DUKE UNIVERSITY

Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, is among the nation’s elite institutions, consistently ranked among the top 10 for academics, research, and innovation. Home to a $1.5 billion research enterprise, a vibrant Blue Devils athletics program, and a worldwide alumni community of more than 200,000, Duke thrives on connection.

BACKGROUND & GOALS

Events are central to that mission. They bring together alumni, donors, faculty, and students to celebrate milestones, fuel philanthropy, and strengthen Duke pride. To deliver the powerful, high-impact experiences constituents expect from Duke, the university adopted Cvent in 2016 to modernize its approach to events and create a unified event ecosystem. Today, Duke operates with a single campus-wide Cvent license. More than 40 groups use the platform, but the Alumni Engagement and Development (AED) team drives the majority of activity—accounting for 67% of all event registrations.

Managing a surge in events with fewer hands on deck

In 2024, Duke marked its Year of Engagement — a prelude to MADE FOR THIS: The Duke Campaign, the most ambitious fundraising and engagement initiative in the university’s history. The AED Cvent team, supporting more than 300 AED employees, was tasked with delivering 159 events in FY25—a 25% year-over-year increase on top of a 42% increase the previous year.

This surge included some of the most complex and high-stakes programs Duke had ever undertaken. The 2024 Centennial Celebration marked 100 years of Duke with eight signature regional events in major markets across the country. From the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York to the National Aquarium in Baltimore and events in San Francisco and Florida, each celebration was tailored with unique themes, faculty spotlights, and interactive learning activations. 

Soon after, the university launched its MADE FOR THIS campaign publicly with a two-day program in February 2025. Despite a snowstorm on campus, 560 of 600 invited guests, including Duke’s most distinguished alumni and donors, attended — underscoring the importance of these events in strengthening alumni connection and momentum.

The challenge was not adopting new technology — AED had already been a mature Cvent user. Instead, the test was how to harness the platform to scale impact and reimagine engagement with a leaner team, which had been reduced from three to just two staff members at the height of the Centennial year. 

APPROACH

The first hurdle was simply scale: delivering more complex multi-day, multi-session events across the country despite fewer hands on deck. Just as critical was redefining what alumni engagement meant. No longer would registrations or email opens count as success; only actual participation—attending an event, volunteering, or otherwise engaging directly—would now measure connection. This shift also aligned AED more closely to Duke’s four pillars of alumni involvement: volunteerism, philanthropy, experience, and communication. As Jeremy Houser, Director of Event Operations for AED, explains, “The shift from measuring interest to attendance raised the bar for the attendee journey and the need for smoother event coordination and management, data accuracy, and reporting; all things that are facilitated by Cvent’s capabilities.”

Leveraging Cvent to drive efficiency at scale

To keep pace with rising demand, Duke has transformed the way it manages events through Cvent. Reflecting on the pressure of back-to-back Centennial and Campaign events, Jeremy recalls, “With Cvent, we were able to knock out all the Centennial and Campaign event requests that were above and beyond what we typically have on our slate across campus.” By standardizing and streamlining processes across its portfolio, AED has turned a lean team into a high-performing operation capable of delivering more events at higher quality year after year. 

Onsite, Duke has streamlined check-in with Cvent OnArrival. With faster check-in, on-demand badge printing, and the ability to update attendee details in real time, the team could create a smoother first impression while reducing the manual work tied to pre-printed badges and last-minute changes. At the New York City Ziegfeld Ballroom, for example, the team checked in 525 attendees in just 90 minutes, replacing pre-printed badges and manual corrections with seamless, on-demand printing and a simplified check-in process. “We want our alumni to feel known,” says Jeremy. “The fact that we have a badge with their preferred nickname ready and waiting makes a difference—it’s a small detail, but it means a lot. Plus, print on demand frees up days upon days of work for us and our colleagues.”

Increasing alumni engagement with Cvent Attendee Hub and real-time event reporting

Duke has also elevated attendee engagement with the Attendee Hub Event App. The app has become Duke’s central hub for event content, networking, and interaction. At the San Francisco regional event, Duke leveraged proactive prompts to encourage alumni to log in, resulting in a 75% download rate and a 50% login rate of the app. “Whether it’s Duke Reunions or a Women’s Weekend, we’re using the app to enhance the attendee experience,” notes Jeremy. “It allows alumni to engage not just with us and their university, but also with their peers—because that’s the real point of getting people to reunite.”

From there, Duke is able to transform event data into strategic insight. With custom reporting and automated dashboards in Access Portal, AED now provides stakeholders with real-time visibility into registrations, attendance, trends, and financials. Event data flows directly into Duke’s CRM, enabling faster follow-up, cleaner attribution, and more informed decisions about future programming. Jeremy underscores the importance of this visibility, noting, “Our stakeholders are always looking for that key data and information. Cvent gives us the data and the tools to report outwards on all the data we collect.” 

RESULTS

Scaling events to elevate institutional impact

Despite navigating staffing challenges during one of the busiest years in its history, AED delivered more events—and at higher quality—than ever before. Reflecting on the team’s ability to adapt, Jeremy shares, “We were able to lean on our expertise and overall skills that we’ve developed with the Cvent platform to become as efficient as possible in that short period of time.”

Reflecting on these achievements, Jeremy shares, “2024 was our Year of Engagement. With the centennial layered on top, it was more than a slogan – it was proof we could scale impact while raising the bar for what engagement really means.” As Duke enters a new era of alumni engagement and fundraising, Cvent is helping the team turn ambitious event strategies into measurable results. 

LOOKING FORWARD

With one connected platform for registration, onsite execution, attendee engagement, and reporting, AED can deliver the polished experiences alumni expect while giving stakeholders the visibility they need to make smarter decisions about future programming. The outcome is not just greater efficiency for a lean team, but a stronger and more scalable model for building connection, participation, and philanthropic momentum across the Duke community.