphone, no editing suite, no asking a busy dean to record.
How to make one with Pollinator Studio
- 1
Start from the Alumni Network Update template
One click opens the template preset for a Community-style monthly update: two complementary hosts, a warm-but-professional tone, and a 5–8 minute structure. Use it exactly as it ships, or change any part of it in the next steps.
- 2
Paste in this month's news
Drop in your raw roundup — class notes, new faculty or board appointments, the reunion date, the giving campaign total, a featured alum spotlight. Pasted text works best here; you can also point it at a URL like your news page. The AI organizes it into a clear running order so nothing important gets buried.
- 3
Pick your two hosts
Preview any of the 73 AI voices and assign one as the friendly Host and one as the Alumni Spotlight reader. Set each host's delivery and pace — keep the main host warm and conversational, and slow the spotlight reader slightly for the human-interest segment so it lands.
- 4
Generate and edit the script
Pollinator writes the full episode from your notes. Edit any line, tighten the welcome, and customize the intro/outro prompts to name your institution, class years, and a clear call to action — 'register for homecoming,' 'update your contact info,' or 'give before June 30.' Add your pronunciation rules so names, Latin honors, and the school name are always said correctly.
- 5
Set music, length, and cover art
Choose a light background bed from the 83-track licensed library, set your target runtime around 5–8 minutes, and add cover art — upload your crest or generate one with AI. Then render: segments are voiced in parallel and mixed in a couple of minutes.
- 6
Publish and reuse
Download the MP3 to embed in your email or alumni portal, or submit your built-in RSS feed once to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music so every monthly edition publishes automatically. Save your tweaks as a custom template so next month is a five-minute paste-and-go.
Make it your own
The Alumni Network Update template is ready to use as-is — one click and you're generating. But every part is editable: swap any of the 73 AI voices and set each host's delivery and pace, change the background music, edit the AI script and intro/outro prompts, set the length, and add your own or AI-generated cover art. Use it as-is, or swap from 73 voices and set each host's pace, drop in your school's fight-song-friendly background bed, edit the AI intro/outro prompts to name your institution, set the runtime, add your crest as cover art, and save it as your own reusable house template.
Prefer to start from scratch? Build your own custom template and save your setup to reuse for every future episode.
Tips for a great community episode
- Open every episode by naming the month and a single headline — 'It's June, and we just crossed our $2M campaign goal' — so the first ten seconds earn the rest of the listen.
- Feature exactly one alum spotlight per episode. A short, specific story about one graduate does far more for engagement than a long list of names.
- Always close with one clear action — RSVP to the reunion, update contact details, or make a gift — and repeat the date or deadline so it sticks.
- Load your pronunciation rules once: the institution's name, donor and honoree names, and any Latin (cum laude, alumni vs alumnae) so the audio never embarrasses you.
- Keep the running order consistent month to month — welcome, campus news, class notes, spotlight, events, sign-off — so regular listeners know what's coming.
What you can do with Pollinator Studio
- 100+ ready-made templates — one click to start
- 73 AI voices — preview + per-host delivery & pace
- AI script from a URL, pasted text, or a topic
- 83-track licensed music + transition library
- AI-generated (or upload your own) cover art
- One-click RSS distribution to Spotify, Apple & Amazon
- Schedule daily/weekly auto-generation + auto-publishing from your feed
Try the Alumni Network Update template free
30 minutes of audio per month. No credit card, no microphone.
Start freeFrequently asked questions
How is this better than our email alumni newsletter?
It complements it rather than replaces it. Audio reaches grads during commutes and workouts when they'd never open an email, and a five-minute listen finishes far more often than a long scroll. Most teams embed the MP3 in the same email and publish the RSS feed so alumni can subscribe and never miss an edition.
Do we need a microphone or anyone on staff to record?
No. The two hosts are AI voices, so there's no recording session, no editing software, and no need to schedule a busy dean or director. You paste the month's news, review the script, and render.
Can we match it to our school's brand and voices?
Yes. Preview and choose from 73 voices, set each host's pace and delivery, drop in a background bed that fits your tone, edit the intro/outro to name your institution and class years, and add your crest as cover art. Save it all as a custom template to reuse every month.
How long should a monthly alumni update be?
Aim for 5–8 minutes. That's long enough to cover campus news, a class-notes roundup, one alum spotlight, and upcoming events, but short enough that busy graduates finish it in a single sitting.
Can we schedule it to publish automatically each month?
On a newsroom edition you can connect a feed and set a daily or weekly schedule with auto-publish. For most alumni teams, the simplest flow is to paste each month's notes, render, and let the one-click RSS distribution push the new episode to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music automatically.
