UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
Share Your Voice and Your YANA Story
As we celebrate 15 years of supporting Yale alumni in service to others, we’re asking for your input. The YANA Forward Survey gives you a chance to share what matters most as you navigate your own path of giving back, and to tell us your own YANA story. How has this community helped you? What connection changed your trajectory? What moment of mentorship or board match or simple conversation made a difference in your work? Fifteen years ago, nine Yale alumni braved a blizzard for the first YANA meeting at the Yale Club. Their vision has grown into a thriving network supporting hundreds of alumni committed to service across every facet of the social impact sector. Today, YANA connects members through mentorship, helps match skilled board members with nonprofits that need them, and creates space for honest conversations about the rewards and challenges of mission-driven work. Your feedback will directly inform how we strengthen these pathways to service, and your stories will help us understand what truly matters. This is your YANA. Help us build the next 15 years of supporting alumni dedicated to making a differenc
Join the Conversation at Yale Philanthropy Conference
Feb. 6, 2026 | In-Person (New Haven, CT @ Yale SOM)
The Yale Philanthropy Conference returns February 6, 2025, bringing together nonprofit and philanthropic leaders to explore this year’s theme: “Adaptation and Opportunity.” This student-run gathering at Yale School of Management offers rare access to frank discussions about navigating today’s shifting social sector landscape with creativity, resilience, and hope. Launched in 2004, the conference has become the only major convening of the nonprofit and philanthropic sector planned entirely by graduate students, and that unique perspective brings fresh energy to examining how philanthropy can address society’s most pressing challenges. This year’s panels tackle the questions keeping sector leaders up at night: How can corporate philanthropy advance equity when funding landscapes shift? What innovations in humanitarian aid can address urgent global crises? How do we build funding practices that truly support historically undercapitalized organizations? The talks and discussions are always lively and multifaceted, exploring both domestic and global issues. Whether you’re wrestling with how to adapt your organization’s strategy or seeking fresh perspectives on persistent challenges, this conference creates space for the conversations that matter.
Help Shape the Future of Yale Alumni Engagement
The Yale Alumni Association is developing a strategic plan to ensure all alumni feel connected and represented, and they want to hear from you. Following this fall’s Assembly and Convocation, YAA Executive Director Alison Cole ‘99 is leading an initiative to understand what matters most to Yale’s diverse alumni community. With over 180,000 Yale graduates worldwide spanning different generations, geographic locations, and career trajectories, the YAA recognizes that one-size-fits-all approaches to alumni engagement no longer work. Some alumni want robust in-person programming, while others prefer virtual connections. Some seek career support and networking, while others want intellectual enrichment or service opportunities. Your input will shape how the association serves the entire Yale community, from programming and communications to how regional clubs and shared interest groups like YANA can better support your work and interests. This is your chance to influence how Yale maintains meaningful connections with alumni across generations, geographies, and career paths. Whether you’re an active volunteer leader or someone who hasn’t engaged with Yale since graduation, your perspective matters.
Read the Letter from Alison: https://alumni.yale.edu/news/letter-executive-director-update-strategic-planning
Put Your Expertise in Service: Board Opportunities Await
Board service is one of the most meaningful forms of giving back. You’re not just writing a check, you’re lending your strategic thinking, professional experience, governance wisdom, and network to help an organization thrive. Throughout 2025, 17 exceptional nonprofits participated in YANA’s Board Match events, seeking Yale alumni ready to put their expertise in service to mission-driven work. Whether you bring financial acumen, legal expertise, marketing savvy, fundraising experience, or deep knowledge of a particular issue, there’s an organization whose mission could benefit from your service. Below are the organizations from our 2025 cohort, many still building their boards or with openings in 2026.
Circle Match connects driven students from low-income communities to the college-going process by providing near-peer college advising. Michael Sanchez ’23 serves as Executive Director and Josh Bruner DIV ’16 as Board Chair.
Congenital Hyperinsulism International is a US-based rare disease research, support, and advocacy organization. Pamela Weber-Leaf ’89 serves as Director of Development.
FriendshipWorks reduces social isolation, enhances quality of life, and preserves the dignity of older adults in Greater Boston.
Hope Creates empowers youth and adults in recovery from, or at risk of, Substance Use Disorder to stay sober by engaging in the expressive arts and a vibrant, creative sober community. Jennifer Lunceford ’15 serves as Program Director.
Kinyeti Academy provides world-class education for a new generation of South Sudanese leaders, entrepreneurs, and social builders. Founded by Lorem Aminathia ’15, with Jeff Brenzel ’75 on the Advisory Board.
LearnServe International empowers young people to become changemakers in their communities and the world, equipping them with the skills and mindset of global citizens to tackle social challenges through impactful action.
Mangroves forms and promotes deep metadesign for planetary futures through their annual Fellowship program.
