As community colleges expand their alumni relations efforts, advancement officials are clamoring for reliable benchmarking information to compare their programs with those of peer institutions. To fill this growing need, CASE is launching the first comprehensive survey of college alumni programs.

"The more information you have the better off you're going to be," says Ginny Baxter, executive director of the Long Beach City College Foundation. "There could be people out there who are doing great things that we haven't thought of. And by the same token, I know that we're doing some great things that others might not have considered."

Baxter—one of four advancement leaders who helped CASE compose the Community College Alumni Programs Survey—encourages all two-year institutions to participate. The survey should take fewer than 15 minutes to complete, and information about respondents will be kept confidential.

CASE will offer to each institution that completes a survey one free viewing from among eight community college webinars that have been produced in the last year—a $175 value. Webinar topics include alumni relations, social media, annual campaigns and marketing metrics.

Begin the Community College Alumni Programs Survey now. Responses are due no later than Tuesday, July 31, 2012.

Please share your questions and comments with Paul Heaton via e-mail at heaton@case.org or +1 202 478-5570.

This article is from the July 2012 issue of the Community College Advancement News.