Celebrated on one day every year since 2007, but recognizing the year-long volunteer service efforts of thousands of Yale alumni, the Day of Service marks the occasion when Yale alumni give back to their local communities. Over the past nine years Yale Clubs and regional alumni associations have partnered with more than a thousand local nonprofits and NGOs around the world. Wishing to convey their love of this tradition of alumni giving, Honorary Chairs of the Yale Day of Service have included Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

In 1997 Mr. Dollhopf founded the Yale Alumni Chorus and its Foundation a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering international goodwill through creative, innovative, and inspiring collaborations among Yale alumni and world leading performers and performing arts organizations. YAC has staged 16 major international concert tours and festivals including collaborations with conductors Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic, Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Muhai Tang and the Shanghai National Broadcasting Symphony, Anton Nanut and the Brazil Symphony Orchestra, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London.

A “Peace Corps” like initiative, YASC affords alumni the opportunity to provide social and economic development assistance through cultural exchanges with people in disadvantaged and developing areas worldwide. Service Corps delegations of 20 to 200 conduct projects in local schools, coach youth sports, participate in construction projects, mentor small business owners, conduct medical and public health clinics, and provide college counseling. Since 2008 more than 1,000 alumni, family members, and friends have traveled to San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic; Monterrey, Mexico; Xiuning, China; Yamoransa, Ghana; and Kakelao, India.

Since 2008 YaleGALE has engaged thousands of staff and alumni from universities around the world in conferences, workshops, seminars, and mentoring programs to study and promote effective alumni relations. Members of the Yale delegations who travel abroad are experienced volunteer leaders in their classes, regional alumni associations, shared interest groups or graduate and professional schools. More than 250 leading universities have participated, among them Amsterdam, Ashoka (Iindai), Australia National, Bogaziçi (Turkey), Cambridge, Doshisha (Japan), Edinburgh, Fudan (China), Göttingen, Hebrew, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, Istanbul, Kyoto, Peking, the Sorbonne, Tokyo, Tsinghua, and Zurich ETH.

YASA is an opportunity for alumni who serve as admissions interviewers to travel abroad representing Yale and the United States through Education USA – a student recruitment program of the US State Department. Launched in May of 2014, forty Yale “ambassadors” traveled to Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia to mentor high school students and their parents about the advantages of a liberal arts education at a college or university in the United States. Future programs will be designed to send these volunteers to areas around the world not often visited by alumni admissions professionals, but where there are truly talented students who deserve to hear about all the alternatives for a college education.

Alumni are passionate about learning, and they want to pursue it over a lifetime. For more than a century Yale has offered lectures by its faculty at reunions, class days, conferences, and regional alumni clubs. In 2011 AYA volunteers launched the Alumni College – not merely one-off lectures but also weekly seminars conducted over six weeks with no more than 20 alumni “students.” Assigned reading and vigorous classroom discussion create meaningful educational opportunities at a fraction of the cost of a semester course. Scores of Alumni College classes have been conducted in New Haven and New York, with more coming online in communities around the US.