Fund-raising effectiveness in selected community college foundations

This study examined the variability and predictive value of selected intrinsic, extrinsic, demographic and transformational leadership factors on the effectiveness of community college fund-raising.;The sample consisted of 218 persons functioning as the foundation director in a two-year public community college or technical college in the United States between December 2003 and March 2004. Intrinsic factors of college size, foundation age, number of foundation staff, size of endowments and use of funds; extrinsic factors of sources of foundation support, per capita income and geographic location; and demographic factors of age, gender, ethnicity and time in position of foundation directors were collected by a survey/questionnaire. Transformational leadership characteristics were measured by a modified form of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Form 5x-Short) "Leader Form," developed by Bass and Avolio.;Descriptive statistics, multiple regression analysis and multivariate analysis of variance were the statistical methods used to analyze the data. Results indicated that, while community college foundations are similar in the sources from which they raise their funds and in the uses of those funds raised, there is great variability among the majority of other intrinsic, extrinsic and demographic variables examined.;In contrast to other studies found in the literature, few of the variables examined exhibited significant relationships to the dependent variable in the study, total annual funds raised by the foundations. Two intrinsic variables, size of the college (measured by curriculum FTE) and the number of foundation staff, exhibited significant predictive value on total annual funds raised. While college size indicated some measurable effect on total funds raised---larger colleges typically raised more money---differences in college size also accounted for significant differences in sources of funding between large and small colleges. Large colleges tended to receive more contributions from business and industry, while small colleges tended to receive more contributions from individuals other than alumni.;Similarly, when examining sources of funding by college location (rural, suburban, urban), urban colleges (which also tended to be larger) received a larger proportion of their annual income from business and industry than did rural colleges. The two other funding sources examined, alumni contributions and endowment income, provided small proportions of annual foundation income. Neither did either of these funding sources exhibit significant differences by college size or geographic location.;Results for the predictive value of transformational leadership factors on annual funds raised exhibited some significance for two of the five factors, inspirational motivation and individualized consideration. However, when examined by transformational leadership characteristics of foundation directors, sources of funding exhibited no significant differences.;Recommendations for future research include additional study of potential factors affecting foundation income, and further examination---both quantitative and qualitative---of the transformational leadership characteristics of foundation directors and their relationship to fund-raising effectiveness.