ABSTRACT
The spotlight in educational and other charitable organizations has been on the fund-raising function as it works to bring in much needed revenue for organizations that have rising expenditures and static or decreased funding from other sources. Fund raising was an integral element in the founding and operations of America’s earliest institutions of higher education, and the presidents of those institutions were the primary fund raisers. Fund raising for colleges and universities became an internal, organizational function after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s, institutions of higher education created their first development offices and primary responsibility for fund raising was transferred into the hands of full-time, specialized practitioners. Kenneth Burke, a fund raiser whose career has been spent with private universities, disagreed with Coldren’s conclusion, saying: When campaigns were a rarity, an individual could perhaps be expected to commit a substantial gift and not be asked again even in his/her lifetime.
