CASE and Marts&Lundy Launch CampaignSource

  • Published November 17, 2021
  • / By CASE and Marts&Lundy

The Council for Advancement Support of Education (CASE) and Marts&Lundy are announcing the launch of CampaignSource—a new global fundraising campaign benchmarking resource.  

CampaignSource encompasses two global surveys on educational fundraising campaigns and associated data and reports. It provides benchmarking data on comprehensive campaigns, otherwise known as capital campaigns, conducted by colleges, universities, and independent and international schools worldwide.   

“Campaigns have long been critical in driving the growth of fundraising among colleges, universities, and independent schools and over the past decades, have become an established practice around the world, and yet there has never been a global source of reliable, industry standard data on educational fundraising campaigns until CampaignSource,” CASE President and CEO Sue Cunningham says.

“Based on the CASE Global Reporting Standards, this work with Marts&Lundy will provide important insights to educational institutions working to achieve their institutional mission through the generosity of their supporters. CampaignSource furthers CASE’s commitment to defining the competencies and standards for the profession of advancement and leading their dissemination and application around the world. We are proud of this important new resource and partnership with Marts&Lundy, who are committed supporters of the CASE Global Reporting Standards.”

“Marts&Lundy’s investment in efforts to leverage intelligence is rooted in our resolve to continuously strengthen strategy and drive ever greater outcomes,” says Phil Hills, President & CEO of Marts&Lundy. “Our partnership with CASE on the development and launch of CampaignSource will deepen the understanding of campaigns and further inform best practices for fundraisers across the world. It is a natural complement to our long-standing work to advance the profession of fundraising.”

Until now, disparities in campaign counting policies and the lack of globally recognized reporting standards have been a fundamental challenge to understanding and benchmarking campaign outcomes. The CASE Global Reporting Standards provide a common, worldwide industry standard counting methodology. Recognizing that campaign policies may pre-date the standards and that campaigns may include funds excluding from counting by the standards, CampaignSource surveys break out campaign funds into “new funds committed” that are countable in accordance with the CASE Global Reporting Standards and other funds that might be included in institutions’ published campaign reports. 

This will provide consistent, comparable benchmarking data in keeping with CASE standards and provide transparency regarding published campaign totals.   

CampaignSource will collect data on:   

  • Institutional characteristics, campaign policies, and goals 
  • The value of outright gifts, pledges, bequests, and planned gifts countable as “New Funds Committed”  
  • Counts of donors by type (capturing counts for based on both legal and recognition credit) 
  • The value of other campaign funds included in published campaign reports that are not countable as “New Funds Committed”  
  • Uses and purposes of funds 
  • Largest gifts  
  • Staffing counts  

Aggregate findings from CampaignSource source surveys will be published in periodic reports. CampaignSource data will be available for free to CASE members in the AMAtlas Data Miner along with benchmarking data from CASE’s regional fundraising surveys (Voluntary Support of EducationCASE-RossCASE Support of Education for Australia and New Zealand, CASE-CCAE and Alumni of Charitable Giving to Universities and the CASE Alumni Engagement Metrics

CASE and Marts&Lundy invite representatives from colleges, universities, and independent schools that are in the public phase of a comprehensive campaign or have completed a comprehensive campaign in the last five years to complete the CampaignSource registration form.

Any questions can be directed to Campaignsource@case.org.