Donor Relationships are the Key to Development Activities that Can Provide your Engineering or Engineering Technology Program Its Margin of Excellence.

Abstract

Public institutions are getting less of their budgets from their state legislatures in recent times. To find a solution to this problem programs at state institutions have been forced to get funding from alternate sources. This can mean grants from federal or private sources, royalties from patents obtained by the faculty, and gifts from philanthropic foundations. Engineering and engineering technology programs have another source. Due to their close contacts with industry, these departments can work with their industrial supporters to obtain funding from them, both equipment and cash donations. These departments also have many alumni at technical companies, who are very loyal to their alma maters. These alumni are very receptive to appeals from the departments from which they obtained their education, to help these departments in increasing the quality of their programs. In fact, it is more than loyalty that motivates these alumni. If the program from which they came increases in quality and status, this can only result in increasing the value to the alumni's degrees. This paper will show the importance of networking and building relationships to further development activities in an engineering technology department at public institution, so that the department can increase in quality for future graduates. One method that works very well at Texas A&M University is to take prospects and donors to football games! This paper will show the results of what this process can bring about.