A Study Of Fundraising Practices Of Community College Presidents At Minority Serving Institutions

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine fundraising practices of the president and the presidents' perception of the Board of Trustees involvement in fundraising in light of an environment of scarce resources. Fundraising practices were measured by the amount of time presidents spent on fundraising activities. Further, this study investigated whether a relationship existed between time spent on fundraising activities and the following variables: endowment level, inclusion of fundraising goals in the presidents' annual evaluation and level of Board of Trustees involvment in institutional fundraising. This study is an extention of Pichback's (2011) work on the community college presidents' role in fundraising. Pfeffer and Salancik's Resource Dependence Theory served as a framework for the study. A quantitative approach was utilized to survey 361 community college presidents at minority- serving institutions (MSIs) throughout the United States. Findings suggest that a relationship exists between the amount of time presidents spend on fundraising activities and the inclusion of fundraising goals in the presidents' annual evaluation. A relationship was also found between the amount of time presidents spend on fundraising activities and the Board of Trustees level of involvement in fundraising activities. Finally, a statistically significant relationship was found between the amount of time spent on fundraising activities and the endowment level at institutions reporting an endowment level of $15,000.000 or more.