In recent years, many historically Black colleges have found themselves in dire financial straits. Memphis’ Lemoyne-Owen College, which faces a debt of $6 million, is the most recent example. Relying heavily on student tuition dollars, government aid and corporate and foundation donations (which typically evaporate during economic downturns), Black colleges have been stretched thin. This heavy reliance on outside funding sources, coupled with an often-weak infrastructure for soliciting alumni contributions, has made for difficult times.
Of course, one can attribute the lack of alumni support to the fact that African-Americans earn less and hold fewer assets than White alumni. However, to be fair, many Black colleges only recently began asking their alumni for contributions. And, many colleges don’t call on their alumni to donate until 10 years after they graduate, thus missing the opportunity to establish a habit of giving on the part of recent graduates.
Black colleges must seek to correct this situation at once. Perhaps these new graduates cannot give back financially during their first few years on the job, but involving them in the institution in other ways can lead to financial payoffs down the road. Young alumni need to be brought into the institutional family right away. In 2003, I co-authored a book entitled Fund-Raising from Black College Alumni: Successful Strategies for Supporting Alma Mater (with Sibby Anderson-Thompkins). In the book, we found that young alumni had very strong feelings about their Black college experience.
In fact, they wanted to make sure that other African-Americans had the same opportunities that they had — and they were willing to give financially and of their time in order to ensure these opportunities. We also found that the idea of “uplifting the race” was central to Black college alumni’s motivation for giving to their alma maters. Young and old alumni were committed to the idea of seeing other African-Americans succeed, and in most cases they knew that their alma mater was helping to foster this kind of success. Unfortunately, many of the Black college alumni with whom we talked had not been asked to give back in any way to their alma mater — and as a result, they did not.
Asking alumni to give entails a risk. Institutions must gamble, focusing their attention toward a group of people who may or may not decide to support the institution.
In addition, Black colleges must implement the proper safeguards for procuring alumni giving and following up once a gift is made. Here the old adage, “it takes money to make money” comes into play. Black colleges must commit to investing money in their fund-raising infrastructure, including databases, stewardship staff, research services, staff training and targeted marketing pieces.