Marked by COVID works to ensure a brighter future through art, advocacy, and education. Co-founded by Kristin Urquiza ‘03. Sarah Senk ‘03 and Kimberly Jones ‘00 serve on the Board.
One World Now! develops global leaders through foreign language training and study abroad for underrepresented high school students.
Shaping Her Earth (SHE) empowers young women of color in high school and college with skills, confidence, and leadership tools to step into their power, amplify their voices, and drive meaningful change in their schools, communities, and beyond.
The Alex House Project’s increases long-term family-sufficiency by providing a safe and nurturing environment for parent education and leadership development with support to access higher education and the workforce.
TrustedRiders Inc. bridges transportation gaps for vulnerable people with door-to-door travel companions, supporting healthcare and community partners nationally.
Unite for Health combats maternal and child mortality by inventively providing access to affordable healthcare in underserved communities in rural Africa. George Guernsey ’70 serves on the Advisory Board.
Uptown Stories empowers the young writers of upper Manhattan to write and publish their own stories, with Pay-What-You-Can tuition to ensure accessibility for their ethnically and economically diverse community.
ViviendasLeón works to eliminate rural poverty in Central America by empowering rural communities to be agents of their own transformation.
Waterspirit is a spiritual ecology nonprofit that informs, inspires, and empowers people of all beliefs to deepen their consciousness of the sacredness of water and the interdependence of all Earth’s systems.
YVote works to ensure every New York high school student is empowered to engage, act, and lead change in their city, at and beyond the ballot box.
INSIGHTS & CONNECTIONS
MacKenzie Scott’s $7.1 Billion Year: Lessons in Trust-Based Philanthropy
In her latest essay, “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For,” MacKenzie Scott describes her $7.1 billion in 2025 gifts to 186 nonprofits as “a vanishingly tiny fraction” of the care being shared into communities. She points to the over $1 trillion in individual humanitarian action that never makes the news: the person who nurtured a child in the kitchen, who was kind to a stranger in line, who gave fifty dollars to a local food shelter. Scott’s own giving was inspired by a college roommate who loaned her $1,000 when she was about to drop out of Princeton. That single act rippled forward decades later when the roommate founded a company offering loans to low-income students. None of us knows where our generosity leads. This season of giving, consider your own ripple effects. The mentorship conversation you had last month. The board service you’re contemplating. The colleague you encouraged. Scott’s approach, unrestricted gifts with no strings attached, reminds us that trust multiplies impact. Keep going, MacKenzie. And keep going, YANA members, the world needs you!
Searches Up, Traffic Down: How AI is Reshaping Nonprofit Visibility
M+R’s analysis of 17 nonprofits from March-August 2025 revealed a troubling paradox: brand searches rose 19% year-over-year, but organic search traffic to their websites dropped 13%. Welcome to the “AI search cliff,” where Google’s AI-powered overviews answer questions directly on the search results page, meaning people never click through to your site. After AI overviews became standard, searches for these groups’ brand names increased significantly, but traffic plummeted. More people were actively looking for these organizations, they just weren’t landing on-site. The impact on web giving proved more nuanced, with donations rising slightly by 3%, suggesting highly motivated donors still find their way. However, the larger issue is potential supporters you’re losing, people whose curiosity might have converted to engagement if they’d landed on your thoughtfully designed website. Now, an increasingly large portion of potential supporters encounter your brand exclusively through AI-generated summaries not crafted in your voice. The shift demands rethinking content structure, optimizing donation-related pages, and diversifying supporter acquisition strategies, including increased investment in email list building for direct access without algorithmic intermediation.
YALIES IN SOCIAL IMPACT
When Free Is Revolutionary: How Two Yalies Are Dismantling the Prison Communications Monopoly
When Zo Orchingwa JD/MBA ’21 first approached Yale undergraduate Gabe Saruhashi YC ’22 in February 2020, Saruhashi was skeptical. But over coffee in New Haven, Orchingwa explained how two companies control a $1.2 billion prison telecom industry, charging families up to $1 per text message. For Orchingwa, whose childhood basketball teammates had served time, the human cost was personal. He carried a photo of himself and his incarcerated friends from a tournament as kids. When Orchingwa said, “I think we can take them down by providing free communications,” Saruhashi joined as cofounder.
Ameelio, from “ameliorate,” launched in April 2020. The platform lets families send free letters, photos, and postcards to any incarcerated person in the US. Over 85,000 users have sent more than 310,000 letters. Both founders put their studies on hold, attracting backing from Jack Dorsey, Vinod Khosla, and Eric Schmidt. Now they’re expanding to free video conferencing across Iowa’s nine state prisons, plus educational tools and voter registration resources. Both were named Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2022. They’ve since founded Emerge Career, addressing unemployment for the formerly incarcerated. “Regardless of the worst thing you’ve done, you’re not worthless,” Orchingwa says.