<p>Colleges Ask Donors to Help Meet Demand for Aid</p>
<p>by Stephanie Strom</p>
<p>[link is here ---> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/education/16college.html?_r=1&hp%5D%5B/url">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/education/16college.html?_r=1&hp][/url</a>]</p>
<p>Faced with one of the most challenging fund-raising environments anyone can remember, colleges and universities are appealing to donors to help meet the swelling demand for financial aid.</p>
<p>Using such demand as a fund-raising tool totally makes sense in this environment, said Richard J. Krasney, a wealth manager and philanthropy adviser. More than ever, people want to know that their money is being used to address current needs.</p>
<p>Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., for example, has increased its financial aid budget for the coming school year by 7.5 percent, to $21.5 million, a point its fund-raisers are making to donors.</p>
<p>The incoming student body for the fall of 2009 will have higher financial needs than in the past, said Clay Ballantine, Hampshires chief advancement officer. I tell donors these are excellent students and we want to take financial concerns out of their decision-making process, and were looking to you to provide a gift that will help us do that. </p>
<p>Chapman University in Orange, Calif., has seen demand for financial aid increase 88 percent and that does not include requests for support from students accepted for next fall. Were very open and honest about that in all our communications, and it resonates, said Sheryl Bourgeois, executive vice president of university advancement. </p>
<p>She has shared letters from students seeking additional financial aid with potential donors, like one from a young woman whose mother holds down two jobs to keep her daughter in school but just lost her house. </p>
<p>Telling potential donors about the surge in need helped Chapman exceed the $175,000 goal it had set for its phone-a-thon this year. Its gala, slated to raise $2 million, raised $2.1 million.</p>
<p>More recently, though, things have slowed down.</p>
<p>It is getting tougher, Ms. Bourgeois said. I think maybe people have had even more requests coming to them from other nonprofit groups.</p>
<p>Just a year ago, universities were emphasizing new buildings, research and sports centers and faculty recruitment in their fund-raising pitches, but those things turn people off now, fund-raising experts said. </p>
<p>Mitchell Moore, vice president for advancement at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., said the university was making a case to donors that money raised through its annual fund campaign would be spent on immediate needs.</p>
<p>At the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, fund-raisers are telling potential donors that some $30 million in requests for financial aid remain outstanding. The universitys endowment is down 25.6 percent, and Gov. Beverly E. Perdue has proposed cutting state financing to the University of North Carolina system by 5 percent.</p>
<p>We have a lot of donors whove given to our annual fund consistently for 30 years but have never been challenged to increase the amount they give, said Patti Stewart, vice chancellor for university advancement. Were doing a better job now of asking them to do that, and its a good thing we have.</p>
<p>U.N.C. Greensboros annual fund has so far collected 6 percent less than it did last year, Ms. Stewart said. In the past, the annual fund has raised 3 percent to 5 percent more each year. She expects to hit the annual fund target of $3 million by the end of the school year, which would be flat compared to last year.</p>
<p>Hamilton Colleges $6 million annual fund drive is already flat compared to last year, and that makes Jon Hysell, director of annual giving, happy. Flat is the new up, Mr. Hysell said.</p>
<p>The college, in Clinton, N.Y., based its pitch on a recent alumni survey that showed almost 90 percent said they wanted their donations to support scholarships. </p>
<p>So, rather than talking about how a $100 donation buys 45 compact fluorescent lightbulbs, were talking about how their gift affects a student in need, Mr. Hysell said. </p>
<p>Several universities and colleges said they also are approaching donors who have created endowed scholarship funds that have lost value. Laws in roughly half the states prohibit charities from spending out of endowed funds that have fallen below their initial dollar value, which has crippled many charities at a time when money is scarce.</p>
<p>Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., has begun approaching donors who established such funds and asking them to consider making a gift to offset the loss of the money that would normally flow from those funds.</p>
<p>If someone created a $100,000 endowed fund that is now under water, Ill ask them to make a $5,000 gift, which is about what their fund would generate for our use under normal conditions, said Charles Lewis, Millsapss vice president for institutional advancement. We have several donors considering that now.</p>