When it comes to raising money for college and university athletic programs, every professional knows how the game is played. Tickets drive the bus. In exchange for gifts, donors typically pay seat-licensing fees. This kind of "quid pro quo" giving--where generous contributions put one in position to buy good tickets--is a very common model," says…

Examining Black church support of higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this article highlights the longstanding project of African-American self-determination. Motivated donors, many of who would not in their lifetime see the fruits of their gifts, made faithful investments in the project of racial uplift.…

Philanthropy has shaped American higher education from inception. While religion earns the biggest slice of philanthropy, education runs second and well ahead of other causes. Most community college donations are earmarked for scholarships. Foundation dollars can be used strategically to meet the needs of students who cannot qualify for federal…

Last week, the biggest annual gathering of college fund raisers was held in New York as some of the rockiest business news of the year unfolded. The three-day event, organized by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, was bookended by the federal government's announcement that it would step in to bail out the beleaguered mortgage…

College leaders and policymakers benefit by understanding the relationship between increases in private giving, changes in state appropriations and how to position the institution to maximize both sources of revenue. Anecdotal and attitudinal studies suggested that fundraising success may affect state funding of higher education institutions.…

As a solution to dwindling government revenue, higher education in Great Britain has recently begun to increase fundraising. While it looks to the United States' higher education sector as a model, there are significant legal, historical and cultural differences between the two nations that could limit the British higher education sector's…

Colleges and universities rely on alumni involvement to enhance institutions and donations from alumni to subsidize the cost of operating the institution; however, institutions cannot expect that students automatically learn how to be good alumni simply by attending college. Students must be taught this skill in a similar fashion to how they learn…

Annual giving is the number one indicator that someone will make a major or planned gift. Annual funds are the meat and potatoes of fundraising. But if the annual fund has recently taken a backseat to major and megagifts, the recession made a bad situation even worse. Today, most annual fund performance indicators have plummeted. Virtually all…

Pressured by constricting state appropriations and ever-increasing financial demands, the nation's community colleges are ratcheting up fundraising efforts to attract new donors. Many are finding success. Honolulu Community College in Hawaii, for example, recently received an estate gift of $3.5 million. Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico…

Planning is a critical step to take before launching a capital campaign, if marketing materials are to cater to all potential donors and reinforce the institution's brand--which defines what the institution is and what it does, and is shaped by what people think of it. Here, the author discusses the importance of maintaining and conveying a…

Philanthropists have long funded a wide range of educational research, practice, and policy initiatives, primarily through namesake foundations. Some observers have criticized these efforts as doing little to change the status quo in education and have called for more aggressive action on the part of this sector. Out of this critique has emerged a…

By the time Tufts University announced its $1.2 billion fund-raising campaign last fall, it had already raised $615 million in the quiet phase. About half of those early donations came from just 39 people--the university's Board of Trustees. In an era when nearly every higher-education institution seems to be in the midst of or planning a capital…

Examining the charitable behavior of 56,663 US households, this paper evaluates the distinctive characteristics of educational donors as compared with donors to noneducational charitable organizations and with nondonors. In general, educational donors had significantly greater income, wealth, and education than other donors. Educational donors…

With the nation's economy in turmoil and the government budget axe falling on educational programs, many corporations and private foundations are responding to what has become a pressing need for funding in K-12 education throughout the United States. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, as of June 2008,…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have received inadequate funding since their inception. This has challenged the development of programs and infrastructure, the adoption of technology, and the recruitment of faculty and students. Yet among HBCUs there are standouts that, despite unequal funding patterns in comparison to…