CASE Insights has launched a major initiative in Latin America to foster greater professionalization and standardization of advancement practices in higher education. With support from Santander Universidades, the two-year project is responding to the growing need for philanthropy benchmarks across the region by creating an annual survey to demonstrate the impact and outcomes of fundraising. The project includes a course for advancement professionals at institutions in Mexico and Colombia (the Latin American countries with the highest number of CASE members), followed by a pilot survey for participating institutions. CASE plans to launch the survey throughout Latin America following the two-year pilot project. The survey will join the CASE Insights suite of global philanthropy surveys, which collect and analyze data from the U.S./Canada, the U.K./Ireland, and Australia/New Zealand.

Phase one of the project launched in late 2023. The CASE Latin America team invited Mexican institutions with at least five years of fundraising efforts and data collection to participate. To enrich the findings, explains Zulay Attanasio, a CASE Senior Data Strategist, “The CASE Latin America team also invited five Colombian institutions with a track record of fundraising to participate, along with a few institutions newer to fundraising that have expressed an interest in the project. Many of these institutions had previously participated in CASE Diplomado training programs.”

Participants attended both in-person and virtual meetings, leading to an in-person workshop in April 2024 directly following CASE’s Congreso conference. The workshop provided participants the opportunity to share about their fundraising efforts and where they would like to grow. Participants received training on the CASE Global Reporting Standards (an essential foundation for annual benchmarking among peer institutions) and had access to CASE’s online course on the Standards, with an added introductory module specifically created for this audience. 

Phase two of the project will commence in January 2025 with data collection, followed by a report highlighting the key findings and the need for benchmarking philanthropy outcomes in Latin America. This survey will contain core philanthropy metrics and will be both regionally relevant and globally consistent.   

“We are feeling quite a bit of excitement about what this project will mean for our region,” says Angélica Careaga, CASE Executive Director, Latin America. “There is so much interest in growing philanthropy to higher education in Latin America. Advancement professionals here are passionate about the potential impact for students, institutions, and communities. And we know to get to that next level, we need the training, the tools, and good data. This benchmarking project will do just that and is only the beginning for taking us to the great heights we know are possible.”

In appreciation for support of the project, CASE has recognized Santander as a CASE Standards Champion. 

“The alliance between Santander Universidades and CASE has, through many years, allowed us to promote training programs to professionalize key actors responsible for advancement areas within universities,” says Arturo Cherbowski Lask, Executive Director of Santander Universidades and General Director of Universia Mexico.

The survey, he says, “will be very useful to situate the current state of philanthropic resources obtained by Latin American universities and help to assess the state of advancement work. The results will then allow us to design new projects and content that contribute to the work of the advancement professionals all around the region.”

Taking Philanthropy to New Heights in Latin America

An Interview with Mónica Manzanilla

Mónica Manzanilla

Vice President for Institutional Advancement
CETYS University in Mexico

HEADSHOT PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Mónica Manzanilla

Throughout Latin America, advancement professionals in higher education are becoming more sophisticated as they fortify their departments, engage in training, and share their passion for the power of philanthropy. Mónica Manzanilla, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at CETYS University in Mexico, is one of them. A trailblazer in the field, she is the first person to hold the title at this top 10 private university in Mexico. 

“I love my job,” she says, “because our work supports this great university in shaping individuals with the intellectual and moral capacity to become agents of change, positively impacting the economic, social, and cultural improvement of their country.”

We caught up with Manzanilla, an active participant in phase one of CASE's benchmarking project, to ask her a few questions about what the project can mean to her region.

Tell us about your career path to advancement and your passion for philanthropy.

I majored in international business at Tec de Monterrey and enjoyed working in the business sector for five years after graduating. Then, in 2000, I was invited by a mentor (the CEO of the nonprofit Instituto Nuevo Amanecer in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico) to join his team. It is one of Latin America’s most recognized care centers for children with cerebral palsy. I said “yes,” even though I had no experience in fundraising. I was 26 and always concerned about social responsibility, so I jumped in. Soon after joining the center, I attended my first Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference. I discovered a whole new world. I was in a convention center with 5,000 people from all over the world. They represented everything from animal shelters to hospitals to museums to Greenpeace. Wow! It was a moment of truth when I realized I could be helpful in this profession. 

During five years in that position, I had the opportunity to experience many basic fundraising strategies, including golf tournaments, gala dinners, scholarship funds, and building board relationships. In this role, I discovered my life purpose and decided to commit to this profession. 

