College Alumni Relations Benchmarks

Twenty three percent of alumni currently alive have ever made a financial contribution to the
college from which they graduated, according to a new study from Primary Research Group,
College Alumni Relations Benchmarks. The study is based on a survey of 60 colleges that
provided data on a broad range of alumni-relations related issues. The mean number of students
enrolled (FTE equivalent) for the colleges in the sample was 6,473 with a range from only 200 to
40,000. The mean enrollment size of the private colleges in the sample was 2,842, while mean
enrollment for the public colleges was 10,575 The 115-page report has more than 400 tables of
data exploring managerial, financial and other issues in alumni relations.

Some of the reports findings are that:

•#For the colleges that offer alumni credit cards to alumni, the mean percentage of alumni
that take up the college on the offer is 4%, with a median of 2%.


•#FTE employment in the alumni offices has remained the same for about 60% of the
offices in the sample over the past two years, but has increased for more than 28% of the
offices and decreased for 12.5%.

•#The mean number of employees of the Office of Alumni Relations, Alumni Affairs or other
office charged with the task of alumni relations was only 3.22 with a median of only 2.0.

•#A quarter of the colleges in the sample offered auto insurance to alumni. Private colleges
were twice as likely as public colleges to offer auto insurance.

•#More than 76% of the colleges in the sample used direct telephone solicitation to ask for
financial support from alumni.

•#The mean overall budget for alumni reunions in the past year for the alumni offices in the
sample was $37,079.Private colleges, a quarter of the size of public colleges in the sample,
spent more than twice as much on reunions that their public counterparts.