The Experience of Jesuit Friends and Alumni Network

The Jesuit Friends and Alumni Network (“JFAN”), sometimes also referred to as the Loyola Club, is a lay-run national Catholic charitable organization “accompanied” by Father Bill Muller, SJ.  The organization was founded in Cleveland, Ohio and quickly spread to cities throughout the United States.  JFAN currently supports clubs in such cities as Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Traverse City, Kansas City, San Francisco (Jesuit Connections), New Orleans and Washington, DC. 

While club models vary, the clubs typically gather alumni and friends of Jesuit institutions for food, fellowship and inspiration.  Clubs generally meet in the central business district of their various cities, typically three times each year and typically for lunch.  Some clubs meet in the late afternoon or early evening to help attract younger members.  The clubs do not charge membership fees and are friend-raising, not fundraising organizations.  The luncheons generally include a speaker and an Ignatian topic, and allow participants to spend time with other Jesuit-educated alumni and friends.          

The clubs seek ways to foster community and to apply Ignatian spirituality in everyday lives of their members.  Washington, DC, for example, is home to Georgetown University (and its various graduate, medical and law schools), Gonzaga College High School, Georgetown Preparatory School and the Washington Jesuit Academy, as well as to graduates from every one of the 27 Jesuit colleges and universities, and most of the more than 70 Jesuit high schools and middle schools in the United States.  The Jesuit Friends and Alumni Club of Washington, DC, meets for lunch tree times each year at the University Club in downtown DC.  Speakers have included author Chris Lowney, various presidents of Jesuit high schools and Jesuit Universities, leaders of various Jesuit-related organizations, University professors and community (but typically not political) leaders, Cokie Roberts, and (in January of 2020) Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory. 

JFAN also serves as the United States member of the World Union of Jesuit Alumni (WUJA), and assisted with hosting the worldwide WUJA Congress at John Carroll University in Cleveland in 2017. For more information, please visit JFANUSA.com