Illinois Extension 2024 Metrics Demonstrate the Value of Land-Grant Universities

By Bridget Lee-Calfas

Illinois residents, businesses, and communities are gaining transformational knowledge and experiencing quantifiable impact through the efforts of University of Illinois Extension, a unit of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. Illinois Extension’s staff has been embedded across the state’s 102 counties for more than 100 years, translating university research, delivering over 28,000 annual educational programs with over 800,000 program attendees, and offering training and services that positively impact the lives of adults and youths. 

As the state’s land-grant university, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign contributes to Illinois’ and the nation's economic and social development through Illinois Extension’s 775-person, locally responsive workforce and its nearly 6000 volunteers. Societal issues have increased in number and complexity since the inception of the Cooperative Extension Services across the nation in 1914, and Illinois Extension has applied a “systems” approach to proactively address these challenges and meet basic human needs by building relationships and partnerships with content experts and key collaborators and stakeholders to deliver evidence-based knowledge throughout rural, peri-urban, and metropolitan areas of the state. These efforts have been more fully focused through Extension’s new strategic plan, “Lifelong Learning. Lifelong Impact.,” launched in fall of 2024 that addresses timely and relevant topics, anticipates future issues, and shapes key initiatives in the following eight priorities: community, economy, environment, food and agriculture, health, partnership, technology and discovery, and workforce excellence. 

Lifelong Learning and Impact for Illinois

In 2024, Illinois Extension’s mission-centered outcomes in Illinois included: 

• 730 communities served
• 800,005 program attendees
• 547 educational sessions per week
• 28,000+ annual educational sessions
• 90 online courses accessed by 12,000+ people
• 12,484 participants in local government education webinars
• 1,840 4-H clubs with 20,339 members
• 261,012 4-H experiences
• 2.5M+ YouTube-based learning impressions
• 22.4M+ social media content impressions
• 9.7M+ website-based information transfer impressions

Partnerships That Produce Results

Partnership is a strategic priority for Illinois Extension because it is critical to community building, sharing of resources, and fostering trust and collaboration that lead to learning and impact. In 2024, Extension had 2,922 partnerships across the state, including for projects like the 266 community gardens, which harness volunteerism and gardening expertise to enhance local food systems and provide hands-on learning. 

Economic Impact and Sustained Funding

Like national peers, Illinois Extension is a component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and receives a combination of federal, state, local, and grant funding. While state extensions vary by the size of their state and population density, Illinois Extension is next-to-last in state-supported funding in the region. Despite this, Illinois Extension remains an important economic investment for Illinois. The creativity, technical skills, sustained local commitment, and ingenuity of staff and volunteers result in an impressive 1-to-10 economic return on funding dollars. One way this is achieved is through the train-the-trainer model employed in volunteer programs like Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, and Illinois 4-H. Extension volunteers create $15,735,213 in labor value annually. Extension-facilitated and grown produce was valued at $514,315 in 2024. Extension also secured $4.7M+ in additional external funds for its high-impact SNAP-Ed partnerships, executed in partnership with University of Illinois Chicago and UI Health through the Eat.Move.Save. program statewide. 

To ensure the future impact of Illinois Extension, the organization continues to advocate for funding at all levels, including through private donations, corporate giving, and granting agencies, as well as federal, state, and local government sources. Donors who choose to invest in Illinois Extension programming can visit extension.illinois.edu/giftpage or connect with Scott Burnsmier, assistant director for advancement.