Dive Brief:

• While most college advancement officials met their fundraising goals for the most recent budget year, poor colleges were most likely to miss their targets, according to a survey of 335 colleges and universities in North America.
• Only 29% of the advancement officials surveyed missed their fund-raising goals, and for the current budget year, almost 60% of them aim to raise 10% more from donors, reported Academic Impressions, which provides training for higher education leaders.
• The survey focused on the smaller fundraisers: Institutions included raised $3.3 billion in the 2013-14 fiscal year, which compares to $34 billion raised by all colleges and universities in calendar year 2013.

Dive Insight:

According to Inside Higher Ed, the Academic Impressions concluded that because more poor colleges are missing their fundraising targets, despite the fact that more alumni from those schools are giving, the problem must be that the average gift amount is declining or that the fundraising goals are too ambitious. A Council for Aid to Education survey had a different finding: that the rate of alumni participation was dropping, in part because colleges have an easier time tracking down today’s alumni, and more alumni are contacted and saying “no thanks.”