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 across the globe.    

Previously referred to as the CASE Reporting Standards and Management Guidelines, the new book (available in print and for the first time, through a digital subscription) represents worldwide standards for institutional fundraising, with new definitions for educational philanthropy and important guidance around gift counting, funds received, new funds committed, and donor control and influence. 

The CASE Global Reporting Standards are an example of CASE and its members’ leadership in shaping internal institutional policies for counting, reporting, and recognizing philanthropic contributions.   

All professions have standards; advancement is no different – and CASE is the leader for advancement standards (fundraising, and increasingly alumni relations and marketing and communications), and has been promulgating Standards since 1982.  

Philanthropic support is a critical revenue stream which requires educational leaders to understand standards exist and enable effective leadership in this area and to mitigate risk. Educational philanthropy and advancement are increasingly a global endeavor and the need for educational institutions to have the ability to benchmark with their most appropriate peer institutions has never been more important. Standardizing key metrics for educational institutions anywhere in the world means all institutions can now benchmark against each other using the suite of CASE AMAtlas tools. In addition, regional supplements for Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States provide opportunities for regional comparisons to complement the global perspective.

Donors want to know that their contributions to institutions are being stewarded ethically and transparently. Institution leaders want to ensure their advancement efforts follow the principles and standards set across the profession, and in service of institutional mission. The increasing complexity of gift agreements warrants closer monitoring of those instruments so that they remain consistent and viable in alignment with the goals of the institutions they support.

This is at the heart of CASE’s mission: to be a catalyst for advancing education worldwide by inspiring, challenging, and equipping communities of professionals to act effectively and with integrity to champion the success of their institutions.

At the direction of the CASE Board of Trustees and in fulfillment of CASE’s strategic plan, a working group consisting of senior advancement professionals has been meeting since July 2018 to review and update the Reporting Standards and Management Guidelines. 

The working group is representative of all institutions in the CASE membership and endeavored to represent the interests of the entire profession in their work and deliberations. The group was co-chaired by Matthew Eynon, Vice President for College Advancement, Franklin & Marshall College and Brian Hastings, President and CEO, University of Nebraska Foundation.    

The group members followed best practices to develop a set of standards and guidelines which help to ensure consistent and transparent reporting of institutional fundraising and alumni engagement by revisiting longstanding areas in advancement and exploring those new areas that have emerged in recent years. 

In addition to the working group, practitioners from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S. were each charged with developing supplements to the book that addressed regionally specific nuances that diverged from the global standards and/or required more clarity. 

Orders for both the digital subscription and the print edition of the CASE Global Reporting Standards are available now. The print edition will ship and the access to the digital subscription will be available from March 11, 2021. 

Educational institutions will need to use the CASE Global Reporting Standards to report its fundraising results in AMAtlas Surveys for the FY22 fiscal year; reporting data in summer 2022 for the Voluntary Support of Education (US), CCAE (Canada), and CASE-Ross Surveys (UK/Europe).  For surveys in the Asia Pacific region that report on a calendar year, data will be collected in Winter 2023.  That gives institutions and education partners one to two years to adjust their counting/reporting practices. 

For additional questions about the CASE Global Reporting Standards, e-mail [email protected].

Creating and adhering to a set of methods, standards, and guidelines for reporting fundraising activities allows schools, colleges and universities to represent the work of all institutions in honest and clear ways. Having a set of guidelines means that CASE can use them as the underpinning of its ongoing work to guide the profession, ensure integrity and consistency in educational advancement work, and to support CASE’s own work in data collection and reporting. Consistency and transparency in reporting makes global benchmarking possible. 

For the first time, The CASE Global Reporting Standards will include chapters from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Europe which are applicable to CASE’s global membership and address the needs of institutions and members in key markets around the globe.   

Also, for the first time, the CASE Statement on Ethics and the CASE Principles of Practice will appear within the pages of the standards book. The CASE Principles of Practice were all recently updated by the CASE Commissions for Philanthropy, Communications and Marketing, and Alumni Relations and provide global guidelines for those professions. 

Within the standards themselves, guidance on donor control and donor influence, new metrics for funds received and new funds committed, and further clarification on sponsored research grants are among the more significant changes made within the new global edition.  

Finally, the CASE Global Reporting Standards will appear in print and digital form for the first time in its history. Because this and future editions will be digital, it means CASE and the advancement disciplines will be able to respond to changes in the profession in a more timely and rolling basis. 

Beginning in July (2021), CASE will begin the next stage of the implementation process— aligning existing AMAtlas surveys to the updated standards. This will be an ongoing, consultative process between the AMAtlas team and various regionally-based volunteer groups designed to understand the impact of changes on use of data.  

In some cases, implementing the new standards will require the drafting of new survey questions. In others, it will mean the modification of an existing question.  One of the great opportunities (and challenges) to standardization is the ability to make meaningful comparisons across CASE’s global suite of benchmarking surveys. In achieving this goal, CASE and the AMAtlas team will take care not to disrupt or dilute the analytical value that comes from longitudinal data, working closely with our members and volunteers to determine how best to introduce the new standards with minimal disruption to long-term trend reporting. In some cases, this may mean capturing additional data to supplement current standards for a period of time.  While the exact methods will be determined during the implementation process, the goal is to ensure our data meet current and future needs.  

Standards are a living entity, a reflection of the times and a recurring commitment to operating in ways that are transparent, replicable, and commonly understood.  Although the act of reviewing, studying and updating the CASE Global Reporting Standards will be undertaken in structured intervals, the true work of integrating them into the way advancement professionals measure and report on their institution’s initiatives will be an ongoing journey--- that CASE will be there to support every step of the way.  

The print book allows the purchaser to highlight, mark pages, and annotate where needed. The print book can also be shared among an advancement team and added to the office library. The book is spiral-bound and includes tabbed sections.

For the first time, The CASE Global Reporting Standards is offered in a digital format. The digital subscription is for 24 months (two years) and allows the purchaser to have easy, online access to Standards through a web browser. This makes the subscription a great option to have on your computer or mobile device so it is easy to reference when needed.   

Features within the digital subscription include a keyword or term search function, an interactive and hyperlinked table of contents to jump to the section you need, plus live links throughout the digital book. The subscription also includes instant access to any updates or added resources in the two years.

It can not be downloaded, printed or shared among teams -- a subscription is good for the person who purchased it using CASE login credentials.

No, the digital subscription gives the purchaser access to the digital material through that person's CASE login credentials. Therefore, per the terms and conditions, it can not be shared. 

If you are the primary coordinator for CASE membership, yes. You can assign access to someone on the roster. If you are not the primary or secondary coordinator, the person who wants access to CASE Global Reporting Standards must be the one to make the purchase (because it is attached to your CASE login).

Yes, there is a bundle product that includes both the print book and digital subscription for 10 percent off. If you are the primary or secondary coordinator for membership, you can also purchase multiple subscriptions or books and assign them to people on the roster. More than 10 units (either book or subscription) gives a 20 percent discount to the total. 

If you are not the primary or secondary coordinator, but would like to purchase bulk orders, please contact Member Support at support.case.org.

No, think of it more like Netflix. Purchasing a digital subscription gives you access to a web page where the Standards are kept...just like Netflix gives you access to movies you want to watch. 

A Kindle digital product is a book or file that is downloaded to a device. You don't need any device here, as the Standards can be accessed via any web browser, and you aren't downloading anything -- you are simply allowed into the Standards site to view it.

No, you can not download any part of the file or print it. It is not shareable across teams.