Credit: Sean Sime

Through CASE Insights, advancement professionals have access to data, standards, and research that help them make data-informed decisions, demonstrate strategic impact, highlight success stories, and define ethical practices. 

Collecting data to measure giving to higher education dates to 1954 when the Council for Financial Aid to Education piloted the Voluntary Support of Education survey. At the time, the survey—which collects data on fundraising at U.S. public and private colleges and universities—was called “the most extensive [survey] ever undertaken of higher education.”  

CASE, which added the VSE in 2018 to its portfolio of worldwide advancement surveys, has been at the forefront of advancement data and research throughout its history. Back in 1954, the VSE survey was conducted on paper and mailed or faxed back in. Today, advancement professionals can access an interactive CASE Insights data portal with the click of a button. How far we’ve come! Here’s a look at other historic milestones in CASE’s data and research.

Measuring Alumni Engagement

For many years in advancement, the outcomes of alumni relations programs were measured anecdotally or simply by giving rates among alumni. In 2016, the CASE Commission on Alumni Relations formed the Alumni Engagement Metrics Task Force to create a more comprehensive, industry-wide framework to measure alumni engagement.

The task force defined four primary modes of engagement (philanthropic, volunteerism, experiential, and communication), which underpinned the CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement global survey, piloted in 2019 and launched in 2020. This first-of-its-kind survey helps members assess the broad impact of relationships between alumni and their alma maters and is already changing the way alumni relations is valued and understood within the advancement profession and in education more broadly.

“The giving rate metric only tells a small part of the story,” said CASE President and CEO Sue Cunningham. In developing the survey, she added, “We wanted to look deeper—to consider what specifically constitutes alumni engagement and how we as a profession might assess this important work thoughtfully and quantitatively.” 

The CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement, now in its fifth year, gives advancement teams the ability to benchmark their work with peer institutions and power to quantify the value of this work and the importance of investing in staff to support those efforts. For instance, the data can help advancement teams use metrics to support what they might know anecdotally: how volunteer engagement leads to giving. The data indicate that alumni who volunteer are more likely to give than those who don’t. 

A Set of Common Global Standards

The CASE Global Reporting Standards are a common set of standards, guidelines, and definitions for reporting the results of educational philanthropy activities at schools, colleges, and universities around the world.

Standard guidelines for reporting fundraising activities allow schools, colleges, and universities to represent their work honestly and clearly. CASE has been the leader for advancement standards since 1982, when it first published the CASE Reporting Standards and Management Guidelines. In 2018, CASE convened volunteers from across the globe to create an updated, comprehensive, truly global edition of the standards. In 2021, CASE released the new Global Reporting Standards, which featured six regional supplements for Australia and New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, U.K., Singapore, and the U.S. Available in print and as a digital subscription, the global standards also included guidance on ethics and complex topics like donor influence. CASE’s 2024 update includes guidance on new funds committed and pledges.

The standards underpin CASE’s ongoing work to guide the profession, ensure integrity and consistency in educational advancement, and collect and report CASE data. 

Global Philanthropy Report 

CASE’s regional foundational surveys on philanthropy—the CASE Insights on Philanthropy (Australia and New Zealand); CASE Insights on Philanthropy (Canada); CASE Insights on Philanthropy (U.K. and Ireland); and the Voluntary Support of Education (United States) are conducted each year and provide informative updates on philanthropy trends within the relevant region. 

All of these benchmarking surveys are now aligned with the Global Reporting Standards, which allows for global benchmarking. In 2022, CASE released the CASE Insights on Global Philanthropy—the first report of its kind combining data from all four of CASE’s foundational surveys on philanthropy. The report explores funds received, staffing, major gifts, and more in each region. It found significant increases in philanthropic support in 2022 for most regions, and support in all regions was above 2018 levels.

As more institutions continue to utilize the CASE standards, that will allow further exploration of philanthropy trends around the world. CASE has plans to expand foundational surveys to new regions(such as Latin America) and to new constituents (such as independent schools), which will provide a more comprehensive perspective of truly global trends in philanthropy.