Philanthropy and Fundraising in American Higher Education by Noah D. Drezner (review)

Fundraising for higher education has attracted increased scholarly attention in recent years, although much of this attention has been from reflective practitioners, and the resulting publications have been scattered over a wide variety of venues. In this volume, Drezner attempts to bring together the latest research on the subject and to summarize the state of the field. The resulting ASHE Higher Education Report is an excellent introduction to fundraising for both scholars interested in studying the field (or, perhaps, supervising the theses of interested graduate students) and for development officers who wish to develop as reflective practitioners.

A few notes on what this book is not: Rather than providing exhaustive coverage of every topical publication, Drezner's book provides a "state of the nation" overview of what we know about fundraising in higher education. Additionally, the book is focused on fundraising and philanthropy, setting aside other aspects of the development function such as alumni relations, marketing, and public relations; and within fundraising, the volume admittedly focuses on individual giving. Neither corporate nor foundation grant-making is discussed. While there is some interesting overlap among these advancement functions, including them would have led to too much material for the slender size of an ASHE Report. Focusing strictly on fundraising allows Drezner to more fully explore the current issues in the field, including those that researchers have only recently begun to address.

Drezner begins with a basic outline of how fundraising works and the impact it has had on American higher education. Practitioners should be familiar with most of the content in this section; scholars new to the field will find it a useful overview, with citations to important works for those who wish to delve deeper. The remaining two-thirds of the work focus on emerging areas of research: nontraditional donors, women in philanthropy, donor motivation, engaging new donors, and the increasing collection of data by development offices.

By focusing on emerging research areas, the author passes over some topics, most notably community college giving. Alumni giving, too, is primarily addressed as an issue of engaging recent graduates. In other words, this text cannot function as an encyclopedia of fundraising for higher education; and for classroom use, it would need to be supplemented by other sources. Drezner clearly states this focus at the outset, and it is more of a delimiter than a weakness.

As is traditional, Drezner highlights areas of the field that need further development. In calling for further work, the book follows in the tradition of The Campus Green (Brittingham & Pezzullo, 1990) and Carbone's literature review (Carbone, 1986), both of which surveyed the field of fundraising and found major gaps. Some of those gaps have since been somewhat closed, although most have not. Notably, Brittingham and Pezzullo's book is also an ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, as they were then branded; the simple fact that the earlier scholars could produce a comprehensive, encyclopedic report in the allotted space and that Drezner could not is proof of the field's growth.

Drezner suggests that further work is necessary in predicting giving through prosocial behavior theory, the engagement of nontraditional donors, the effect of giving on institutional mission, the role of senior leadership, and generational differences. To this list might well be added rhetorical and image analysis, the relationship of tuition prices and state subsidies to philanthropy, and corporate and foundation giving. Additionally, as fundraising research has moved increasingly toward the utilization of theory, that theory has predominantly been econometric. (Historians have long had a place at the table in this topic, but otherwise much fundraising work has been, and still is, atheoretical.) While econometric theory has created some fascinating models and sophisticated quantitative analyses, Drezner is correct in noting that qualitative research is also necessary to allow the voices of donors themselves to be heard.

As the first overview of higher education fundraising since 2002...