Undergraduate alumni giving: A study of six institutions and their efforts related to donor participation

This project explores the factors that explain how university development and alumni relations professionals view undergraduate participation. I review fund-raising literature and discuss three separate but interdependent annual giving categories: campus culture, execution of fundamental fund-raising mechanics, and interdepartmental partnerships. Using the 2009 U.S. News & World Report ranking of institutions of higher education, three universities that had a 30% participation rate or higher were included in this study—Duke University, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania— as well as three universities that had less than 30% participation—Tulane University, Southern Methodist University, and the University of Miami. The findings yielded nine themes common to all of the annual giving programs in the study, which are programmatic investment, segmentation and data, campus culture, alumni engagement, young alumni ventures, technology implications, presidential and vice presidential roles, student fund-raising, and staffing structures. Using a circular cumulative causation framework, I narrow these themes into four suggested elements that best support sustained and increased undergraduate alumni giving participation. The four key elements include a presidential focus on undergraduate alumni giving participation, a campus culture that supports fund-raising, a staffing structure that promotes participation, and an appropriate deployment of technological resources