Community College Fundraising And The Role Of The President: A Survey Of Maryland, Virginia, And North Carolina Community Colleges

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Date

2014

Department

Community College Leadership Program

Program

Doctor of Education

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This item is made available by Morgan State University for personal, educational, and research purposes in accordance with Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Other uses may require permission from the copyright owner.

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to investigate the fundraising profiles of selected community colleges and to explore the relationship among the aspects of presidential leadership and the fundraising of the institutions. This study relied on the traits of authentic leadership to examine whether community college presidents are effective in seeking and acquiring funds from external resources. Over the past several years, community colleges in some states have seen an alarming drop in state appropriations per full-timeequivalent student (Hebel, 2010). While many four-year colleges and universities have robust fundraising programs, the fundraising programs in many community colleges lack that same vitality (Blose, 2010). Data from the Authentic Presidential Leadership and Fund Raising Survey were analyzed to address the research questions and test the hypotheses using inferential statistics. Excel was used to conduct the analysis. An alpha level of .05 was set. Descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, and multiple regression analyses were conducted using the two independent variables, the degree of authentic leadership and length of presidential service, and the two dependent variables, presidential involvement in fundraising and the amount of funds raised. The results of this study found no significant association was found between community college presidents' involvement in fundraising and authentic leadership. Moreover, a weak correlation was found between presidential involvement in fundraising and the length of presidential service. However, the data showed that the longer presidents have been in service, the less likely they are to attend foundation board meetings. The results presented in this study have contributed new information to the minimal literature there is that has examined the fundraising activities of community colleges. Community colleges do not have active fundraising programs and they do not disclose how much funds were actually received from their fundraising efforts. There was a weak correlation between authentic leadership of community college presidents and their involvement in fundraising. While the vast majority of community colleges in this study that had established foundations and applied for a 501(c)(3) classification, there are still some community college foundations that are unable to accept tax-deductible contributions from donors.