Purpose
Guide to investigate and show the impact and value of an initiative to your institution and key stakeholders
Who this is for
When to use
Why is this toolkit important?
Any initiative is an institutional investment and must “prove” its value in ways that align with institutional goals as explicitly as possible if it is to be sustained and funded. Demonstrating impact can be challenging, especially with small or underrepresented student populations, making it crucial to broaden the concept of return on investment. This toolkit helps build a strong narrative for budget discussions with departments and boards.
Key actions
How to use this toolkit
There are two starting points for using this guide. Before you begin, determine which applies to your situation to ensure proper alignment and adaptation of the process.
If you already have a clear idea of your initiative (e.g. statewide initiatives), use this guide to align your project goals with the broader impact you aim to achieve. Map out how your initiative contributes to institutional KPIs and strategic goals, ensuring it adds measurable value to the institution.
If you’re in the early planning stages, start by identifying the desired impact. Use the guide to explore how your initiative can positively influence institutional KPIs, helping you design a project with clear, measurable outcomes from the start.
Once your approach is clear, consider ROI in two ways: tangible/direct, which ties directly to the institution’s bottom line, and intangible, which is harder to measure but equally important for driving institutional transformation. When making a case for your initiative, think broadly about its value and impact. Consider what types of arguments will be most persuasive to your key stakeholders and think about the institutional culture around qualitative and quantitative data.
Estimating financial ROI often involves educated guesses based on imperfect data, so it’s essential to consult institutional experts (IR, Finance, etc.) to build the strongest possible case for your initiative’s value.
It’s often beneficial to conduct these reflection activities, especially for intangible impacts, in a group to capture a wide range of perspectives.
Tools overview
There are 2 tools in this toolkit. They can be used together or individually.
Related
Next steps
Tangible Impact Guide
Why is this tool important?
Determining tangible impacts is essential for clearly demonstrating how your initiative contributes to measurable institutional goals, making it easier to align your project with KPIs and secure stakeholder support. Tangible impacts refer to effects or outcomes that can be easily quantified or measured in concrete, numerical terms. These impacts are often associated with physical or financial assets an can be directly tracked through data. Examples of tangible impacts include increased revenue, cost savings, operational efficiencies, or other measurable metrics from a transformation initiative. These quantifiable measures can be more directly linked to an institution’s bottom line.
See the Resource-Examples of Quantifiable Impacts below to understand what data can be quantified and calculated financially.
If your initiative is predetermined, focus on identifying any additional potential impacts or skip this step.
Examples of Quantifiable Impact
Increase in Enrollment
Increase in Retention
Increase in Average Student Credit Hour Load
Increase in State and/or External Funding
Efficiency Improvements
Savings from Credit Hour Completion Rates
Savings from Operational Efficiencies
Quantifying Initiative Impact
Once you understand what you want to measure quantifiably throughout your initiative, it’s time to involve your institutional research and budget/financial offices to help you with calculations, research your institution’s funding model, and collect the inputs needed to measure your initiative’s impact.
Guiding Actions
Net Revenue from Impact on Institutional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Estimating Cost Savings from Efficiency Improvements
The following formula can help you estimate how an initiative might impact the institution during the proposal stage and can help you quantify the financial impact of an initiative upon its completion. Before your calculation, be sure you know how many students or participants are enrolled in your initiative.
Potential ROI for Initiative =
(Impact of increase in KPI per student) x (# pf students/participants utilizing or enrolled in the initiative)
Who knows your institution’s funding model? (e.g., Finance, Business Office, IR, etc.)
Who are the key players?
Are there any state-level funding considerations to take into account?
If yes, skip to action #5 below. If no, see the Resource – Tools for ROI & Funding Models section below for examples. However, before using any external tool, confirm the tool is supported and trusted by senior leadership, your budget office, and the institutional research department.
Consider the following examples of inputs for revenue or financial impact in your tool or model.
Example inputs to consider
Initiative Funding
Initiative Expenditures
Institutional/Unit Inputs
Tools for ROI & Funding Models
Why is this tool important?
This guide helps identify and assess your initiative’s less visible but crucial effects. Intangible impacts often relate to institutional aspects such as reputation, culture, climate, or student experience. Unlike tangible impacts, such as financial gains or physical assets, they lack a straightforward measurement method, making them more challenging to assess. Nonetheless, they can significantly influence long-term success and transformation within your institution.
Demonstrating Initiative Value Qualitatively
Direct financial impact can be challenging to demonstrate, but the intangible benefits of your initiative can be more compelling if presented thoughtfully. Often, this can be a long list, depending on the initiative. The important thing is to frame your project as explicitly as possible to align it with your institution’s/key stakeholders’ strategic goals.
Suggestions for what to highlight to bolster the case for your initiative include (1) enhanced institutional or departmental reputation, (2) improved institutional culture and climate, and (3) improved student experience.
Capturing Qualitative Impact
Ask students, staff, faculty, etc., before and after an initiative for feedback. It does not need to be a formal survey, but collecting feedback and stories demonstrating impact can help make the case for an initiative’s value. If possible, survey participants before, during, and after an initiative to track shifts in behavior and capture student voice/participant perspectives. You can do this using simple tools or use whatever survey instruments your institution uses.
Pre-initiative survey
During initiative surveys
Post-Initiative Survey
Establish a baseline before intervention from participants enrolled in an initiative and those not enrolled but with access to it.
Temperature checks or check-ins throughout with participants involved in initiatives.
Survey participants enrolled in an initiative and those not enrolled but with access to it.
–
–
Guiding Questions
How can this initiative help boost institutional reputation, credibility, and prestige (external rankings, taxonomies, models, and scales) that can drive institutional marketing to students, partners, and external stakeholders?
Some suggestions to consider:
What specific external rankings, taxonomies, scales, etc., can you leverage to bolster your case?
Some suggestions to consider:
For example, budget stakeholders. Consider team members who are also responsible and accountable for this project’s workstreams.
How might your initiative promote the following?
Examples intangible benefits or impacts
Critical question to consider: What is the framework or criteria you’re using to ensure that the institution is aware of and responsive to the unique needs of different student subpopulations at your institution?
For example:
