Funding Your Campus

Communication Systems

January 2007

Sponsored by:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction................................................................................................................................... 3

The Need for a Campuswide Notification System ..................................................................... 4

What is a Campus Notification System?..................................................................................... 5

How to Fund Your Campus Notification System ...................................................................... 6 Funding from the Government ..................................................................................................................7 Funding from Corporations, Foundations and Communities.....................................................................8 Funding from Individual Donors ...............................................................................................................9 Stan Levenson’s 14 Step Checklist to Improve Your Chances of Getting Funded .................................10

The Basics of Starting a Development Office ........................................................................... 11

Additional Resources .................................................................................................................. 14

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Introduction How efficient is your campus notification system? If there were an emergency, could you get the word out? Being able to get important information to your students, staff and faculty--both on site and remote--is critical. But in an era of tight budgets and limited resources, it's hard to find money to fund these much needed systems. In this practical reference guide you’ll learn why campuswide notification systems are critical, discover new sources for funds to purchase your school’s notification system and learn invaluable tips on writing a successful grant and improving your chances of securing funds.

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The Need for a Campuswide Notification System In the event of an on-campus emergency, your first concern will be student safety. Yet how do you communicate with students quickly and efficiently and let them know how to respond--especially when they’re not all located in the same room or building? Immediately after that, how do you get the word out to others--emergency personnel, staff, parents, media and the community that has a vested interest in what goes on at your school? Traditional, manual processes--such as making phone calls from a list or distributing flyers--are tragically inadequate in the face of emergencies such as the hurricanes of 2005 or the school shootings of 2006. Even in the face of more mundane operations, such as a construction-related building closures or weather-related school closures, you need to communicate with students, faculty members and other constituents. Therefore, a campuswide mass notification solution is the answer.

The Perils Campuses Face In 2001 two schools in the Grossmont Union High School District experienced shooting incidents within 15 days of each other in which two students were killed. It's one of the worst crises a school can face, and the district had to deal with two separate tragedies in two weeks. Fast and accurate communication with parents and the community was crucial to managing a crisis of this magnitude. That was the impetus for the school district to install an automated notification system that contacts parents by phone and email when a situation arises. Like all of us, Pace University felt the sad impact of the events that took place on September 11, 2001. But Pace, in New York City, is within a mile of Ground Zero. When chaos broke out that day in Southern Manhattan, communication became a massive challenge because its data switching center was housed at the World Trade Center, causing immediate loss of all electronic communications. To get the word out, Pace relied on Website updates, alternate e-mail addresses, phones and a public access system. When electronic methods faltered, they took out ads in local newspapers to communicate with students, faculty and others. Louisiana State University A&M is based in Baton Rouge. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it became a primary triage center and special needs facility--the largest such outpost ever assembled in the time of disaster in US history. The campus handled more than 5,000 patients in the early days. Disaster recovery became the impetus for a campuswide notification system, but the team assigned to this effort realized they would need additional funds to support this plan. Montclair State University in New Jersey didn’t wait for a natural disaster or attack to recognize the need for a campuswide notification system. The school just wanted to have some means by which to communicate with its constituents on a day-to-day basis. They created a wide-area cellular network with the ability to issue real-time alerts and information about campus closures, maintenance updates and updates on facility availability. In all of these cases, the schools realized they could benefit from a more cohesive campuswide mass notification system.

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What is a Campus Notification System? A basic campus notification system consists of a network that pushes information to students, faculty, staff and others. It relies on a combination of technologies, including phone, fax, email, text messaging to mobile devices, mobile wireless local area networks, even digital signage set up where people congregate. For example, a campus notification system from NEC, one vendor serving this market, can be programmed with pre-defined message scenarios and call lists. It can include individualized messages for different campus locations and student groups. The system can assign individuals to multiple alert lists from pre-existing directories or databases. Several notification methods can be assigned to each individual. A message priority level can be designated for each media type in the individual’s member profile so the system knows the best method to reach a person based on alert priority level. A full history can be maintained for each notification. The system can track the status of outbound communications and notification receipts on a real-time basis. Characteristics of a campus notification system, encompassing both software and hardware, include:

• Flexibility and ease of use, so that it can be applied to standard notifications as well as emergency response situations.

• Integration with existing databases so that vital information is always current. • Allowance for pre-defined scenarios as well as both standard and custom contact lists. • The capability to reach individuals via multiple media types. • The ability to log event progress and generate reports in real time. • Remote access capability to launch alerts regardless of physical location. • Multilingual capabilities, to record and distribute messages in multiple languages. • Scalability to facilitate system growth as needed.

