CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education)

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) is the global nonprofit association dedicated to educational advancement—alumni relations, communications, development, marketing, and advancement services—and championing education to transform lives and society.

To meet both individual and societal needs, colleges, universities and independent schools rely on and therefore must foster the goodwill, active involvement, informed advocacy and enduring support of alumni, donors, prospective students, parents, government officials, community leaders, corporate executives, foundation officers, and other external constituencies. CASE helps its members build stronger relationships with all of these constituencies in a number of ways.

How People Business assisted CASE

CASE became a retained client in February 2022 and since that relationship started, we have supported them with many projects and assisted the European office (based in London) on ongoing HR matters including enabling the change to flexible/hybrid working, localising the Global Handbook and policies, providing recruitment support and ensuring all people support aligns to their Global vision, mission and values.

In February 2024 we were commissioned to build a values-based competency framework for all their staff in Europe to enable focused development and career planning.

Key objectives were:

• Alignment to CASE Global Purpose & Values, focussed on four core competencies: 1) Professional Excellence 2) Integrity & Respect 3) Bold, Agile, Innovative and 4) Collaborative and Inclusive
• Enrich performance and development conversations, enabling effective feedback
• Drive consistency in expectations of CASE employee contribution
• Encourage ownership and agility to focus everyone’s efforts on the organisation’s strategic goals.

Through a process of structured discussions with the team, a Values and Core Behaviours framework was created based around the four core competencies. Capturing and summarising the expected core behaviours and key target competencies to aspire to – as well as those behaviours to avoid. Once completed the plan was to incorporate this framework into the organisation’s annual performance process, as well as manager check-ins to allow employees to flourish and develop.

What our client said

“Working with People Business helped us create a values framework that genuinely belongs to our team. Their approach ensured colleagues were consulted and engaged throughout the process, which has made a real difference to how the values are being embraced. Recently we invited team members to recognise colleagues who exemplify those values, and it was fantastic to see people celebrating behaviours they had helped define. The People Business team are always a pleasure to work with – responsive, thoughtful, and with a real understanding of our organisation and the challenges we’re navigating. We really value the support they provide.”

Pamela Agar, Co-Executive Director, CASE Europe