Healthy alumni engagement builds enduring relationships, strengthens your institution’s reputation, and inspires loyalty and support. Measuring engagement, though, has been a historic challenge. This is why CASE launched a volunteer task force in 2016 to create an industry-wide framework for measurement.

We sat down with Jenny Cooke Smith, Senior Director of CASE Insights Solutions, to discuss this framework and what metrics you should focus on first in order to maximize alumni engagement.

WATCH: Jenny delves into this topic and how to maximize the data, standards, and research available as part of your CASE membership.

Getting Started: Are You Data-Adjacent or Data-Informed?

Metrics allow schools to identify trends, patterns, and areas of success to make data-driven decisions and better serve their alumni community. Concrete data can showcase the outcomes and return on investment of alumni programs, making a compelling case for continued support and resources.

Consider your philosophy around data, suggests Cooke Smith. Are you currently data-adjacent or data-informed? 

Data-adjacent: Data-adjacent describes most K–12 school advancement teams. This is largely because resources can be limited, and there is often a strong focus only on current parents. As a result, there may be some data collection and benchmarking, but it’s viewed merely as an obligation. Data collection may also be considered the responsibility of one individual or department, and others outside that silo rarely review the information.

Data-informed: A data-informed philosophy challenges everyone to think about how the data can be used to create the best experience possible at every interaction with alumni and constituents. Data isn’t just collected; it’s dissected to identify what is going well and where opportunities exist to move the needle. Plus, collaboration is prioritized across the entire team, from data staff to advancement staff to faculty.  

Institutions that evolve toward a data-informed approach gain the insights to refine strategies, enhance budget, and improve overall outcomes—as this Currents article demonstrates.

Metrics and Methods That Matter for Data-Informed Schools

There are countless data points that advancement teams can measure and many ways to interpret the data. This alone can create enough overwhelm to deter many schools on the path to progress. That’s why CASE offers the Alumni Engagement Metrics framework to members. The framework defines alumni engagement across four modes: volunteer, experiential, communications, and philanthropic. The accompanying CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement survey and report offer a clear guide for data collection, reporting, and analysis.

Let’s take a look at this framework and how it can help you move forward with impactful insights.

1. Know Your Total Engaged Alumni

If you haven’t yet, the best place to start is to capture a total count of your donors and a total count of your engaged alumni. Your alumni count, for now, should include any alumnus who has engaged with your school in any way. These totals will serve as your initial benchmark, allowing you to measure growth and retention of your donor and alumni populations over time. 

 

2. Understand How Your Alumni Engage Across Modes

In order to gain a deeper understanding of your alumni’s level of involvement, you need to assess and then group them by the way they connect with your school. This information can help you personalize your outreach, plan for more effective engagement efforts, and advance donors to higher levels of engagement. 

CASE has clearly defined four categories of engagement:

Volunteer: These are formally defined and rewarding volunteer roles that support your school’s mission and strategic goals. Examples of volunteer engagement include service on a board or advisory committee, student mentors, public advocates, and classroom speakers. 

Experiential: These are meaningful experiences that inspire alumni and celebrate the mission and achievements of your school. Examples of experiential engagement can include in-person and virtual events, reunions, online book clubs, or digital forums.

Communications: This is defined as any interactive, meaningful, and informative communication with alumni that supports your school’s mission, goals, and reputation. This can include active engagement through social media such as a like or back-and-forth email correspondence. While valuable, CASE does not include receipt of a mailed publication or email in the category of communication engagement.   

Philanthropic: These are the many opportunities for alumni to make philanthropic investments that support the school’s mission and strategic goals. This includes all manner of financial and in-kind support.

“The percentage of alumni that is doing something that counts as engagement should be the very, very top measure we look at. But, it’s not actually the most informative. It’s getting below that and understanding how you’re doing in each bucket and how alumni are behaving once they’re engaged that moves the needle.”

—Jenny Cooke Smith, Senior Director of CASE Insights Solutions

3. Match Goals to What You Can Measure

Once you’ve analyzed how your alumni are interacting across the four modes of engagement, you need to determine what you are capable of measuring. Your job in advancement is already dynamic and challenging. You will be most successful if you are realistic and prioritize the data you need. 

For instance, only measure what will help support a desired outcome. Are you trying to increase donations? Admissions? Volunteers? Choose the metrics that align with those outcomes. From there, consider:

• What are you already capturing?
• What aren’t you that you should be? 
• How confident are you the data is representative? 

This is your foundation. You can build from here in future years if you wish, but this sets the stage for your initial set of benchmarks.  

 

4. Track Trends and Opportunities

Once you start collecting the data that matters to you, you can begin observing trends over time. These become particularly valuable when you can track year-over-year changes in engagement. You can assess the effectiveness of your programs, refine your strategies, and allocate resources more effectively. Moreover, you will also be able to identify opportunities to deepen your engagement with alumni and opportunities of untapped potential. 

Where to Go From Here

CASE provides members with instant access to a deep library of resources, insights, and tools—as well as customized support—so you can face any challenge in advancement confidently and effectively. 

Take, for example, the CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement. Once you fill out the survey, CASE gives you a full summary report with interactive benchmarks of your current metrics, how you compare against similar schools, year-over-year changes, and suggested next steps for growth. This gives you a significant head start toward building engagement metrics that matter.  

Here are more of our top member resources to help you successfully measure alumni engagement: 

• Watch Jenny’s webinar, Insights for You: Maximizing the Data, Standards, and Research Available as Part of Your CASE membership. 

• Learn about the Alumni Engagement Metrics framework and participate in the CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement survey. The Guidance Documentation will explain the data you’ll need to gather. Most schools opt for the shorter, simpler minimal version of the survey, which is a good place to start.
• Access all of CASE’s data, standards, and research in K–12 advancement. 

Read case studies from schools that have successfully leveraged data to enhance their advancement programs.