Alumni Donations and Colleges’Development Expenditures: Does Spending Matter?

Abstract

Since college development officers supply recognition to alumni and seek donations in return a model is devised wherein this exercise of market power in the exchange is included. Data for three years is used from eighteen universities and colleges-public and private, large and small, research and teachingoriented. The findings indicate that schools with higher development costs generate substantially more donations. Several demographic characteristics ofthe student body were tested. Schools with higher participation in fraternities and sororities have higher giving, while schools with a higher proportion of part-time students have lower giving. Surprisingly, having an NCAA Division I athletic program has no significant effect on alumni giving. Likewise, alumni donations seem independent of whether a school is public or private, or is or is not a research institution. Finally, the size of a school's endowment has no predictive value, but the level of annual bequests is strongly positively related to alumni giving

Asian American giving to US higher education

“…Notably, the ' alumni -institutional relationship ' is a signifi cant discriminator to predict alumni giving ( Okunade et al , 1994 ;Harrison et al , 1995 ;Taylor and Martin, 1995 ;Hunter et al , 1999 ). Hunter et al 's (1999) study found alumni ' s motivation derived from emotional attachment to their alma-mater and their desire to give something back.…”

“…The fi ndings indicated that donor status had signifi cant correlation with independent variables such as ' family income, perceived need for fi nancial support, reading alumni publications, subsequent enrollment for graduate work, special-interest groups, and involvement with university as an alumnus / a ' ( Taylor and Martin, 1995, p. 299 ). Also, in the words of Harrison et al (1995) , ' donors seem to want the psychic satisfaction that accompanies recognition from their former schoolfrom appearing in a list of names in the alumni bulletin, to receiving free football tickets, to having a scholarship or building named after them ' (p. 398). Interestingly, proximity -domestic residence -was not a signifi cant predictor of alumni giving ( Hoyt, 2004 ).…”

Profiles of Supportive Alumni: Donors, Volunteers, and Those Who “Do It All”

“…For example, a number of studies link alumni giving to involvement in extracurricular activities while an undergraduate student (see Keller, 1982 ;Haddad, 1986 ;Harrison et al ., 1995 ;Dugan et al ., 2000 ;Monks, 2003 ).…”

Who Decides in Giving to Education? A Study of Charitable Giving by Married Couples

“…With the increasing competitiveness in the market, combined with rising educational costs and reductions in student fi nancial aid, college and university alumni are ever more essential in providing fi nancial support to their institutions ( Briechle, 2003 ;Liu, 2006 ;Weerts and Ronca, 2007 ). Research on giving to higher education generally has focused on predicting the factors and characteristics of alumni who give (e.g., Taylor and Martin, 1995 ;Baade and Sundberg, 1996 ;Okunade and Berl, 1997 ;Belfi eld and Beney, 2000 ;Clotfelter, 2003 ;Weerts and Ronca, 2007 ), the institutional and macroeconomic factors in explaining variations in giving (e.g., Briechle, 2003 ;Gunsalus, 2004 ;Liu, 2006 ), alumni motivation for giving (e.g., Diamond and Kashyap, 1997 ;Weerts and Ronca, 2007 ), fundraising practices in higher education (e.g., Harrison, 1995 ;Harrison et al , 1995 ), and the determinants of donor revenue (e.g., Cunningham and Cochi-Ficano, 2001 ; see review of literature in Liu, 2006 ).…”