The federal Early Head Start (EHS) program was created in 1994 to address the comprehensive needs of children under age 3 in low-income families and vulnerable low-income pregnant women. In addition to early learning opportunities, EHS's comprehensive early childhood development programs provide children and families with access to a range of…

The latest wave of reform in urban schools, led by the venture philanthropists, has made a great deal of change, without much progress. Foundations with a venture philanthropy bent, like the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Broad Foundation, say market principles, such as choice and competition, will improve schools. If…

Foundations must encourage rigorous debate over objectives, strategies, and outcomes as they become more engaged in policy-focused giving. In doing this, they must make it abundantly clear that they won't blacklist critics. The value of skeptics is that they raise unpleasant issues and make it possible for those inside an organizational bubble to…

The emergence of the SuperPACs in American politics is a major issue in the current election. SuperPACs, and the media campaigns they fund, also present a major challenge for media and democratic education. This article explores the issues surrounding SuperPACs and the rise of media in elections and politics in general, and presents some starting…

Public higher education institutions are presently faced with a perfect storm of financial crises. State appropriations are on the decline, endowments have been substantially reduced as a result of the declining stock market, generally poor economic conditions across the board, and recent, historically high tuition increases make additional…

This article discusses Georgetown University's Discovery Initiative, an advancement program in which students and recent graduates meet with alumni who are not currently involved with the Washington, D.C., university. Currently, the Discovery team consists of 50 students who conduct interviews in the Washington, D.C., area during the school year…

A survey of online fundraising by the "Chronicle of Philanthropy" found that 192 nonprofit organizations raised $1.1 billion online in 2007 and $1.4 billion in 2008. Given this trend, to what extent are educational institutions using and succeeding with online fundraising? Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) explored this…

Asking constituents to rally around a cause and make stretch gifts when they're already suffering unprecedented hits to their personal finances sounds more like a fool's errand than a best practice in fundraising. The economic crisis has added a tricky new aspect to operating in campaign mode, but savvy fundraisers haven't given up, scaled back,…

The purpose of this article is to provide a better understanding of the history of fundraising in black college communities; to complicate understandings of white involvement in black college fundraising; to understand the role of fundraising, that is, fundraising for social change and social justice, during the period that followed the…

Accreditation in higher education originated as a means of communicating useful information about the quality of various institutions of higher education. Yet, over the past half century accreditation has evolved into a system for determining eligibility for the receipt of funds from third parties, most notably the federal government, but also in…

Community colleges are facing record enrollments and declining state and local funding, and many leaders of these institutions see increasing private support as critical for colleges. In 2010 the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) conducted a national survey of community college foundations. The survey, drafted with the…

Integration of alumni relations and development is vital to institutions. In this article, the author talks about integration and focuses on the functions of alumni relations and fundraising, and the symbiotic relationship between them. He suggests that the best alumni relations officers understand the direct relationship of their work to resource…

Purpose: Schools are thought to represent a growing marketing opportunity for food advertisers in many countries. Marketing of unhealthy food to children is linked to the increased prevalence of obesity worldwide. This paper aims to explore ways in which schools respond to commercial activity around food marketing. Design/methodology/approach: A…

The further education (FE) and skills sector has known for months that far less tax-payer money will be available for skills in the future. This means that more training will have to be paid for by those who directly benefit. The government's skills strategy is intended to mark a new era for FE and skills, based upon increased contributions from…

This historiographic essay urges a reappraisal of the revisionist view of philanthropy and African-American higher education in the nineteenth century as hegemonic by adopting agency as a theoretical framework to excavate the institutional histories and other primary sources on the northern black colleges--specifically Wilberforce University--for…