In an ongoing era of decreasing state and federal funding for higher education, this paper uses resource dependency and organizational identity theory to argue that alumni represent a critical resource for higher education institutions, but that the development of their organizational identity as alumni, and therefore their identity as prospective…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of chief development officers about the influence of socio-demographic, alumni involvement, and student experience factors of alumni on major giving to higher education institutions. This study also involved the investigation of differences between institutions with respect to…

This study explored the relationships between alumni participation in university alumni events, past university experiences (motivation), and financial contributions (alumni giving). The university studied is a small private level 5 university with an enrollment in 1991 of 1,200 and 2,000 in 1999, and researchers studied undergraduates who…

Annual funds face pressures to contact all alumni to maximize participation, but these efforts are costly. This paper uses a logistic regression model to predict likely donors among alumni from the College of Arts & Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park. Alumni were grouped according to their predicted probability of donating…

The paper summarizes what is currently known about fund raising in higher education, and proposes priorities for research that will better inform fund raising practitioners. Research on fund raising has been limited for such reasons as lack of interest by the professoriate and the relative recency of the major professional association of fund…

The financial viability of private colleges was assessed by examining the relationship of expenditures to endowment to voluntary support (nongovernment gifts and grants). A sample of 284 private coeducational colleges was drawn from the Council for Financial Aid to Education's (CFAE) annual survey of voluntary support (1976-1977 to 1980-1981). The…

As their graduates assume increasingly powerful civic and career positions, community colleges should utilize alumni as potential sources of fiscal and community support. To do so requires an alumni affairs organization through which the college and its alumni can be of help to each other. Colleges can provide former students with opportunities…

The current study tests a theoretical model of alumni giving developed inductively from prior research. Donor status is directly predicted by willingness to give, alumni involvement, perceptions of the economic environment, perceived need, charitable preferences, receipt of a scholarship and capacity to give along with several indirect predictors.…

This study focused on how college experiences influence the decision of alumni to contribute financially to a small, religiously affiliated liberal arts university. Collegiate extracurricular activities and the college's contribution to personal and social development were examined as they relate to donor status and donor level. ACT College…

By looking at the history and current status of two-year college alumni programs, one can better anticipate and plan for their future. The development of alumni programs at public community and junior colleges has been a recent phenomenon about which there is no repository of information. Within the State University of New York system, 20 of the…

Fund raising effectiveness in 10 types of higher education institutions and for four major donor groups was studied. Separate analyses were undertaken for public and private institutions of five types (research, doctoral, comprehensive, baccalaureate, and two-year). Donor types were alumni gifts, non-alumni gifts, corporate gifts, and foundation…

This paper looks at the role of student affairs departments in fund raising, educating current college students about philanthropy, and alumni who were past participants in student affairs activities. The central thesis of the paper is that, because student affairs departments are particularly vulnerable to funding cuts, they should increase their…

This study investigated selected attitudinal and demographic factors, involvement, and philanthropic awareness of alumni donors and non-donors from a Research I, public university. A random sample of 500 alumni (250 donors and 250 non-donors) was selected from a population of 37,691, resulting in 371 (74 percent) usable surveys. Discriminant…

A prevailing common notion regarding fund-raising success in higher education is that institutions with "more" of certain important characteristics achieve higher totals in voluntary support than institutions with "less." The corollary, which also prevails, is that if there are not high levels of these characteristics, the…

Attracting and keeping good volunteers must be a primary concern of community college institutional advancement teams. The first of three general principles in recruiting and motivating volunteers is to establish the worthiness of the cause. This can be achieved by presenting potential volunteers with accurate financial information about the…