HBCUs Get Savvy About Fund Raising
By Cheryl D. Fields

Today, anyone interested in donating to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) can do so online. An agreement between the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) and Gateway computer company gives HBCUs a new way to save on technology purchases. Howard University recently scored a major coup by wooing development veteran Virgil E. Ecton away from UNCF, after 31 years, to head the university's institutional advancement team. And, last year, Hampton University became the first historically Black college to break the $200 million mark in a capital campaign.
Everywhere, there is evidence that HBCUs and their supportive organizations are becoming more savvy and aggressive about fund raising and development. The July 5, 2001, edition of Black Issues focused on the capital campaign activities of HBCUs. But capital campaigns are only one way that these schools are working to improve their institutional stability.
More and more, HBCUs are adopting advancement models to enable them to craft a more cohesive and lucrative approach to development. The array of opportunities that HBCUs are exploring now includes: non-alumni donor development, online contributions, alumni giving, endowment development, challenge grants, faculty and staff giving, student giving, estate planned-giving, major gifts, and foundation and corporate gifts. Properly coordinated with public relations, communications, marketing, direct mail and government relations, these activities can yield significant returns. It is certainly not your run-of-the-mill, HBCU fund raising anymore.
"Advancement is different because it attempts to move the institution forward instead of just raising money," says Alice Green Burnette, founder and principal of Advancement Solutions, a development consulting firm in Palm Coast, Fla.
Philanthropists and development professionals welcome these trends and predict that those institutions that fail to get their development houses in order won't survive.
"Corporations are interested in getting the biggest bang for our buck," says Noel Hankin, vice president of multicultural marketing at Schieffelin & Somerset and a member of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund board. "We want to be sure the contributions we make are being well spent."
Ida Simon, vice president and chief development officer for the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, says "schools that don't work it out over the next five or six years will become less competitive because they won't have the infrastructure and things that draw students or faculty."