Colleges and universities nationally are receiving a larger amount of private donations from a smaller group of contributors compared to recent years, according to a recent survey.

Meanwhile, Sacramento State is seeing an increase in both donation revenue and the amount of people making donations.

Contributions to colleges and universities on a national level went up by 4.9 percent in 2005, while the percentage of alumni making donations declined to 12.4 percent from the 13.8 percent figure it was at in 2001, according to an annual survey released this month by the Council for Aid to Education, a national nonprofit that conducts higher education policy research.

The nonprofit’s survey includes information from 1,005 institutions, representing nearly two-thirds of the nation’s four-year schools, according to a Council for Aid press release.

“Generally speaking, we definitely have more very large gifts coming in, and we have more people giving,” said Frank Whitlatch, associate vice president of public affairs at Sac State, describing how the school is bucking the national trend.

For the 2005 accounting period, spanning the 2004/2005 school year, Sac State had 27,785 individual donors, the second highest amount for any school in the CSU system after San Diego State with 64,824 donors. Included in this number is 3,322 Sac State alumni, or 2.27 percent of the CSU system’s 146,332 alumni, according to the CSU Web site.

Some feel that the lowered percentage of alumni donating has to do with the Sac State’s improved alumni tracking system, which better counts the less active alumni who may have fallen off the radar in earlier years.

“We’re more successful in getting names from alumni and tracking the database to make sure it’s updated,” said Vince Sales, associate vice president of development at Sac State.

With the recent decline in federal and state funding for higher education, schools have become much more active in searching out donations from the local community.

“I think there is more of an awareness of the need for a state university to do fundraising,” Whitlatch said. “The state is sort of maintaining the basics, but not too much beyond that.”

Part of the reason people are so willing to give is their own experience at Sac State. One in 26 of the region’s residents are Sac state alumni, according to Whitlatch, making it easier for his department to solicit donations from the community.

On a national level, the Council for Aid reports that the biggest source of donations came from alumni and foundations, with each group contributing just over 27 percent of a school’s average fundraising for 2005.

At Sac State, donations from foundations made up a much smaller share of the total, coming in at 7.44 percent, closely followed by alumni donations at 6.84 percent. The school’s total donation revenue for 2005 was more than $6.4 million, with the largest share, almost 60 percent, coming from individuals who were not alumni, according to the CSU Web site.

Sac State fundraising totals for previous years are $12.5 million in 2003 and $6.8 million in 2004.

Despite the downward trend from the past three years, the 2006 fundraising period is gearing up for record earnings, Whitlatch said.

“Last year our total was around $6.5 million ,” Whitlatch said. “So far this year, at about the halfway point, we’ve raised just over $12 million .”

“This year has been our vice president’s first full year on the job, and I think we’ve done some pretty good things,” added Whitlatch, referring to the school’s new Vice President for University Advancement Carol Hayashino.

On the CSU level, the chancellor’s office sets a 10 percent fundraising goal for each of the 23 campuses, Whitlatch said. The percentage of a school’s general fund raised from donations in the CSU system ranged from 4 percent at CSU, Dominguez Hills and CSU, Los Angeles to 32 percent at San Diego State and 5 percent at Sac State in 2005.

For many years the university has not reached the chancellor’s goal, but this year he school is already at 9.5 percent, Whitlatch said.

Other sources of revenue for the school’s 2005 budget include $39.7 million from the state and local government, $37.2 million from federal funding, and $4.4 million of unspecified nongovernmental funding, according to the CSU Web site.

Rewards for contributors range from tax write-offs and thank-you letters to more lavish gifts for top donors.

One fundraising program, called the Presidents Circle, offers donors many school-related perks in exchange for $1,500 to $10,000 donations, including exclusive event invitations, parking permits, and personal meetings with Sac State President Alexander Gonzalez.

“Often times for very large gifts, there (are) naming rights attached,” said Whitlatch, referring to the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex built with funds from local philanthropists Alex and Faye Spanos.

But recognition isn’t the only reason people donate. Some contributors choose to remain anonymous, like the donor who recently gave Sac State $1 million in support of Asian American studies but asked to not be identified.

When asked about the impact of corporate donors as opposed to alumni and philanthropists, Whitlatch said the school is careful to keep a donor’s wishes from conflicting with the school’s purpose.

“As far as strings, if a donor wanted too much control over a gift, I don’t think that’s something we’d be able to work on,” Whitlatch said. Of Sac State’s donation revenue for 2005, $953,240 or 20.98 percent came from corporations. The total corporate donations for the entire CSU system were $82.2 million in 2003, $72.3 million in 2004, and $55.2 million in 2005, a sharp decline compared to relatively consistent numbers in other donor categories, according to a report on the CSU Web site.

On a national level, the council for aid reports that corporate donations to colleges and universities stayed consistent from 2004 to 2005.

Avi Ehrlich can be reached at [email protected]