Friend raisers and fund raisers: Alumni relations and *development in large, public universities.
Arnold, Gertrude Lee
2003
Abstract
Alumni contributions make up the largest segment of voluntary contributions to higher education in the United States. Because alumni are important sources of voluntary support for higher education, cooperation and coordination between the alumni relations and development functions seem essential. The purpose of this organizational study was to illuminate the relationship between alumni relations and fundraising units in large, public, research universities, identifying and exploring the influence of environmental and organizational factors that affect the relationship. Because independent alumni associations and foundations often implement alumni programs and fundraising efforts on behalf of their universities, this study approaches the relationship between alumni relations and development as interorganizational, rather than intraorganizational. Resource dependency theory and institutional theory provided the basis for a conceptual framework depicting organizational and environmental factors that might shape the relationship. A survey concentrated on the structure of the alumni relations and development programs and provided a means for selecting universities for comparative case study analyses. Data from 47 large, public, research I universities in the United States revealed organizational patterns leading to categorization of alumni relations and development programs as independent from, interdependent with, or integrated into their affiliated universities. After assigning each university to one of nine organizational models using this categorization, I selected one university from each of the five most frequently observed models for comparative case study analysis. These five cases were explored through documents and interviews from the alumni relations and development programs. The intensity, symmetry, formalization, and standardization of interaction between the partner organizations in each university provided insight into the degree of cooperation, coordination and collaboration in the relationship. Consistent with institutional theory and resource dependency theory, these organizations cooperate in order to enhance status and to acquire needed resources. Additionally, they collaborate toward enhancement of the affiliated university. Organizational factors influencing these relationships are leadership, organizational autonomy, and relationship history. The university exerted the greatest environmental influence on the relationships. Important contributions of this study are the classification scheme for alumni relations and development programs and the conceptual framework depicting the organizational and environmental influences on the relationship between two organizations.Subjects
Alumni Relations Development Friend Fund-raisers Large Public Education Universities
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