California’s community colleges are joining forces in an effort to raise their profiles and reach out to alumni though a new statewide alumni magazine and Web site.

The first issue of Affinity, which features stories of successful community-college alumni, was sent to more than 16,000 graduates this month, according to a news release from the Foundation for California Community Colleges. The foundation helped start the magazine with the Network for California Community College Foundations, an organization of community-college fund raisers.

Affinity will be published annually. The magazine’s corresponding Web site will be updated frequently and contains information about individual community colleges.

The magazine can be customized to individual colleges, the foundation said. The project will also provide marketing tools for colleges to reach alumni, such as templates for postcards, fliers, and Web pages.

California has 110 community colleges.

Paul Lanning, the foundation’s president and chief executive, said providing centralized alumni-communications channels to the colleges offered a chance to reach the millions of Californians who have attended the state’s community colleges. —Kathryn Masterson