The challenge, of course, is how to cover the expense. After all, each aspect of the solution will be pricey. For example, in early 2006 Orange County Community College (SUNY Orange) in New York estimated a campus wide wireless deployment would cost the school at least $200,000.

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How to Fund Your Campus Notification System Schools are pursuing a variety of methods to generate the money they need to fund technology initiatives such as a campus notification system. Some campuses have resorted to funding projects by partnering with vendors, seeking low interest loans or floating bonds. Other approaches include tacking on fees to tuition or room and board bills. Still others get even more creative. For example, the SUNY Orange computer club at Orange County Community College in New York raffled off a custom-built motorcycle it purchased from Orange County Choppers in order to raise funds to implement a campuswide wireless network. (See the sidebar, “Getting Students Involved in Fundraising.”) More traditional sources of funding, which you may not be fully exploiting for technology projects, include federal, state, corporate and foundation grants. Likewise, individual donors are a major source of funding. Stan Levenson, president and CEO of Levenson & Associates Consulting, who specializes in helping schools raise money, estimates that 80 percent of all grants and gifts to colleges, universities and private schools come from individual donors.

Getting Students Involved in Fundraising When the students of Orange County Community College in New York were surveyed for their top technology priority in 2004, campuswide wireless was at the top of the list. So it made sense that the college’s computer club would choose as a service project raising funds to implement wireless. The club held a brainstorming session and decided that one way to generate funds would be to raffle off a custom-built motorcycle purchased from the world-famous Orange County Choppers (featured in a popular Discovery Channel TV series). The chopper’s price tag and various ancillary expenses put the raffle’s break-even at a hefty $55,000. Raffle tickets were sold for $5 apiece, not just on campus by a multitude of clubs, but also through in-person events featuring the chopper and on an Internet site built by the club that reached potential buyers around the world. The drawing took place at the motorcycle shop itself and featured the show’s celebrities. According to VP of Information Technology, James Dutcher, the raffle was a “huge success.” The club grossed just over $100,000 and is “well underway in setting up wireless.” Implementation started with the library, says Dutcher, and they’ll be bringing additional buildings online in the near future. Dutcher says the Internet sales comprised the bulk of the raffle ticket income sales. However, he notes, “there were live events for which we had our chopper on display at that generated the greatest one day sales.” Sales came from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Japan. Currently, the club, its organizers and the campus are “contemplating how best to institutionalize the raffle effort,” he says. “Now that we have that experience, from the lessons learned and our post-project review of the raffle, we are sure that at our next go-round we can raise four times the amount.” Best of all, says Dutcher, the fundraising effort has “opened many doors for the college in terms of empowering students and realizing alternate income streams that the college can tap into. The overall business experience that the students gained will be with them for the rest of [their] working careers as [will] the fond memories of the hard work, fun and reward from doing it.

How much money is out there now for schools to obtain? In 2005, according to research institute Giving USA Foundation, overall “giving” totaled $260 billion. Individual donors accounted for more than 76 percent of that. Corporations and foundations donated more than $43 billion. Of that total, $38.5 billion in

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grants and gifts (or nearly 15 percent of overall giving) went to education, second only to religious organizations. In other words, schools are popular charities. What this means is that your school needs to learn how to pursue individual donors with great gusto and make going after grants and gifts from corporations and foundations part of the overall funding strategy as well. You can’t simply rely on federal money alone, since the competition for those funds is intense. Broadening your prospects beyond your usual sources will increase the likelihood that you will obtain the funding you’re seeking for new initiatives.

Six Basic Components That Go into Every Grant Application 1. Needs assessment: Assessing your needs will help you to determine your priorities. 2. Goals: Write goals for your project. For example, one project might have two or three goals. 3. Objectives: Measurable objectives give funding agencies and individuals a way to determine how

well their money is being spent. 4. Activities: Tie activities and evaluation components to your objectives. 5. Evaluation specifications: Plan to do both internal (self evaluation) and external (performed by

somebody brought in from outside the organization) evaluations. 6. Budget: Make sure your budget is well thought out and realistic.

