Associated Colleges of the Midwest

What Associated Colleges of the Midwest does

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) is a nonprofit consortium established in 1958 that connects 14 private liberal arts colleges across five midwestern states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Colorado). Headquartered in Chicago with a small professional staff, ACM serves a collective community of over 23,000 students, 1,700 faculty, and 4,500 staff across its member institutions, which include Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester, Beloit, Colorado College, and ten other liberal arts colleges. Founded with three core purposes — advancing educational effectiveness, improving operational efficiency, and developing additional revenue sources — ACM acts as a partner, convener, and shared services provider for member institutions that could not pursue these initiatives independently at their individual scale.

ACM delivers value through three primary program categories. Professional development offerings include the Mellon-funded Academic Leadership Fellowships ($20K annual stipend, 50% teaching reduction), the Leading from the Middle Certificate Program for mid-level staff, the Department Chair leadership series, the Athletics Academy, the Navigating a Changing Higher Education Landscape program, the ACM Grants Lab proposal writing accelerator, and the Sustaining Belonging webinar series. Research and innovation initiatives include the Faculty Career Enhancement Program (FaCE), which has distributed $1.15M across 62 collaborative projects since 2014, the High-Impact Practices institutionalization initiative, and the Sense of Community data project in partnership with HEDS. Consortium-level services include the Surveys and Data Exchange program (operating since 1980), 20+ active consortial groups, 50+ email listservs, the Tuition Remission Exchange Program (TREP), and Shared Off-Campus Study Programs spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. ACM's operations do not rely on proprietary technology platforms; delivery occurs through in-person workshops, virtual sessions, peer learning networks, and email-based community infrastructure, with the ICF Online adaptive learning course as the closest approximation to a digital product.

The organization's revenue model combines three streams: recurring annual membership dues from its 14 member colleges, external foundation grants (the Mellon Foundation is the primary external funder, with cumulative documented grants exceeding $4.6M; the Teagle and Arthur Vining Davis Foundations provide additional support), and nominal program registration fees (e.g., $150 Grants Lab fee per participant, $25 TREP application fee, $200 Department Chair completion stipend). ACM is governed by a Board of Directors composed of member institution representatives and led by President Lisa Jasinski, Ph.D., with Allen Linton II serving as Senior Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. The organization pursues a community-led go-to-market motion, with no traditional sales function; programs are delivered directly to faculty, staff, and students at member colleges through institutional partnerships and peer networks.

Name

Associated Colleges of the Midwest

Legal name

Associated Colleges of the Midwest

Website

https://acm.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

1958

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest is a 14-member nonprofit consortium of private liberal arts colleges founded in 1958 and headquartered in Chicago, delivering professional development, collaborative research programs, shared data services, and tuition exchange to over 23,000 students and 1,700 faculty across the Midwest.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Higher Education Consortium Services

NAICS

Educational Services (611), Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools (6113)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Residential Liberal Arts Colleges (EDAHACAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Articulation & Credit Transfer Partnerships (EDAIABAE), University-Led Summer/Winter Schools (Credit/Non-Credit) (EDAIAIAA)

Keywords

• Consortium higher education
• Faculty professional development
• Academic leadership programs
• Liberal arts collaboration
• Consortium grant programs

Headquarters

HQ city

Chicago

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Others, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Membership Dues and Consortium Fees: ACM is funded through annual dues and fees from its 14 member institutions. The consortium coordinates collaborative programs and shares resources to advance shared educational goals.
2. External Foundation Grants: ACM receives significant grant funding from foundations including Mellon Foundation ($1.16M renewal grant October 2024, $1.5M grant 2022, $2M for FaCE 2014-2025), Teagle Foundation, and Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to support specific programs and initiatives.
3. Program Registration Fees: Some ACM programs charge nominal participant fees, such as the ACM Grants Lab at $150 per participant for the first five registrants from each member campus.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

ACM is a nonprofit consortium of 14 private liberal arts colleges that delivers shared professional development, faculty career enhancement grants, peer networking groups, multi-campus data collection, tuition remission exchange, and shared off-campus study programs. Its core value lies in pooling resources across small institutions to run leadership fellowships (Mellon-funded), grant-writing labs, high-impact practices initiatives, and sense-of-community surveys that no single member could mount alone.

