The experience
A room where you're truly known
A forum is eight to ten accomplished peers who meet monthly — and who, over time, become something rare: people who know your whole situation and have no stake in your decisions. Members bring the real thing — the decision they're wrestling with, the season they're in — and the group holds it without rushing to fix. People remember what you said in March. They notice what's changed. The conversations go where conversations with colleagues, boards, and even close friends can't.
The rhythm is simple: monthly meetings, a month off in summer, and a facilitated retreat every year where the group goes deeper than a monthly meeting allows. The first year begins with a launch session and two full facilitated sessions — enough to set the practice in motion. The practice itself takes years to learn, and that's the point.
Every month
The meetings
The forum meets monthly, self-led and moderated from within — updates, a deep dive presentation, a close. A mid-year facilitated session (around June) keeps the practice sharp, and support runs underneath the whole year. Typically one month off (for example, August).
Every year
The retreat
A facilitated offsite — typically Friday evening (5–9pm) and Saturday (9am–5pm, with dinner). Once a year, the group goes deeper than a monthly meeting allows. An annual tradition, and for many forums the highlight of the year.
First year only
The facilitated start
A 90-minute launch, then two full facilitated sessions. This is where the group learns what an update really is and what a deep dive presentation asks of everyone — the first steps of a practice that deepens for years.
Every year after
The rhythm continues — and deepens
The launch and the initial facilitated sessions happen once. Everything else on the cycle repeats — the meetings, the retreat, the support underneath — year after year.
And something happens over those years that no first year can rush. The middle years test every forum — some drift toward the surface, some hit real conflict — and the groups that come through, supported, are the ones that reach year five, year ten, and beyond: the years where trust stops being something the group builds and becomes something it simply has. Members are known by people who have watched them change. The conversations reach places a newer group can't yet — not because anything was missing early on, but because time is the one ingredient that can't be hurried.
The first year is where a forum begins. The years after are where it compounds.
How a forum is supported
Supporting your best forum experience
A forum belongs to its members — and a full layer of support runs alongside it all year to help it thrive. Forum Support Services stays close throughout; Alumni Forum Services provides additional trainings and resources.
Monthly moderator support calls
A standing check-in with a trained facilitator — less about tactics, more about how leading the group actually feels.
Regional forum council
Periodic gatherings where moderators meet peers from other forums, compare notes on common challenges, and share what works.
Welcoming new members
When a group has space for an additional member, access to well-matched candidates and a full orientation for anyone who joins.
Year-end forum health check
A structured look at how the group is doing as the first year closes — what's strong, what needs attention heading into the next year.
Facilitated moderator trainings
Ongoing moderator training — periodic Zoom webinars on best practices and leadership. Alumni Forum Services & Bob Halperin
Additional resources
In addition to this Forum Support site, you'll find additional resources at alumniforums.org. Alumni Forum Services
The point of it all
A practice that compounds
The structure of the forum year exists for one reason: to build a group that truly knows one another. That knowing doesn't run out — it deepens, year over year. The meetings, the support, the retreats are all in service of a forum that, given time, becomes something no group could manufacture and none would trade.