The future of American higher education now depends on its ability to attract more and larger gifts for endowment. Comprehensive strategies that include all the ways to increase endowments are presented. (MLW)

To raise money for endowment, there needs to be a mix of strong leadership, solid fund-raising technique, and confidence-inspiring endowment fund management. These ingredients have helped Berea College increase its endowment to more than $100 million. (MLW)

The annual Comparative Performance Study of the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) contains data on the endowments of 223 colleges and universities. It can help answer many donor questions. (MLW)

The modest foundation that publisher DeWitt Wallace established for Macalester College (Minnesota) in 1981 suddenly became $200 million in 1990. Previous strategic planning has laid a foundation for decisions regarding use of the assets, which will be used to strengthen the faculty, curriculum, student opportunities, and facilities. (MSE)

Offers guidelines for creating a strategic plan for a college or university's annual fund. Identifies benefits of strategic planning and describes six planning approaches using examples from various institutions. Two planning prototypes, from McKendree College (Illinois) and the University of Southern California, are included. (DB)

Guidelines for conducting an annual fund at colleges and universities stress the importance of aggregate donor behavior and donor value, rather than solicitation technique, in driving strategic planning and goal-setting. Suggests fund raisers track three measures of donor participation: donor retention, lapsed donor reactivation, and new donor…

A three-year endowment campaign at the University of Texas at Austin is described. Other ideas from CASE members are described including alumni endowments, foundations and corporations, federal and state endowments, and unusual endowments. (MLW)

How the ability of competing institutions to attract private support has changed over time is discussed. Data from 1971 to 1982 on Tufts University and 33 other selective colleges and universities was studied. (MLW)

Ten steps to planning a marketing strategy to increase endowments are identified: conditions of fund, ways to establish funds, guidelines for funds, good business practices, enduring nature for fund, recognition of donors, corporations, periodic reports to donors, etc. (MLW)

A campaign to create an endowed chair in surgery for the Vanderbilt University Medical Center is described. More than $1.1 million was raised in less than six months for the chair, and a new set of prospective donors was found. (MLW)

Robert W. Woodruff's $100 million grant to the medical school at Emory University (Georgia), the largest individual gift in the history of U.S. education, was the culmination of a process in which the entire foundation was turned over to the university in 1978. The endowment is used throughout the institution for improving educational programs,…

A planned giving recognition program lets donors know how much they are appreciated. The Forsyth Heritage Society at Texas A&M was formed in 1989 for donors who had their wills on file with the university. Recognition program descriptions include those at University of Miami, Amherst College, Dartmouth College, etc. (MLW)

Through $33 million in gifts, Michael W. Louis has helped convert century-old National College of Education (Illinois) into a multicampus, nationwide university pioneering ways to make education available to working adults. The process began with a friendship between a college president with a vision and an industrial heir who appreciated it. (MSE)