CASE Insights Survey

CASE Insights on Philanthropy (United Kingdom and Ireland)

Formerly the CASE-Ross survey

Key Dates

  • Data Collection -
  • 2023-24 Report Published

Discover the latest survey changes

Watch our webinar recording to find out more about this year’s survey, including changes to definitions in line with the latest update to the CASE Global Reporting Standards (March 2024).

Register to watch the webinar recording

The webinar also features a demo of the new survey platform which offers improved navigation, embedded question guidance and real-time data validation to ensure errors are identified and corrected before submission.

The first CASE Insights on Philanthropy (United Kingdom and Ireland), formerly the CASE-Ross survey, was carried out in 2002 (for 2001-02 data) and built on previous surveys undertaken within the Ross Group; the survey has been repeated annually since then. Participation is open to all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The survey:

  • collects detailed information about gift revenue, fundraising costs, and donors to measure the philanthropic performance of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland;
  • provides an estimate of the overall impact of philanthropy on the higher education sector;
  • is the only source of information on this subject and enables institutions to compare themselves with similar/peer institutions.

The survey asks for data on specific fundraising variables:

  • New funds committed (total, by source, by contribution level, largest confirmed new pledge or gift);
  • Funds received (total, by source, by contribution level, from legacies, largest cash gifts, from various triggers);
  • Fundraising and alumni relations programme (fundraising and alumni relations – staff, expenditure);
  • Donors (donor intentions, potential donors – total, individual, organisation, donor numbers – total, individual, organisations)
  • Institutional campaign(s).

If you have questions or suggestions regarding the survey and/or reporting guidelines, please contact the CASE Insights team via insights@case.org 

 

How to Participate

 

The first step in the process is to complete the Survey Contact Form. Starting in November 2024, the survey will be administered on a new CASE survey platform. Survey contacts will receive notifications about the survey as well as login accounts for the new platform. When the survey opens, CASE will provide contacts with a link to the survey platform and instructions on how to login.

The CASE Insights on Philanthropy (United Kingdom and Ireland) survey must be completed and submitted via the new CASE Insights survey website. Once the survey opens, you can begin entering your data. The new survey platform includes instructions and definitions within the survey and real-time data validation to identify and correct errors as you go. There are also three documents to assist with survey completion: a PDF of the survey questions, the survey guidance document, and an Excel Survey Data Collection Form to assemble data before entering it in the online survey. While all data submitted on the CASE Insights survey site will be stored for future access, saving data in the Excel survey data collection form can serve as a backup for your reference.

Before the completed survey is submitted, we require that the senior most Advancement Professional/Director of Development reviews and signs off the reported data. You are also required to sign the Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) – this has been embedded within the survey itself. There is no hard copy required to be signed. The DSA is in place to ensure participating institutions do not share results outside of their institution and guarantees that results are only used for benchmarking purposes.

CASE conducts additional validation and may follow up about any perceived discrepancies. The data is run through rigorous checks to ensure that the data submitted is free from errors and as robust as possible. Once the data is validated, CASE will open up access to benchmarking capabilities. In addition, CASE will conduct data analysis and write a report on the findings; this will be distributed to participants and posted on the survey webpage.

Once the submitted data is validated, CASE Insights will open up access to benchmarking.

Previous year’s data (from 2014-15 till 2021-22) will continue to be available on the CASE Insights benchmarking toolkit (formerly known as the CASE Benchmarking Toolkit). The Benchmarking Toolkit How-To Guide provides a click-by-click guide to help you navigate the toolkit while benchmarking. Please use either the Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers to access the CASE Insights benchmarking toolkit as some features of the toolkit are not compatible with the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers.

Please note that access to the CASE Insights benchmarking toolkit requires a CASE account. If you have previously logged into case.org, please use the same email and password to access the CASE Insights benchmarking toolkit. If you don't have an account you will have to create a new account. If you're not sure if you have an account you can look up your email address through our portal.

If you’d like to update your institution’s data for 2020-21, 2021-22, or 2022-23 please email insights@case.org.

Editorial Board

The current CASE Insights on Philanthropy (United Kingdom and Ireland) Editorial Board members are:

  • TJ (Tania Jane) Rawlinson - Director, Development and Alumni Relations, Cardiff University
  • Frances Shepherd - Director of Development and Alumni, University of Glasgow
  • Tom Smith - Development Operations Manager, Loughborough University
  • Holly Salvona - Operations And Research Manager, University of Strathclyde Glasgow
  • Fiona Newell - Philanthropic Finance Manager, University of Birmingham

All editorial board members sign non-disclosure agreements with CASE to safeguard the data submitted by participating institutions. As part of the data querying process, editorial board members may get access to survey data for all institutions to enable them to conduct meaningful checks and use their experience and knowledge of the sector to flag any anomalies in the data (for instance, if a very small institution reports a relatively large alumni staff number).

Insights for Building Strategy

Tags

Europe United Kingdom and Ireland Northern Europe Higher Education Fundraising Research and Data