This qualitative study consisted of two case studies of southern public metropolitan universities, which successfully completed inaugural major comprehensive fundraising campaigns. The purpose of the study was to explore how the process of initiating and competing an inaugural comprehensive fundraising campaign was explained by organizational learning and knowledge creation theories. Based on the conceptual framework, the fundraising campaign process required (1) essential conditions (organizational conditions and attributes of leadership) which were considered to be necessary pre-conditions for learning; (2) phases of imaging, interpreting, integrating, which constituted the learning procedure; and (3) institutionalizing, which was the resulting outcome of learning. It was found that an inaugural comprehensive campaign was a exercise of learning for a novice institution in fundraising. Three themes emerged from this study in the organizational conditions which were flexibility, sincerity, and redundancy. Another theme, political acuity, emerged in the attributes of leadership. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]