The Future of Alumni Engagement: Strategic Uses of CASE’s Alumni Engagement Metrics-Recording

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The CASE District Six webinar focused on alumni engagement metrics, featuring Julianne Andreessen from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) sharing their comprehensive journey. CU Boulder’s Advancement Division encompasses Alumni Association, annual giving, donor relations, marketing communications, data insights, and school engagement staff, collectively managing over 300,000 living alumni.<br /><br />Key early efforts involved building cross-unit communication through groups like CAD, ACC, and eventually the SEAL Team, enabling strategic decision-making and collaboration. This foundation helped unify engagement efforts and data tracking via a centralized calendar and CRM system, transitioning from manual spreadsheets to automated dashboards integrating experiential, volunteer, communication, and philanthropy metrics.<br /><br />CU Boulder adopted CASE global engagement metrics definitions to align with best practices and enable benchmarking. They set divisional engagement goals, utilizing a bottom-up approach for unit buy-in and quarterly reporting. In FY25, they exceeded goals with over 253,000 total and 102,000 unique engagements.<br /><br />They developed an "advancement continuum" to categorize alumni by engagement and giving levels, enabling targeted strategies. A pilot campaign aimed at updating alumni contact info resulted in 34% positive movement up the continuum, proving the effectiveness of data-driven, personalized engagement. Detailed audience analysis revealed distinct tiers with different interests, guiding tailored communications.<br /><br />CASE’s Jenny Cook-Smith emphasized the importance of standardized metrics to reduce uncertainty and drive strategic decisions, encouraging broader adoption for benchmarking.<br /><br />The session concluded with advice to foster interdepartmental collaboration, gain leadership support, leverage CRM capabilities, set realistic goals, and use data insights to demonstrate engagement’s impact—especially vital amid funding challenges in higher education.

Keywords

Alumni Engagement

CU Boulder

CASE Metrics

Advancement Division

CRM System

Data-Driven Strategies

Engagement Continuum

Cross-Unit Collaboration

Benchmarking

Higher Education Funding