An Untapped Resource: Virginia Tech African American Alumni Engagement

A university has many valuable internal and external publics. It is beneficial for an institution to build, maintain, and leverage its relationships with both internal and external constituency groups. Examining the body of literature on relationship management can provide insight into previously established strategies that yielded positive outcomes and demonstrate the need for additional research about Black alumni, from predominately white institutions, and their feelings toward their alma mater. Relationship management is the notion of public relations as the management of relationships between an organization and its key publics (Ledingham & Bruning, 2000). The relationships that an organization has with its publics can impact many things including perceptions about the organization and organizational wealth.