Return to search

THE OUTCOMES OF BOARD INVOLVEMENT IN FUNDRAISING AT INDEPENDENT, FOUR-YEAR COLLEGES: AN ORGANIZATION THEORY PERSPECTIVE

This dissertation examines the role of trustees in fundraising at private liberal colleges in the United States. It consists of two studies. The first study uses quantitative data from a 2004-2005 Council of Independent Colleges survey as well as the IPEDS and Voluntary Support of Education surveys. Multiple regression is used to determine what board variables influence total individual, corporate, and foundation giving. Most alumni demographic factors are not significant, although having higher percentages of alumni on the board negatively influences individual and corporate giving, and the percentage of the board in the field of medicine positively impacts foundation giving. However, the models for foundation and board giving explain very little of the variation. The second study is a set of three qualitative case studies of CIC-member institutions. All are PWIs in the Southeast with weak ties to Protestant denominations. In this analysis, the roles of board members are compared with what the literature, both theoretical and normative, suggests they ought to be. Board members at Pine, Maple, and Oak do not view themselves or act as principals in a principal-agent relationship with their president. Their involvement in fundraising is primarily limited to giving, with other tasks such as fundraising calls only undertaken at the administrations request. Most do not make fundraising policy, solicit donations, or refer prospects; most have undergone no training in fundraising and do not have very sophisticated understandings of fundraising, either in general or at their college in particular. Board members, in short, are expected to be donors, but the board as a whole does not have collective fundraising duties.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03282011-122956
Date20 April 2011
CreatorsProper, Eve
ContributorsMichael McLendon, Timothy C. Caboni, Will Doyle, James C. Hearn
PublisherVANDERBILT
Source SetsVanderbilt University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03282011-122956/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

Page generated in 0.0018 seconds