Black Colleges Seeking More Financial Support from Alumni
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Making money, administrators at Virginia State University have learned, takes money.
The majority black school has spent millions of state dollars renovating buildings, partly to heighten school pride among alumni they hope will respond by opening their own wallets.
It’s working: Alumni support has risen from 7 percent five years ago to 10 percent, and individual gifts have increased from hundreds of dollars to thousands, development vice president Robert Turner said as he showed off libraries and academic buildings recently.
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As state and private funds shrink, historically black colleges are refreshing outdated efforts to solicit former students, by adding specialized staff, crafting personalized “asks,” improving campuses and increasingly using Internet outreach.
They’re targeting a wider base—more blacks are graduating—and younger alumni who’ve moved into a broader range of careers.
At VSU, efforts as subtle as adding a donor recognition dinner have heartened alumni like Anthony Spence.
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Administrators plan computer network upgrades devoted to online giving at Atlanta’s prestigious Morehouse College, where alumni contributions dipped from about $3.1 million in 2006 to $1.3 million last year.
Wiley College in east Texas will use a nearly $840,000 grant from the United Negro College Fund to help scout 200 major gift prospects a year, create new online giving opportunities and beef up staff.
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The fundraising push by these schools foreshadows an expected slowdown in levels of state higher education funding, at the same time that predominantly white universities are pushing harder to attract high-achieving black students.
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The colleges, founded to serve blacks during segregation, have kept tuition low to help underprivileged students. That leaves little extra cash for things like fundraising, said University of Pennsylvania assistant professor Marybeth Gasman, author of “Supporting Alma Mater: Successful Strategies for Securing Funds from Black College Alumni.”
They also have historically been reluctant to ask former students, already paying off loans, to give more money. At the same time, black alumni haven’t always had the income of graduates from predominantly white schools, Gasman said.
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(Posted on April 22, 2008)
Comments
“The majority black school has spent millions of state dollars renovating buildings, partly to heighten school pride among alumni they hope will respond by opening their own wallets.”
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How nice of the (majority - white) taxpayers to have their hard-earned dollars used to spruce-up black colleges! I’m sure most of the white residents of Virginia would like their own kids to be able to attend a school where the tuition is kept artificially low thanks to government grants.
Why are “black” schools still in existence in this age of mandatory “diversity”? One can only imagine the outcry if a “white university” opened for business or if there was a “United Caucasian College Fund”.
Posted by Enough Already! at 6:15 PM on April 22
“At the same time, black alumni haven’t always had the income of graduates from predominantly white schools, Gasman said.”
Code talk for, “black just don’t give to charity.”
Blacks are notoriously cheap. They don’t tip, yet expect good service. And they don’t give to charity.
Posted by Roger at 9:52 PM on April 22
One little detail. The “historically African American” colleges are theoretically integrated. Yes they let in White folks. Not that there are many takers, but it keeps them within the anti-discrimination laws.
Posted by Ore at 8:20 AM on April 23
get some funding from black athletes. They wouldn’t be able to spend all their money before death anyways.
Posted by at 11:56 AM on April 23
A friend of mine had a son who went to a Black college for his undergraduate degree. According to her, he got a full scholarship because he was White. He is now at Brown University studying for a Ph.D. in Political Science.
While it worked out well for him, I still would be VERY RELUCTANT to send my son or daughter to a mostly Black college or university.
Posted by Shirley at 2:43 PM on April 23
“Blacks are notoriously cheap. They don’t tip, yet expect good service. And they don’t give to charity.”
Posted by Roger at 9:52 PM on April 22
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Roger is absolutely correct. Blacks do not tip well, expect waitstaff to kiss their butts and most certainly do not donate to anything except the occasional “love offering” on Sundays that usually goes into the preacher’s pocket.
Why should they contribute? After all, whitey owes them everything and the gubmint will bail out dey skools.
Posted by at 5:14 PM on April 23
Why ask their black alums to give when there is an abundance of guilty white liberals out there hungering for a way to assuage their guilt? Blacks laugh at us behind our backs, and with good reason!
Posted by Blowtorch Mason at 12:05 AM on April 24