EFFECTIVENESS OF INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT PROGRAMS IN REPRESENTATIVE CALIFORNIA PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (FUND-RAISING)

Statement of the Problem. Declining enrollments, increasing costs and competition for private sector funds threatens to close or merge 10 to 30 percent of America's colleges/universities by 1995. Institutional survival requires more effective institutional advancement activities.;The Procedure. The procedures for this study involved: selecting the quantitative and qualitative Institutional Advancement Program (IAP) characteristics that were deemed the most relevant in effective advancement program; establishing institutional fund-raising potentials by (a) identifying those institutional factors that were significantly correlated with actual funds raised, and then (b) predicting institutional fund-raising potentials with the use of those institutional factors; determining institutional fundraising effectiveness by ascertaining the percentage of the projected fundraising potential that each selected institution actually raises; and identifying those quantitative and qualitative IAP characteristics whose degree of use was significantly different between institutions that were (a) effective (funds raised exceeded potential) and not-effective (funds raised failed to meet potential), (b) private and public.;Study Findings. This study found that: (1) eighty-four quantitative and qualitative IAP characteristics were deemed relevant to an effective IAP by eleven expert panelists utilizing a Delphi process; (2) six if nine selected institutional factors were significantly correlated with actual funds raised; (3) a multiple linear regression using four institutional factors, explained 96.6 percent of the variability in actual funds raised and satisfactorily predicted 1982-1983 fund-raising potentials for California private and public colleges/universities; (4) there was no significant difference in the higher percentage of fund-raising potential attained by private institutions over public institutions; and (5) from an institutional survey designed to determine differences in the degree of use of the eighty-four IAP characteristics, (a) a significant difference existed in the use of these characteristics between effective institutions and not-effective institutions, but (b) no significant difference existed in the use of these characteristics beween private and public institutions.;This study determined which institutional advancement characteristics were the most effective in raising gifts from the private sector in excess of fund-raising potentials for California private and public colleges/universities.