Quote:
Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
One of the college administrators at my alma mater explained it as private colleges and universities often have capital expenditures that require some borrowing. The lenders look to see what percentage of the alumni donate, and they loan at lower rates to the institutions which have a larger percentage of alumni who donate. The presumption is that if the institution falls on hard times, and needs money to pay off the loan, they're likely to get it if a large percentage of the alumni already have a history of giving. Therefore, while the institutions always try to get you to donate more, they'd rather see you give a pittance, like $10, than nothing at all.
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I didn't know about that particular situation. However, I did know that corporations which give to schools do look at what percentage of the alums give. I suppose that the reasoning is, "If the
alums don't care enough about this school to financially support it, then why should we?"
Your post also brought up a question in my mind--do corporations now look at the "smile" donations by alums the same way that they do other donations by alums? My thought is, "probably not."