HBCU's have to work to get their endowment numbers up.

[buckwheat]

http://diverseeducation.com/article/53126/#

Endowment disparity

While billions of dollars are socked away in endowments at institutions of higher learning across the nation, most of it is in the hands of a small number of institutions, and nearly all of it stays in some sort of savings investment, regardless of institution.

Nationwide, 72 institutions of higher learning have endowments of $1 billion or more, led by a short list of long-established names—Harvard ($30.4 billion), followed by Yale, the University of Texas, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), according to a recent study of educational endowments released by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and the Commonfund Institute, the research arm of the nonprofit manager of endowments.

Most institutions with a history of serving minorities do not participate in NACUBO’s annual survey. Among those that do, the fiscal year 2012 endowments are much smaller, led by Howard University ($460 million), Spelman College ($309 million), Hampton University ($232 million) and Meharry Medical College ($112 million). Tuskegee University, which does not participate, reported that its fiscal year 2012 endowment stood at $105 million.

As a general rule, institutions take 3 to 5 percent of their annual endowment earnings for annual operating budgets and reinvest the rest of that year’s earnings into the endowment. That helps the principal—and thus the institution—grow over time.

“We aren’t just looking out for today,†says Dr. William Harvey, president of Hampton University. “We’re looking out for the next 10 years, the next 20 years. Students see all this money in the endowment and want to get more.â€

“You need to make decisions of what’s best for your institution, not for the moment,†says Harvey, who has built his university’s endowment to more than $250 million from the $29 million it had when he started as president more than 30 years ago. The university policy is to take no more than 3 percent of its earnings each year from its endowment.

 

[FAMU CLIFF]

At one point, we had the largest endowment of public HBCUs by far, but we really need to step our game up.

 

[JagHammer]

I'm not happy with our endownment numbers. They are deprorable in my opinion, and I believe I may be to blame...

 

[SUJagFan]

I'm not happy with our endownment numbers. They are deprorable in my opinion, and I believe I may be to blame...

Sometimes I feel that we spend too much time assigning blame and not enough time solving the problem.

It's nice of you to take responsibility, but, for those of us who don't know, what should be done to improve the situation?

 

[Olde Hornet]

Many of us use ANY excuse not to give. If things are not PERFECT it's another excuse not to give.

The other issue is that as our grads that do very well, have to learn to give back via gifts and wills.

 

[FAMU CLIFF]

Many of us use ANY excuse not to give. If things are not PERFECT it's another excuse not to give.

The other issue is that as our grads that do very well, have to learn to give back via gifts and wills.

Our schools need to start with the basics and graduated giving campaigns that work monthly and increase every few years. Start at $10 a month and go to $20 to $50 a month. You can do that over a 10-15 year period. Yes it is slow, but you should be able to sign up thousands of alumni to a plan like that.

 

[Clarksdale_Wildcat]

Our schools need to start with the basics and graduated giving campaigns that work monthly and increase every few years. Start at $10 a month and go to $20 to $50 a month. You can do that over a 10-15 year period. Yes it is slow, but you should be able to sign up thousands of alumni to a plan like that.

I think Mississippi State has something like that for its students and younger alums. I wish our universities were more innovative with fundraising/donation ideas.

 

[Olde Hornet]

Our schools need to start with the basics and graduated giving campaigns that work monthly and increase every few years. Start at $10 a month and go to $20 to $50 a month. You can do that over a 10-15 year period. Yes it is slow, but you should be able to sign up thousands of alumni to a plan like that.

Many HBCUs have giving campaigns, but like I said before, the excuses for not giving continue to grow.

 

[JagHammer]

Sometimes I feel that we spend too much time assigning blame and not enough time solving the problem.

It's nice of you to take responsibility, but, for those of us who don't know, what should be done to improve the situation?

That's a question I have been trying to figure out. Hopefully, we can expand as a research institution, and secure grants to bolster our endowment.

 

[chocalate_topaz]

I think Mississippi State has something like that for its students and younger alums. I wish our universities were more innovative with fundraising/donation ideas.

this is the crux of the problem...folks still sending our newsletters via mail once a year talking about the expense....I'm like have you not heard of email blasts? :smh: Those they hire don't have the technological knowhow and the endowments suffer.

