Most development officers in the field of higher education would agree that the early years of the 21 century has brought about complex challenges regarding these officers’ primary task: acquiring private resources in a race against the rising cost of higher education in this country.  One has only to attend a conference session where the topic is executive leadership in higher education or listen to a college or university president speak on the complexities facing their institutions to know that development officers at these institutions are tasked with strategic philanthropic fund raising.

This brings me to this article, an attempt to unlock our creative brain trusts as we seek to “make a way out of no way” in obtaining resources for our colleges and universities.  I am excited about the potential for success if we as development professionals continue to think outside of the box in assisting smaller colleges and universities.  As a development officer at a pubic university, I know all too well the current trend of state legislatures repeatedly cutting back in annual appropriation allocations earmarked for institutions of higher education. This is unfortunate as one could argue that this country’s public-based higher education systems have historically provided college education to this nation’s poor and middle-class citizens and those educations have helped this nation develop into the world’s sole superpower.    

In an article in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education (December 14, 2006), Dr. Bernard E. Powers suggests a “survival of the fittest strategy” for African Methodist Episcopal Colleges experiencing dire financial problems. He also suggests  the African-American community must started to think about different ways of fundraising for regarding these institutions. Although 12 AME schools were all founded well over a hundred years ago they have but a small amount of available capital that can be drawn upon.