Citation/Abstract

The Relationship Between Alumni Presence on the Governing Board and Institutional Support

Donations from alumni have historically been a leading source of charitable support for higher education. But in recent years, alumni supportiveness has been on a steady decline. Participation rates and gift sizes are at their lowest levels ever recorded. Nowhere is this issue more pressing than at private, master's comprehensive institutions, which have seen the biggest drops in alumni support, yet are highly reliant on private funding to support their operating budgets.

Despite considerable literature on the subject, many approaches are costly, contradictory, or lacking in applicable techniques to guide institutional improvement. One factor that has yet to be examined is the relational value of having alumni serve on one's institutional governing board. This study hypothesized that increasing the alumni presence on a collegiate governing board has potentially beneficial implications on fund-raising results, not simply from alumni but from other constituents, too.

A group of 138 out of 191 private master's comprehensive institutions was the sample used for this study. The key independent variable was the percentage of alumni serving on the institutional governing board. The dependent variables were five financial measures associated with alumni supportiveness and overall fund-raising success; all of which had been averaged over a six-year timeframe to avoid institutional anomalies, or sudden windfalls of cash. The hope was to identify methods for long-term, sustainable growth in financial support. A two-step methodological analysis, utilizing quantitative regression techniques on the entire sample, followed by case study examination of five schools, provided the means to ascertain the value and causality of this unique alumni leadership role.

The study determined that alumni presence on the institutional governing did have positive financial impact on alumni giving, unrestricted giving and the percentage of overall support coming from alumni. It also showed that by combining this level of volunteerism with strong institutional purpose, a well-established culture of philanthropy, active volunteer engagement, defined trustee recruitment processes and expectations, and collaboration among the campus stakeholders, alumni would naturally become the institution's future leaders and its most supportive donors.

Key words: alumni attitudes, alumni giving or support, advancement, board members, donor, governing board, fund-raising, trustee, volunteerism.