The alumni office is a good place to start on developing a program for approaching individual donors. Most colleges, universities and private schools have development offices on campus. (For those that don’t, read “The Basics of Starting a Development Office,” later in this report.) Also, development office staff can be quite sophisticated in how to approach individual donors, corporations and foundations and the federal government. If you’re struggling to figure out how to fund a specific technology effort--such as a campus communication system--it’s time to establish a relationship with your development office. Funding from the Government Federal agencies and state governments typically announce new grant opportunities on their Web sites. Many have a function that allows you to sign up to be notified by email of new grant opportunities. For example, a search in Google on the following keywords: “north dakota state government grants education technology,” recommends a state government page that features the “Qwest Classroom Technology Grant Program” on its home page. A similar search for Colorado provides a link to a page for the Colorado Department of Education, featuring a number of links for both state and federal funding sources. The government also has some large-scale funding for specific types of projects. • In Fall 2006, Congress appropriated $100 million--twice what was allocated in the previous two years-

-for grants, and program support for the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency Pre-Disaster Mitigation Fund. State institutions, including public colleges and universities may apply for money to cover the expense of “hazard mitigation planning and the implementation of mitigation projects prior to a disaster event.” Find more links in the Resource section at the end of this report. http://www.fema.gov/government/grant/pdm/fy2007.shtm

• The United States Department of Agriculture sponsors the “Distance Learning and Telemedicine

Program,” to “encourage and improve the use of telemedicine, telecommunications, computer networks, and related advanced technologies to provide educational and medical benefits through distance learning and telemedicine projects to people living in rural areas and to improve rural

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opportunities.” In 2006, it issued nearly $26 million grants to provide improved educational and medical services in 38 states. The USDA provides an email sign-up function to let you subscribe to program notices. http://www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/dlt/dlt.htm

Online Resources to Stay Informed about Funding Sources Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance: Find programs meeting your requirements and for which you may be eligible. http://12.46.245.173/cfda/cfda.html Chronicle of Philanthropy: News and information on funding opportunities. http://philanthropy.com/ Community Foundations: A place to learn about the 650 community foundations in the United States. http://www.communityfoundations.net/ Foundation Center: A comprehensive website for resources related to corporate and foundation grants. http://www.foundationcenter.org/ Grants.gov: Find federal grants and get alerted when new ones are added according to the criteria you specify. http://www.grants.gov/applicants/get_registered.jsp Planned Giving Today: Resources for gift-planning professionals, especially those who work with individual donors. http://www.pgtoday.com/ The Grantsmanship Center: Get help and training on writing grants. http://www.tgci.com/ US Department of Education Grants and Contracts: This agency has awarded $38 billion to states and school districts. http://www.ed.gov/fund/landing.jhtml?src=rt. The DOE site, Emergency Response and Crisis Management Technical Assistance Center, offers grants to help school districts develop comprehensive plans for any emergency or crisis. http://www.ercm.org/ Secure our Schools: This initiative provides funding to establish and improve school safety measures. Speak to your local Police Chief--they are aware of the money and eager to have these dollars spent on their community. www.forms.gov (Form SF242). http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/default.asp?Item=1377

Funding from Corporations, Foundations and Communities Whereas funding from the government may often feel like an anonymous process, funding from corporations, communities and foundations can become much more personal. Levenson recommends that schools seeking foundation money start with those in their immediate geographical area. Why? Geographic proximity is vital to getting this relationship off the ground. As he explains, “You work with them; you get to know them; they get to know you. You go on their turf; you bring some of the key people from your organization to meet with their key people on their turf. You invite them to come to your school and have them interact with you. Once they become your friends and once they decide to accept your invitation, you are well on your way to securing some funding from this funding source.” Also, foundations--perhaps more so than the typical individual donor--better appreciate the importance of technology and the impact it has in business, commerce and daily life. Frequently, major donors may come from the high tech field. Plus, you may find companies willing to partner with your school financially and otherwise to support certain types of programs aimed at educating a workforce to serve a specific local industry.

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Funding from Individual Donors Pursue opportunities with individual donors. Start with individuals who may have attended your school or live in the local community. Get them involved in your cause-- have them do volunteer work, sit on boards or run committees. Last year, 80 percent of all grants and gifts to colleges, universities and private schools came from individual donors. Also, due to the geographic proximity of your school to many of your individual donors, they may turn out to offer the greatest potential for funding a campus communication center. After all, what affects the school during times of disaster may very easily affect them as well--and that connection can provide common ground for opening funding discussions.

