Quantitative analyses of the social and economic roles of higher education institutions are limited by the lack of an institutional-level measure of regional engagement. One way to conceptualize regional engagement is through stewardship of place, or the technologies and work by postsecondary institutions that contribute to regional economic and community development. This study creates a measure of stewardship of place, the Stewardship of Place Index, that relies entirely upon publicly available data. The final index comprises three dimensions: Education, Research, and Regional Needs. We validate the index through a series of qualitative and quantitative steps. The instrument can be used by institutions for benchmarking, assessment, and communicating work to stakeholders, and it can be used by researchers to analyze the role of postsecondary institutions in regional development. Additional findings highlight data limitations and major shortcomings of the Carnegie Community Engagement classification.