Case Study: Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE)

CASE is the global nonprofit membership association dedicated to educational advancement—alumni relations, communications, development, marketing, and advancement services—championing education to transform lives and society.

Founded in 1974 and evolving to become a truly global organization (OneCASE) in 2019, CASE surveys educational institutions across 4 global regions on advancement outcomes, including global alumni relations and multiple regional fundraising surveys.

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Global Regions
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Years of Data
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VSE Survey Launch
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Peerfocus Launch

“Hundreds of hours saved”

“We’ve saved hundreds of hours thus far on survey management: messaging, generating batch reports for tracking, and setting up user access. We expect more time savings in the future by having our data in a system that can handle longitudinal reporting, allowing faster report delivery and more time to spend on analysis.”

– Senior Director, Research, CASE

The Challenge

Fragmented Data Systems

Surveys scattered across multiple platforms including legacy systems unchanged since 2000, with data siloed in separate databases.

Manual Error Checking

Researchers conducted error checks manually after survey cycles, contacting respondents months later to correct issues—reducing response rates.

Cross-Regional Analysis

Comparing fundraising results between regions required “Herculean” effort, with manual currency conversion done offline.

Poor User Experience

Respondents navigating multiple platforms for different surveys, even entering duplicate data like enrollment across systems.

Limited Benchmarking

Only two platforms had benchmarking features, and neither could anonymize responses—only de-identify at best.

Administrative Burden

Switching survey versions required manual staff intervention, removing data and reassigning participants individually.

“Ultimately, as it expanded its survey portfolio, CASE either had to become a software company—which is not part of its mission—or find an appropriate software company with which to partner.”

The Solution

One Unified Platform

Surveys

  • Real-time validations before survey submission with contextual help text

  • Unified data entry, export, cleaning, reporting, and storage in one location

  • Looping sections, conditional question and section visibility, sums, and more

  • First-class support for annual surveys and longitudinal data collection

  • Messaging and administrative tools to monitor and encourage response rates

  • Custom branded interface with CASE’s own colors, fonts, and terminology

Benchmarking

  • User-driven peer groups based on a wide variety of parameters

  • Customizable reports built for CASE’s unique data

  • Built-in currency conversion for cross-regional comparisons

  • Granular data visibility with transparent or anonymous data options

  • Cross-survey benchmarking to easily correlate data from disparate responses

  • Document repository for instructions and static reports

Key Outcomes

Improved

Cross-Survey Consistency
Simpler for staff and respondents

Reduced

Administrative Time
Automated workflows free staff

Real-Time

Error Resolution
Issues fixed before submission

Global

Data Comparability
4 regions on one platform

Beyond the Platform

Full Service Onboarding

Extensive support for data migration, survey authoring, error-check programming, and benchmarking setup.

Responsive Expert Support

Collaborative approach and tools provide transparency into issues and updates.

Continuous Improvement

Ongoing enhancements to the platform are immediately available to all clients.

The Result

CASE is now positioned to be the leader in data on advancement activities in educational institutions across the globe.