 

[CEE DOG]

Our schools aren't good at making alumni feel comfortable at a young age. The old folks are snooty and judgmental of the younger generation trying to come up. This is what causes a disconnect. Some how we have got to stop treating our own like they don't belong. make folks feel like we are family and you will get the support of family. Our administrators and workers of the universities have to do a better job when these folks enter as freshman.

 

[JagHammer]

Our schools aren't good at making alumni feel comfortable at a young age. The old folks are snooty and judgmental of the younger generation trying to come up. This is what causes a disconnect. Some how we have got to stop treating our own like they don't belong. make folks feel like we are family and you will get the support of family. Our administrators and workers of the universities have to do a better job when these folks enter as freshman.

This.

 

[jsupop33]

I give about 20 a month to JSU. Someone called me a few months back and asked me to.

 

[chocalate_topaz]

I give about 20 a month to JSU. Someone called me a few months back and asked me to.

i hope that more will follow. I give a bit more...but every dollar helps significantly.

 

[jsupop33]

i hope that more will follow. I give a bit more...but every dollar helps significantly.

Ninja, you are a big-time author. I hope you give more. Lol... Pops just paid for a wedding, they lucky they got 20. I appreciated the phonecall though. It made me feel compelled to give.

 

[chocalate_topaz]

Ninja, you are a big-time author. I hope you give more. Lol... Pops just paid for a wedding, they lucky they got 20. I appreciated the phonecall though. It made me feel compelled to give.

Imma jump on your big tail when I come to DC...gone ahead and give Mrs. Pop the heads up beforehand...

 

[Killer Bees]

Our schools aren't good at making alumni feel comfortable at a young age. The old folks are snooty and judgmental of the younger generation trying to come up. This is what causes a disconnect. Some how we have got to stop treating our own like they don't belong. make folks feel like we are family and you will get the support of family. Our administrators and workers of the universities have to do a better job when these folks enter as freshman.

I been saying this for over a decade. HBCUs are no longer in the position to act like it is a privilege for students to attend their schools when the they have so many options now. Take out the band element and watch many HBCUs enrollments drop like a rock because they are definitely not going because they are academic powerhouses. All HBCUs have to do is treat their students as first class citizens.

 

[FAMU CLIFF]

When It Comes to HBCU Philanthropy, We Cannot Reap Where We Have Not Sown

Written by HBCU Digest, Posted in Editorial, Finance

Dr. Alderman Faison headshotI must say from the outset that I maintain a profound and genuine respect for the visionary leadership of Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, as one of the nation’s leading and preeminent voices in the persistent plight of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Indeed, as a younger member of the “hip-hop generation” who also heeded the call to serve the HBCU community as an executive administrator, I was actually in part personally inspired by Dr. Kimbrough’s leadership having known him personally as a student during my matriculation as an undergraduate at Albany State University where he served as a vice president a decade ago.

However, after reading Dr. Kimbrough’s May 22, 2013 Los Angeles Times article titled, “Why USC and not a black college, Dr. Dre?” concerning his angst and disappointment regarding hip-hop super producer Dr. Dre’s recent $35 million dollar gift to the University of Southern California, I pensively ruminated whether Dr. Kimbrough or other HBCU leaders were sincerely ready to hear and fully appreciate the rather inconvenient truth that belies the unfortunate answer to his retort with respect to HBCUs often not being the beneficiaries of multi-million dollar gifts.

Unfortunately, as a higher education advancement/development professional and state legislative liaison/lobbyist for a state sponsored HBCU, it sadly is of little surprise nor is it much of a perplexing reality that these kinds of gifts and investments continuously escape the needful grips of a great majority of our institutions. To put it bluntly, and at the risk of taking too much of a literary liberty with a sacred Biblical principle, “Dr. Kimbrough, HBCUs cannot reap where HBCUs have not sown.”

An increasingly volatile economic and political climate has created a formidable and frightening reality for the future of state and federal funding of higher education (especially at HBCUs). Now more than ever, HBCU leaders must be bold and audacious in making their institution’s philanthropic function as the institution’s highest budgetary priority.

As an HBCU advancement executive, it’s often unsettlingly ironic to me that a great majority of our institutions often cite their lack of financial resources as the primary impediment towards reaching the desired level of institutional and programmatic success. And yet, when glancing across the HBCU landscape to examine the advancement/development units whose primary function it is to seek, solicit, cultivate and secure resources for our institutions, in many cases we find that these units are often the LEAST professionally staffed, LEAST resourced, and LEAST developed comparative to other institutional units. And yet they are looked upon to be the deliverers for our institution’s GREATEST need!

