While the entire weakened economy has had serious implications for higher education and the public investment in the mission of community college, the literature reveals a limited amount of research regarding the types, prevalence, and accountability of more sophisticated fundraising efforts in community colleges. Community colleges are seeking to broaden their revenue generating efforts through private fundraising, alumni development, grant writing, legislative relations, and entrepreneurial partnerships similar to traditional four year higher education institutions. This study focuses on assessing and analyzing Texas public community college fundraising, especially the community colleges with the most limited financial resources and greatest student needs. The study participants included 163 presidents and fundraising professionals from the fifty Texas public community colleges, who were invited to participate in an electronic survey with 20 questions. The research also included ten semi-structured telephone interviews, triangulated with publicly-available background information and data. The research answers four questions: 1) What functions are community colleges employing for fundraising?; 2) To what extent do community colleges coordinate all of their fundraising activities?; 3) What fundraising functions or activities are most effective for community colleges?; and 4) In particular, is there a significant relationship between institutional wealth, enrollment, and/or geographic location and amount of dollars raised by the community college? Findings revealed that while small colleges have the highest institutional wealth, large colleges raise the most dollars. While the types and coordination of fundraising functions, and centralized staffing for these efforts, are limited for most Texas public community college respondents, fundraising effectiveness is most often correlated with enrollment and geographical location, board or administrative leadership, and private and grant development. The most significant finding of the study revealed that smaller size and rural location does not directly translate into lower institutional wealth, as measured by amount of dollars raised. Furthermore higher institutional wealth does not guarantee more dollars raised. The implications translate to a greater need for research on community college fundraising and accountability, assessment on equity issues, public investment in community colleges. / text

School finance is the topic of numerous research studies; printed in newspapers and magazines, heard on the radio and television, and frequently spoken among educators throughout the nation. Anyone dealing with education is searching for methods of obtaining additional funds for projects and supplies; and even adding money directly to school districts' budgets. To better understand the importance of searching for additional funds to supplement the annual school districts' budgets, this study examines four sources for obtaining financial assistance: partnerships, fundraising, foundations, and local source venues. Participants include 10 school districts in the state of Texas having only a single high school campus; five Chapter 41 school districts and five Chapter 42 school districts. Two school districts are selected from each classification level: A, AA, AAA, AAAA, and AAAAA. One Chapter 41 (wealthy) district will be compared with one Chapter 42 (poor) school district within the same classification level. The five selected Chapter 41 school districts are above the equalized wealth limit of $305,000 per weighted average daily attendance. Data gathering procedures utilize a purposive case study by interviewing administrators in each of the school districts; studying Texas Education Agency's School Report Card, each school district's Actual Financial Data Report; sending a survey to a district administrator within each school district; gathering data from the directors of partners-in-education or adopt-a-school programs; reviewing financial records from booster clubs and education foundations; and studying financial audits for each of the school districts. This study looks at the dependency on outside financial assistance to further educational endeavors, whether they are for enrichment purposes or for extended educational pursuits. The study examines how each school district utilizes some combination of supplements to obtain additional funds for their annual budgets, whether the district is classified as Chapter 41 or 42. Using the actual financial data records for each school district, per-pupil revenue is determined. Not all school districts have access to education foundations, and not all school districts rely on business partners in education. Yet, all school districts receive assistance from local parent-teacher organizations and booster clubs and allow fundraising efforts among the various campuses. All school districts have access to local support venues, even though some are quite limited. Overall, these four areas of obtaining additional funds make only a small percentage of impact upon the majority of the school district's budgets. Yet, some of the school districts are impacted by these revenue sources as much as the percentage of federal aid received.