6 Historically Black Colleges to Receive Grants to Help With Fund Raising

By BECKIE SUPIANO/Chronicle of Higher Education
3-12-08


The United Negro College Fund announced on Tuesday that it will provide a total of $5.9-million in grants to help six historically black colleges and universities improve their fund-raising operations.

The grants—which will go to Benedict College, Claflin University, Jarvis Christian College, Morehouse College, Philander Smith College, and Wiley College—are designed to help the institutions hire consultants and kick-start larger fund-raising efforts well beyond the grant period, said Elfred Anthony Pinkard, executive director of the UNCF's Institute for Capacity Building. Each institution's share of the money will depend upon its needs and plans, Mr. Pinkard said.

Many historically black colleges have small fund-raising staffs and struggle to raise money from private sources. "We live primarily by tuition," said Love Collins III, executive vice president for institutional advancement at Benedict College, in Columbia, S.C., one of the recipients. Keeping in touch with potential donors requires a lot of money, he said. "We have to sometimes choose between publishing a newsletter and using it to support tuition so a child can stay in college."

Of the colleges receiving a grant, only Morehouse responded to the Council for Aid to Education's annual Voluntary Support of Education survey last year. It reported $34.6-million in annual giving for 2006-7.

The grants are part of the Institutional Advancement Program of UNCF's Institute for Capacity Building, supported by the Kresge Foundation.