How can HBCUs justifiably expect multi-million dollar beneficence, when many of our institutions financially invest only a fraction of what is necessary and needed in the way of sufficient advancement/development staffing, fundraising expertise and training, and professional fundraising development?

Earlier this past spring during a session for HBCU fundraising professionals at the regional meeting of CASE (Council on the Advancement and Support of Education) in Atlanta, Ga., an informal survey taken amongst the HBCU representatives revealed that a number of institutions were currently operating with advancement/development units that were severely understaffed and under resourced. Some institutions were operating with scarcely a total of 2-3 dedicated fundraisers. Show me an institution of higher education (whether HBCU, MSI or PWI) that routinely closes multi-million dollar gifts and I’ll show you an institution whose leadership has made its advancement/development function THE priority through an intentional investment of institutional dollars representative of such a commitment.

http://hbcudigest.com/when-it-comes...-reap-where-we-have-not-sown/?fb_source=pubv1

 

[JagHammer]

When It Comes to HBCU Philanthropy, We Cannot Reap Where We Have Not Sown

Written by HBCU Digest, Posted in Editorial, Finance

Dr. Alderman Faison headshotI must say from the outset that I maintain a profound and genuine respect for the visionary leadership of Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, as one of the nation’s leading and preeminent voices in the persistent plight of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Indeed, as a younger member of the “hip-hop generation” who also heeded the call to serve the HBCU community as an executive administrator, I was actually in part personally inspired by Dr. Kimbrough’s leadership having known him personally as a student during my matriculation as an undergraduate at Albany State University where he served as a vice president a decade ago.

However, after reading Dr. Kimbrough’s May 22, 2013 Los Angeles Times article titled, “Why USC and not a black college, Dr. Dre?” concerning his angst and disappointment regarding hip-hop super producer Dr. Dre’s recent $35 million dollar gift to the University of Southern California, I pensively ruminated whether Dr. Kimbrough or other HBCU leaders were sincerely ready to hear and fully appreciate the rather inconvenient truth that belies the unfortunate answer to his retort with respect to HBCUs often not being the beneficiaries of multi-million dollar gifts.

Unfortunately, as a higher education advancement/development professional and state legislative liaison/lobbyist for a state sponsored HBCU, it sadly is of little surprise nor is it much of a perplexing reality that these kinds of gifts and investments continuously escape the needful grips of a great majority of our institutions. To put it bluntly, and at the risk of taking too much of a literary liberty with a sacred Biblical principle, “Dr. Kimbrough, HBCUs cannot reap where HBCUs have not sown.”

An increasingly volatile economic and political climate has created a formidable and frightening reality for the future of state and federal funding of higher education (especially at HBCUs). Now more than ever, HBCU leaders must be bold and audacious in making their institution’s philanthropic function as the institution’s highest budgetary priority.

As an HBCU advancement executive, it’s often unsettlingly ironic to me that a great majority of our institutions often cite their lack of financial resources as the primary impediment towards reaching the desired level of institutional and programmatic success. And yet, when glancing across the HBCU landscape to examine the advancement/development units whose primary function it is to seek, solicit, cultivate and secure resources for our institutions, in many cases we find that these units are often the LEAST professionally staffed, LEAST resourced, and LEAST developed comparative to other institutional units. And yet they are looked upon to be the deliverers for our institution’s GREATEST need!

How can HBCUs justifiably expect multi-million dollar beneficence, when many of our institutions financially invest only a fraction of what is necessary and needed in the way of sufficient advancement/development staffing, fundraising expertise and training, and professional fundraising development?

Earlier this past spring during a session for HBCU fundraising professionals at the regional meeting of CASE (Council on the Advancement and Support of Education) in Atlanta, Ga., an informal survey taken amongst the HBCU representatives revealed that a number of institutions were currently operating with advancement/development units that were severely understaffed and under resourced. Some institutions were operating with scarcely a total of 2-3 dedicated fundraisers. Show me an institution of higher education (whether HBCU, MSI or PWI) that routinely closes multi-million dollar gifts and I’ll show you an institution whose leadership has made its advancement/development function THE priority through an intentional investment of institutional dollars representative of such a commitment.

http://hbcudigest.com/when-it-comes...-reap-where-we-have-not-sown/?fb_source=pubv1

I enjoyed reading this response. :tup: