March 2025 Survey of Advancement Professionals

The Washburn McGoldrick March 2025 survey of advancement professionals is the twelfth in our Advancement Moving Forward series. The previous eleven surveys in this series were conducted in April 2020, June 2020, September 2020, January 2021, May 2021, November 2021, April 2022, December 2022, June 2023, November 2023 and June 2024. Details about the methodology and participating institutions are found at the end of this report.

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As the nation’s colleges prepare to complete their academic year with many universities facing an array of external challenges, a new survey finds that despite potential obstacles, there has been a rebound among most of these institutions’ senior advancement leaders in their confidence to achieve their financial goals for the year.

According to the survey, a majority (79%) of these senior leaders (CAOs/AVPs) believe they will reach their goals, representing a 23% increase since this survey was conducted in June of 2024. In fact, the survey reveals that this level of confidence among senior level advancement leaders (CAOs/AVPs) is at a level not seen since June 2023.

The Advancement Moving Forward survey is the twelfth in a series, conducted by Washburn McGoldrick, one of the nation’s leading educational and institutional advancement consulting firms, finds that while senior advancement staff are confident about current outcomes (giving and engagement) they remain significantly less confident about building toward the future with donor and volunteer pipelines.

The survey also finds that the majority of advancement professionals are satisfied with their jobs. Ninety percent of CAOs/AVPs and 81% of gift and alumni officers answer that they are very or somewhat satisfied. Levels of satisfaction do not vary widely between the two types of roles. This represents a change from the June 2024 survey, when CAOs/AVPs were more likely than gift and alumni officers to be very satisfied.

The survey also reveals that the vast majority (eight out of ten) of advancement professionals are satisfied with their jobs regardless of their length of advancement experience. This represents a small change from the June 2024 survey, which found that respondents with intermediate experience levels were slightly less likely to be very or somewhat satisfied. This difference has been erased in this survey and there is no statistical difference based on tenure in the profession.

Among the key trends emerging from the survey is a substantial increase in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in advancement. In fact, the survey finds a clear majority of respondents (77%) state they are using AI for work purposes. The share of respondents not using AI fell by half in the period between the June 2024 survey and this survey, from 45% to 23%.

The most significant growth is seen primarily in writing tasks like writing stewardship communications (from 25% to 34%), writing annual giving solicitations (from 20% to 31%), creating personalized content (from 19% to 27%), and creating templates for meeting requests (from 10% to 23%). This suggests that natural language model varieties of AI, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, are increasing their foothold for those types of tasks.

In addition to feeling more confident about achieving their budget goals, the survey finds that half (51%) of respondents anticipate little change to their FY26 advancement budget compared to this year. One-in-five (19%) expect a slight increase, as do one-fifth (19%) who expect a slight decrease.

In terms of overall giving areas, the survey respondents indicated that scholarships and financial aid are the only areas where a majority (62%) anticipate positive changes. This was followed by endowment (42%) and overall giving (40%).

Giving in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is seen as the most likely to experience negative change, with 39% of respondents stating as such. This is followed by unrestricted giving (19%) and gifts to capital (12%).

“College campuses continue to face an array of external challenges making it more critical than ever that the educational advancement leaders of these institutions remain confident in their ability to achieve their goals,” says Carla Willis, Managing Partner, Washburn McGoldrick. “Our goal in the coming year is to continue to work with these institutions and their educational advancement leaders to help them face these challenges and deepen their support and engagement with all levels of donors.”

The Washburn McGoldrick March 2025 survey was conducted in February 2025. Responses were received by 227 individuals from 107 colleges, universities, independent schools, and museums. These include two Historically Black Colleges and Universities and four Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The margin of error is +/- 6.0% at the 95% confidence level.

Key Findings

Participating Institutions

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