Benchmarking Projects

Benchmarking projects are a lot more detailed than benchmarking surveys.  They are usually conducted using a third party vendor.  Among the vendors that benchmark include EAB, Eduventures, CASE, and many fundraising consultants including GG+A, Marts & Lundy, CCS, and Campbell & Company. Vendors will want to know the following:

• What are you trying to accomplish by doing this project
• Who is the audience that will be reading the report generated by the benchmarking project
• What are the 10-15 most important questions that you want to have answered by this project
• Are you facing any internal deadlines that relate to this project
• Who are the peers that you would like to have surveyed

Always ask the vendor to provide you with a summary of what they intend to do at the outset, a mid-project update containing initial findings, and the final report. The final report should include a list of contacts at the institutions they spoke with so that you can follow-up with them after the project report is delivered should you have further questions about the information that they provided to the vendor.