Who Are the Alumni Donors? Giving by Two Generations of Alumni from Selective Colleges

✍ Scribed by Charles T. Clotfelter

• Book ID: 102554248
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 117 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1048-6682
• DOI: 10.1002/nml.12201

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Using data on former students of fourteen private colleges and universities, this paper examines patterns of alumni giving. The data are taken from the College and Beyond survey, which covers individuals who entered the institutions in the fall of 1951, 1976, and 1989. Contributions by these former students to these colleges and universities tend to be quite concentrated, with half of all donations being given by the most generous 1 percent of the sample. A higher level of contribution is associated with higher income, with having participated in extracurricular activities in college, with having had a mentor in college, and with the degree of satisfaction in one's undergraduate experience. The projected donations for the most generous of these alumni over the course of a lifetime are quite high, with totals for the 1951 cohort exceeding those from the 1976 cohort.