The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Why You Shouldn't Give To Harvard

Do not donate to Harvard. To do so is to offer more pie to a portly fellow while the gaunt and hungry press their faces to the window (at some sort of metaphoric college cafeteria, anyway). Even after last year’s losses, Harvard’s endowment exceeds $26 billion, the largest of any American university, greater than the G.D.P. of Estonia. By contrast, among historically black colleges and universities, Howard has the largest endowment, about $420 million, a mere 1.6 percent the size of Harvard’s. This is not to deny that Harvard does fine work or could find ways to spend the money but to assert that other schools have a greater need and a greater moral claim to your benevolence.Read more at:
http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/should-you-give-to-harvard/?ex=1256875200&en=b0246720cedb02d3&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=GN-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M116-ROS-0909-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click

Ok For San Francisco College To Seek Sponsors For Cancelled Courses

It's official: City College of San Francisco's on-again, off-again plan to revive some of its 800 canceled classes by soliciting donations of $6,000 per class is on again - mostly. The college is holding out the hat to anyone willing to pony up $6,000 to pay for any semester-long class canceled for next spring. So far, eight donations have come in. What has changed from the original plan, Griffin said, is that restored classes won't be named for their benefactors. Read more at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/29/BAA119F7LO.DTL&type=education

Even In Recession Some IHEs See Increase In Donations

You wouldn't know the nation is being buffeted by a major recession from the looks of Philadelphia University's bulging fund-raising coffers. Donations in fiscal 2009 have totaled $8.7 million, up from $1.5 million last year.  Several other universities in the area had a strong year, too. At Drexel University, giving went up 12 percent; at Ursinus, it rose more than 15 percent. But they're bucking the national trend.Education philanthropy - largely at colleges and universities - decreased 5.5 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to the Giving USA Foundation. Read more at:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090803_Local_colleges_buck_poor_fund-raising_trend.html

Recession's Impact On Fundraising Depends On The Institution

Less than three weeks after their fiscal year ended, colleges and universities are sorting through the results of fundraising campaigns conducted during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Though the numbers are hardly catastrophic, many have seen declines in the smaller gifts used to cover annual expenses. At some institutions such as the Johns Hopkins and Towson universities, major gifts mitigated those declines. Other schools such as Loyola, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Maryland, College Park weren't so fortunate. Read more at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.donations20jul20,0,5634092.story?track=rss

For Endowments Smaller Is Better Than Bigger This Year

The largest college endowments, long the envy of their smaller rivals for their sophisticated and profitable investment strategies, were left behind over the past year by the performance of smaller schools with far simpler approaches.The fiscal year for most endowments ends Tuesday and nearly every one has had big declines, but smaller endowments are poised to outperform heavyweights like Harvard University and Yale University by significant margins. Endowments with less than $1 billion generally held up better by putting more money in fixed income and less in alternative investments like hedge funds. Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124631834157970855.html

Endowment Losses Taking Toll On Georgia's IHEs

Georgia’s public and private colleges have eliminated some scholarships and scrambled to find money for some positions and research projects as endowments dwindle in a harsh economy. The endowments the colleges use to help pay for scholarships and other programs have declined by about 25 percent over the past year, according to officials at several Georgia colleges. Those who manage these funds worry about replenishing the accounts, with some saying the philanthropic trend has moved away from endowed gifts. Read more at:
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/06/15/foundations0615.html

One Really Dirty Donation

Stevenson University President Kevin J. Manning has solicited and received many a gift in his years as a college administrator. But never one that could fill 2,500 dump trucks and inspire puns about both parties "hitting pay dirt" or "making the grade." No, the gift Stevenson is about to receive from T. Rowe Price - 25,000 cubic yards of dirt - is unique in Manning's experience. Stevenson is building a $7 million gym for its Owings Mills campus, and the university needed a heap of dirt to level ground for a parking lot and was prepared to pay about $250,000 for it. But someone at the university heard that T. Rowe Price needed to clear a large amount of dirt after adding two buildings to its own Owings Mills campus. Read more at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.dirt08jun08,0,6461746.story

College Tries A Radiothon To Raise Money

As colleges and universities struggle for funding during this economic slump, one local college came up with a creative way to raise money.  Paul Quinn College in Oak Cliff hit the airwaves with a radiothon Sunday. Even though the money raised today on K-Soul FM, about $40,000, is just a fraction of the college's operating budget, Sorrell says every little bit helps in this economy. Read more at:
http://cbs11tv.com/local/paul.quinn.college.2.1026160.html#

No One Can Know Who The Anonymous Donor Is

The call typically comes from a banker, bringing word of a fairy godmother. This is followed quickly by a check arriving in the mail — or two checks, the larger earmarked for scholarships for women and minority students, the smaller to be spent at the recipient’s discretion. The only catch, for at least a dozen colleges and universities that have benefited from the surprise largess over the past two months, is that the donor must remain anonymous. Not just to the public, as is typical, but to the institution itself. No one on campus — not the president, not the public relations staff, not the chief fund-raiser — can know where the money came from. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/education/25donor.html?_r=1

Donors Angered When IHEs Misuse Restricted Gifts

Financially strapped colleges are angering their benefactors by selling school radio stations, auctioning Georgia O'Keeffe paintings and dipping into endowments for purposes their donors may not have intended. Battles such as the one at Trinity show why the nation's universities may have trouble finding the cash for urgent needs in a deep recession. As schools struggle more than they have in decades to fund their core operations, many are looking to a rich pool of so-called restricted gifts -- held in endowments whose donors often provide firm instructions on how their money should be spent. Read more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124043394794145007.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us