Product overview

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest is a consortium of 14 private liberal arts colleges offering collaborative programs and services rather than a traditional software product. The organization provides professional development programs (Academic Leadership Fellowships, Leading Effectively as a Department Chair, Leading from the Middle Certificate Program, Navigating a Changing Higher Education Landscape, ACM Athletics Academy), grant support services (ACM Grants Lab, external funding resources), workshops (Sustaining Belonging webinars, ICF Online course), research and innovation initiatives (Collaboration to Institutionalize High-Impact Practices, Faculty Career Enhancement Program, Sense of Community Initiative), data services (Surveys and Data Exchange), networking (20+ consortial groups, 50+ listservs), resources (ACM Archives, college calendars, summer programs), off-campus study programs, and tuition remission exchange. These offerings work together to support academic excellence, equity, connection, and innovation across member institutions serving over 23,000 students.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Academic Leadership Fellowships

Quantifiable outcome

• 62 collaborative faculty projects funded through FaCE program impacting thousands of students across all 14 campuses
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered supporting.

• Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS)supportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerACM partners with HEDS to administer the HEDS Sense of Community Survey across member campuses. This multi-campus data collection initiative helps member colleges understand and address employee sense of belonging, compare institutional results, and identify promising practices to enhance community among faculty and staff.
• Associated Colleges of the SouthsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative consortium partner that co-hosted summer institutes with ACM for the Academic Leadership Fellows program, providing shared professional development opportunities and expanding the network of participating faculty leaders beyond the Midwest.
• New York Six Liberal Arts ConsortiumsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative consortium partner that co-hosted summer institutes with ACM for the Academic Leadership Fellows program, enabling cross-consortium learning and expanded peer networks for participating faculty leaders.
• Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA)supportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerGLCA collaborates with ACM on joint initiatives including the Midwest College Showcase college fair, Counselor Institutes, annual admissions meetings, and international student services groups, providing broader reach and shared resources for member institutions across both consortia.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Five Colleges Inc. Consortium of five western Massachusetts institutions (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith, UMass Amherst) operating cross-registration, shared libraries, and faculty collaboration — a structurally analogous liberal arts consortium model.
• New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium: Consortium of six upstate New York liberal arts colleges (Colgate, Hamilton, Hobart and William Smith, St. Lawrence, Skidmore, Union). Co-hosts summer institutes with ACM and shares the small-college consortium model.
• Great Lakes Colleges Association: Regional consortium of private liberal arts colleges in the Great Lakes region that explicitly co-hosts programs with ACM (e.g., Midwest College Showcase, Counselor Institutes, annual admissions meetings). Overlapping membership and complementary programming make it ACM's closest peer.
• Associated Colleges of the South: Consortium of 16 southern liberal arts colleges. Co-hosts summer institutes with ACM for the Academic Leadership Fellows program, operating an essentially identical consortium model in a different region.
• Annapolis Group: Consortium of approximately 130 leading national liberal arts college presidents that advocates for the liberal arts model. Comparable to ACM as a peer-led consortium dedicated to residential liberal arts education, though operating nationally rather than regionally.
• Claremont Colleges: Consortium of seven Claremont, California institutions (Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, Pitzer, plus two graduate schools) demonstrating the multi-college consortium model applied to residential liberal arts education.
• Tri-College Consortium (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore): Cross-registration and shared-resource consortium among three Philadelphia-area liberal arts colleges. Operates at smaller scale than ACM but exemplifies the same consortium-of-liberal-arts-colleges model.

Others

• EDUCAUSE: Higher education technology and leadership association serving thousands of institutions globally. Not a direct peer but represents a much larger, adjacent consortium model that competes for the same foundation attention and senior leadership engagement.

Broad incumbents

• Council of Independent Colleges: National membership association for private, nonprofit colleges and universities. Provides leadership development and cost-savings programs across a much broader set of institutions, partially overlapping with ACM's professional development offerings.

Emerging players

• Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE): MIT-administered consortium of ~35 selective private colleges and universities focused on data sharing, financial benchmarking, and collaborative research. Mirrors ACM's data-services function at a more selective institutional tier.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ACMedu
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@acm-highered
• Facebookfacebook.com/ACMedu
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/associated-colleges-of-the-midwest
• Instagraminstagram.com/acmedu

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Associated Colleges of the Midwest