2024 Volunteer of the Year
Scripps College recognizes and appreciates the importance of the ongoing commitment, dedication, and leadership of its alumnae. The Volunteer of the Year award recognizes an alum for their commitment, dedication, leadership, and exceptional volunteer service on behalf of Scripps College. The award is presented each year during Reunion Weekend. Read about past recipients here.
Megan Mandeville graduated from Scripps in 1989 with a major in English and a passion for writing. She earned a master’s degree in business administration with a focus in marketing at the Drucker Center of Claremont Graduate University and completed a post-MBA executive program at Harvard Business School.
At Scripps, she held roles on the Student Council, wrote for Scripps’ Ivy newspaper, and served as managing editor and publisher of Collage, the five-college news magazine. Her involvement has continued after graduation, including her service on the Alumnae Leadership Council’s communications committee; her position as ambassador of the Class of 1989’s upcoming 35-year reunion; and her previous service as co-chair of the five- and ten-year reunions. By building Scripps alum volunteer teams, she has influenced engagement and giving.
Megan has collaborated with the Alumnae Engagement and Development offices to spearhead new approaches to gift planning. She played a key role in launching a new “Vita Nova” annual gift level to generate a then-record number of first-time donors and doubled gifts. Megan focuses on building innovative tactics driving alum engagement, cultivating relationships, reinforcing shared purpose, and sparking action.
She has served as tri-chair of Camp Scripps, as well as filling other Camp Scripps roles, and has helped to attract a record-setting number of first-time campers, recent graduates, and diverse campers—in addition to drafting Camp Scripps’ diversity mission statement and promoting its upcoming 30th anniversary.
Megan was featured in a recent Scripps article on “micro-engagement” and has been instrumental in fostering involvement among East Coast alums. Now based in New York, she has tailored her engagement to her location and availability. She has done a little bit of everything, from interviewing prospective Scripps applicants, to providing alums who are new to her area with tips on the neighborhood, to reading applications for summer grants, to writing letters to incoming or graduating students. She champions the adage that it is never too early—or too late—to be involved.
Megan has held leadership roles in client development and alum engagement and has generated a return on investment of up to 20:1 for global law firms, currently with Ropes & Gray. She is a trained sommelier, writes for Food & Wine magazine and Wine.com, and consults for Food Network and the United States Golf Association about hospitality at The US Open. She has ghostwritten 20 New York Times–bestselling cookbooks for celebrity chefs, creating engaging stories from stacks of recipes for what the New York Times called “the #1 bestselling Italian cookbook of all time.” She frequently gives talks, including some talks given to Scripps alums, on how to be a ghostwriter and how to hire one to tell your story.
Megan has been recognized among Women Who Mean Business (Las Vegas Business Press) and Top 40 Trailblazers (Orange County Register), for Outstanding Teamwork and Outstanding Achievement in Marketing (law firms Foley & Lardner LLP and Sidley Austin LLP), and with a Core Values Award (BDO Consulting). As a volunteer, she raises alum engagement and funds for universities, colleges, and college preparatory schools across the country. She also serves as a crisis counselor for a teen suicide hotline, previously known as American Association of Suicide Prevention, which has recognized her as Volunteer of the Year and as a finalist for a Lifetime Achievement award.