From there, I had the privilege of working with the Mexican Red Cross, which is very challenging since, in Mexico, the Red Cross is responsible for first-aid contact, similar to the 911 system in the United States, in addition to all the disaster relief interventions.

Then, I came into higher education. I joined Universidad de Monterrey as Development Director. During my five years there, I was responsible for designing, launching, and developing a capital campaign, one of the most important philanthropic efforts nationwide. The goal was to raise $50 million, which we ended up exceeding. That meant building a structured advancement team with major gift officers and all the business, intelligence, and analysis. I believe we were the first in Mexico to have such a team. 

Since August 2021, I have had the honor of being the first Vice President for Institutional Advancement at CETYS University, and the first woman on the university president’s team. 

Over the past 18 years, I have invested much effort in getting professional training and education. I am currently the only Mexican certified as a Certified Fundraising Executive.

I strongly believe philanthropy has the incredible power to change the world, from every aspect of nature, through human well-being, arts, and humanity’s progress. I have witnessed how generosity changes the lives of both the donor and the beneficiary, whether the beneficiary is a single person, a family, a community, or even an institution.

You are embarking on a bold campaign in your current position. Can you tell us about the Vision 2036 Campaign at CETYS? 

By 2036, when CETYS University celebrates its 75th anniversary, we aim to be a distinguished educational institution renowned nationally and internationally for its transformative educational experience, culture of innovation, and significant impact on the community.

We are focused on designing and launching a capital campaign to support that vision; our three campuses will be transformed into sustainable, inclusive, and creative environments to enrich the learning experience. I believe it will be a very innovative campaign since we are reaching out to [individuals in] our unique binational border region between southern California and Baja California, Mexico. It is a region with so many challenges and opportunities.

We are still building a team to accomplish such an ambitious campaign. This takes a lot of training and we have to recognize that. We have to improve technical processes to do the best prospect research. We are working with board members; most of them are not used to being involved in fundraising activities but they are getting very excited to participate.

How would you describe the current landscape of higher education philanthropy in Latin America? 

Public universities, especially after the [COVID-19] pandemic, are all facing budget reductions, receiving less and less government support. For private universities, our financial model is based on enrollment. We haven’t been able to recover the enrollment levels before the pandemic, so we are all facing budget reductions. 

On the one hand, we have considerable challenges in fostering diversity and inclusion in higher education. We must dramatically increase scholarship funds to guarantee opportunities for everyone, regardless of their economic background. [Whenever] I speak with someone from a public or private university, we are all aware we need to work on scholarships and education access. We all need better technology, we need to improve our labs, and we need to enhance our infrastructure for learning spaces. 

On the other hand, Latin America has one of the highest growth rates. I am referring to the population curve and economic approach. Therefore, Latin America has a promising growth-rate forecast. 

We need funds and we recognize that we must look to philanthropy as the solution. So, the time is right for us here in this region to put our resources and passion toward creating a culture of philanthropy. [We have to create] an environment that fosters and trains advancement professionals and puts into place structured departments that allow for effective prospect research, donor stewardship, and alumni engagement. Higher education institutions are responsible for applying best practices, codes of ethics and standards, and running professional fundraising processes to set a standard for the rest of the nonprofits in Latin America.

What are your hopes for the CASE Insights on Philanthropy: Building Benchmarks for Latin America project? 

I believe this project will be a significant milestone for philanthropy in Latin America. At least 15 universities in Latin America have been engaged in fundraising for more than 50 years. Yet we have never shared information so that we can appreciate how philanthropy has grown over the years and its impact on higher education. I have been doing my private benchmarking, and I learn so much by seeing what our peers do. It helps us grow, quantify our outcomes, and set goals to achieve greater heights. I hope more public and private universities will start advancement departments and training once the benchmarking results are published and they see what can be achieved through an investment in advancement. 

How important is CASE to promoting advancement in your region?

It’s so wonderful that we have an office here in Mexico representing our region. That presence, along with Congreso, our annual CASE conference in Latin America, means a lot. And we have the Diplomado online certificate courses in fundraising and alumni relations, and more recently, marketing and communications. Fundraising is still a seed on the ground here in Latin America, and CASE is helping us grow that seed by bringing us together, by providing resources, and by introducing us to best practices. I believe higher education advancement professionals are leading the growth of philanthropy in this region. We are setting the tone not just for what is best practice but what is possible through the power of philanthropy, and CASE is supporting us in that great effort.