| The study examined the perceptions of fundraising by 112 women donors who contributed major gifts to the University of Toledo. Fundraising was broken into three interrelated constructs---cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship---that were examined for construct validity. The differences in perceptions of each fundraising construct as well as their combination were analyzed by the demographic factors of the respondents (age, education, marital status, employment, and geographic location). Race/ethnicity variable was dropped from the analysis due to low variability in responses. The instrument was a 49 multiple choice and 3 open-ended item questionnaire on Women's Giving modified from the survey developed by Dr. Rosali Samari.; The analyses of the item groupings by cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship aspects of fundraising revealed that development professionals at the University of Toledo have a good understanding of the cultivation and solicitation but need to collect more empirical evidence on stewardship. The strategies that development professionals are currently employing in reaching out to female donors are well on target.; In analyzing demographic factors, the study found that age, employment, and geographic location of the women donors in the sample had significant effects on their perceptions of fundraising strategies. The oldest respondents (66 years or older), women not in labor force, and those who live outside Ohio attached the least importance to fundraising strategies. The differences by age were most apparent in solicitation, the differences by employment were most obvious in stewardship, and the differences by geographic location were most pronounced in cultivation. No differences were detected in women donors' perceptions of fundraising by their education level and marital status. |
