Alumni networks are a powerful force for mentorship, role modelling, and linkages to employment – but only a small handful of elite school students have benefitted from this in the past.
InHive’s roots can be traced to Future First, a charity that sought to address the unequal access to networks of former students across various types of schools in the United Kingdom.
Inspired by successful efforts to broaden access to alumni networks in the UK, in 2013 we conducted a nine-country research project to see how young people around the world could benefit from alumni networks, particularly for students coming from low-resource communities. While we uncovered much potential, we also noticed that most schools lacked the structures, expertise, and resources to coordinate and manage thriving alumni networks.
InHive, formerly Future First Global thus launched partnerships with organisations such as EducAid in Sierra Leone and the CARE Foundation in Pakistan that focused on increasing students’ access to industry insights, mentors and champions for inspiration, and opportunities for employment through school alumni networks.
Over the years, we realized our approach could be applied beyond schools to a range of programmes, who build communities of former participants or beneficiaries. For example, we partnered with the Mastercard Foundation to develop a strategy to engage, connect, and activate their network of 55,000+ scholars program alumni around the globe. Through this work we refined an approach that helps young people re-engage those around them, their hive, to improve their own lives.
Since 2019, with an expanded focus and a new brand as inHive, we have been supporting like-minded partners to strengthen the connections among their alumni, grantees, and communities. Through our partnerships, we reached over 170,000 people in 19 countries.
During our work, we realized that while hundreds of networks across the globe, including alumni networks supported by inHive, exist to serve young people, most entities lacked access to resources that provide the skills, structures, and techniques we were offering to our partners. This meant millions of young people were not being reached.
In 2021 we launched Nexus, a community to support leaders and coordinators of networks that serve young people, to reach these missing millions. Nexus is collectively advocating for strengthening network practices as a way to support young people across the globe.
In the same year, we also brought together funders and practitioners in a Networks Learning Journey to reflect on how philanthropy can shift to better support such networks and amplify impact.
Through all this work we have seen how networks can impact young people, both in local communities as well as on a global scale, to become strong advocates for networks as a powerful tool for social change.
We hope you will join us on this journey to reach all young people.