Lomax says he did not have a “watch list” of schools he felt were at a higher level of risk given the weak economy. However he speculated the public’s perception of who’s having the most trouble could be a bit skewed.

“There’s a kind of counter-intuitive reality to this economy,” says Lomax. “A lot of our schools with smaller endowments had most of their money in government bills,” he says, meaning those with more conservative investment strategies are earning less money day to day but have avoided the traumatic free fall loss in values of investment portfolios that were heavily invested in stocks.

Despite the rough seas in the fundraising world, Lomax says he was excited about the potential of a series of “capacity-building” programs the UNCF has been launching in recent years. Backed with small grants from foundations, the programs are designed to improve specific skills at local colleges, such as enrollment management, institutional advancement, fundraising, recruiting and financial management.

“I’ve been impressed with his initiatives,” says Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. Kimbrough’s school was a founding member of the UNCF.

Philander Smith participates in the UNCF institutional advancement project. It has allowed his school to add and train four staffers in fundraising. In the first year of the program, alumni giving in dollars and number of donors nearly doubled, he says, boosting the school’s alumni giving to about $350,000 last year. “This program allows us to grow in completely different ways,” Kimbrough says. “If we strengthen the institutions and are able to do for ourselves, it lessens the burden on UNCF.”