Fundraising programs in community colleges: Factors that contribute to effectiveness

Purpose of the study. A challenge for today's community colleges is the lack of financial support. Higher student enrollment and increasing operating costs are indicators of a need for monetary sources other than state revenues, local taxation, student fees, and tuition. The primary purposes of the study were to determine the characteristics of an effective fundraising program, the marketing practices that contribute to the success of a fundraising program, and factors of the development system's influence on a fundraising program.; Procedure. This study utilized a Delphi research instrument. Initially 74 invitations were sent to potential panel members at colleges with 10,000 or more students, and 42 agreed to participate in the study. Opinions were solicited by mail in a sequence of three separate rounds and participants were asked to respond to three open-ended questions. The composite list of statements and a zero-to-four rating, Likert-type, was included with each statement. After three rounds, the medians of the final responses were taken as representing the nearest thing to a group consensus.; Findings. The study defined a group of 100 issues that illustrated the Characteristics, Marketing Practices, and Influence Factors related to community college fundraising. Of the 44 issues about Characteristics, 97.73% of them had a median of 3 or 4 on the Likert scale. The majority of the final responses had a median of 3 or 4 on the Likert scale, indicating a very high level of consensus.; Conclusions. In the Characteristics category, findings indicated that 23 issues are mandatory for a successful fundraising program. Of the three major categories to a successful community college campaign, Marketing Practices ranked third in overall importance. Findings indicated that six of the 29 issues have monumental importance when it comes to achieving fundraising campaign goals. Planning is an integral component of all 27 issues involving the Influence Factors that have a starring role in the orchestration of a successful community college campaign.