Dartmouth, Geisel School, and Dartmouth Health Honored with Advancement Awards
Four CASE Circle of Excellence Awards recognize innovative internal operations and a successful global campaign.
The world’s leading organization for educational advancement professionals recently honored Dartmouth, the Geisel School of Medicine, and Dartmouth Health for exceptional achievement in their strategic use of data and survey findings, improved internal communications, and the record-setting results of The Call to Lead campaign.
Dartmouth’s Advancement Division and the Medical and Healthcare Advancement office shared by the Geisel School of Medicine and Dartmouth Health received four Circle of Excellence Awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. These peer-selected and adjudicated awards—the premier form of recognition within the field of educational advancement—honor universities, colleges, and schools worldwide whose staff have advanced their organizations with resourcefulness and ingenuity.
“We are delighted and honored to be recognized again by CASE for the innovative thinking and creativity that distinguish the Dartmouth Advancement Division,” says Chief Advancement Officer Ann Root Keith. “This year’s Circle of Excellence Awards recognize facets of our division’s work that alumni and friends have seen, as well as internal operations that aren’t as visible but are absolutely essential to Dartmouth’s continued growth and success.”
Circle of Excellence Awards recognize nearly all aspects of higher education advancement operations, from external-facing print and digital material to behind-the-scenes operational initiatives. Dartmouth has received 27 CASE Circle of Excellence Awards in the past six years, including two silver and two bronze awards in 2024:
Workshops With Purpose
Silver Award
The Dartmouth Advancement Market Research team facilitated two high-energy, interactive workshops to discuss results from a recent alumni survey, which generated a series of innovative ideas to foster greater alumni connection. Rather than share the survey insights and ask Advancement colleagues to digest the material on their own, this approach with the Advancement Market Research team empowered to be proactive and call the workshops on its own initiative—
fueled collaboration across teams, made for lively discussions, fostered a culture of inclusivity, and transformed data into meaningful action. CASE judges applauded the workshops for involving staff from all levels within the Advancement Division.
Silos To Synergy
Silver Award
In response to the sudden shift to remote work due to the pandemic, many teams within the Advancement Division quickly embraced tools to communicate internally, but information-sharing between offices lagged. In response, a cross-departmental team implemented a strategic communication infrastructure that included creating an internal staff website based in Microsoft SharePoint, training and onboarding of departments, and ongoing coordination and oversight at the division level. Internal surveys have shown strong staff satisfaction with the improved information-sharing tools. Judges lauded Dartmouth for developing the initiative in-house without the assistance of outside consultants and for creating an approach that other institutions can replicate.
Dartmouth Answers The Call to Lead
Bronze Award
When Dartmouth closed The Call to Lead in June 2023, nearly 100,000 donors had committed $3.77 billion to campaign priorities. It was the first campaign anywhere with a total of more than $3 billion in commitments and 60 percent undergraduate alumni participation. CASE judges praised the campaign for its clearly communicated goals and demonstrated metrics. Judges particularly appreciated The Call to Lead’s focus on women’s philanthropy, including the alumnae-led renovation of Dartmouth Hall and establishment of the Centennial Circle of Dartmouth Alumnae, which secured more than $78 million for endowed financial aid during the campaign. Among the achievements made possible by the campaign, the average first-year undergraduate financial aid award has grown from $47,000 to $67,000 and student loans are no longer required; the College has 56 newly endowed professorships; and Dartmouth added more than 600,000 square feet of academic, athletic, and student life space for learning, research, and leadership development.
Reimagining Donor Engagement
Bronze Award
The stewardship team for Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine developed an evidence-based approach to design a comprehensive donor-engagement program. Still in the midst of being rolled out, the program has expanded the institutions’ understanding of giving behavior and leveraged that knowledge to more accurately identify donor audiences across a complex medical and academic health system. This created data-informed strategies to communicate and cultivate prospective donors, while identifying donor audiences with the greatest potential for continued and increased giving and establishing a metric baseline to measure success. The first phase of the initiative featured a program for mid-level and first-time donors, launched in 2023. Geisel and Dartmouth Health are already seeing improved retention of first-time donors. Judges commended the thought and strategy behind the data-driven decision-making process.
CASE is a global organization dedicated to educational advancement activities, including alumni relations, communications, development, marketing, and advancement services. Its members include more than 3,600 colleges and universities, primary and secondary independent and international schools, and nonprofit organizations in more than 80 countries.