Building the Prospect List--Where to Start 1. Include all donors (individuals, alumni, corporations, foundations) that have given a gift of $500 or

more at any one time. 2. Add names of regular donors who have given for more than three to five years, particularly at the

higher end--$200 and up. 3. Use your alumni directory to add alumni from categories who we know have led to financial success,

such as professionals, those with advanced degrees, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, scientific researchers, etc. Don’t forget the educators, since we found them to have good retirement plans, and they are very generous.

4. Conduct alumni rating sessions. 5. Add your president’s contacts and prospects to your list. 6. Use trustee screenings and interviews to learn the names of their contacts and prospects. 7. Review membership lists from community groups that support similar things. 8. Use data mining. 9. Interview alumni during face-to-face visits to learn more about them and others. 10. Talk to trusted advisors such as local business or philanthropic leaders in your community. 11. Interview your faculty to determine their contacts, and learn the names of successful alumni. 12. Talk to your Office of Career Services to learn which corporations recruit at your institution and

which ones have hired significant numbers of alumni. 13. Add corporate and foundation donors and prospects to your list.

Excerpted from, “Changing the Odds: Lessons Learned from the Kresge HBCU Initiative.” Reprinted with permission from The Kresge Foundation

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Stan Levenson’s 14 Step Checklist to Improve Your Chances of Getting Funded 1. Plan your writing schedule so that you have enough time to complete the task, gather signatures and

approvals and meet the deadline. This is especially important with federal grants that may require signatures from college presidents or others who are “higher up.”

2. Do not send your project in early; the more time you have with it, the more time you have to edit,

revise, rewrite, reduce and rearrange. Getting in first will not give you an edge. 3. Follow the exact guidelines of the funding agency. Go over the guidelines, frequently, to be sure

nothing is left out. Don’t provide anything extraneous. 4. Comply with instructions on style and format such as Times Roman, 12 pt, with double spacing and a

maximum of 20 pages for the narrative. Give it to the funding agency exactly as instructed. If not specified, it is a good idea to double space the proposal and use a font that is clear and easy to read.

5. Use lists and tables. They convey a lot of information in a small amount of space. They are also easy to

read and present a welcome change for the reviewer. 6. Use bold type instead of underlining to emphasize key points or sections of the application. Be careful

not to overuse, because it can be distracting to the reviewer. 7. Use the same headings and subheadings in your application as the reviewers use in the evaluation

form. Request a copy of the reviewers’ evaluation form from the program officer for your project. If the form is not available, follow the application format exactly as presented.

8. When putting your application together, include just the essentials in the appendices. Check the

program guidelines for any special requirements. Government grant applications sometimes ask that you place the following into the appendices: letters of support, letters of commitment, the names of consortium members, resumes, job descriptions and organizational charts.

9. Use a ragged right margin rather than a justified right margin because it is easier to read. 10. Number your pages consecutively in the top right or center bottom of each page. 11. Prepare a table of contents that corresponds to your headings and subheadings. 12. Proofread your proposal, several times, before submitting it. Have other people proofread it as well--

including those who have nothing to do with the project. Look for typographical errors, misspellings and mistakes in punctuation, grammar, facts, figures, charts, graphs, phone numbers, web addresses and budget computations. Study the content carefully to make certain that it conveys what you are trying to say. Make changes as needed.

13. When scheduling duplication and collation of your application, allow time to check that pages are

collated properly and that nothing is left out or misplaced. This is also a good time to make extra copies of the application. Keep at least one hard copy for yourself and save the manuscript on your hard drive with a backup stored elsewhere.

14. Deliver the completed application to the post office in plenty of time to meet the deadline. 15. Avoid these pitfalls:

• Not identifying the most competent people to complete the grant application. • Not matching the school or district’s needs with the funding agency’s interests. • Not following directions. • Not providing enough time to complete the task at hand. • Not asking for enough money.

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The Basics of Starting a Development Office If your campus, school or school district doesn’t already have a development office, it’s definitely time to consider starting one. Raising major funds to implement projects--technology-oriented or otherwise--requires major commitment. It’s the role of a development office to help identify private resources that match institutional needs. But you won’t have to go it alone. You can get help from CASE, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, which educates both newcomers and experienced professionals in the ins and outs of running an excellent development office. The job of the development office is to build relationship with a variety of people: alumni, foundations, corporations, and individuals with a capacity to give major gifts and people leaving funds or resources to the institution through a bequest. Their role is to identify and cultivate these relationships so that when an individual is prepared to make a gift, somebody is there to facilitate the actual making of the gift. “It’s a complicated job. It takes a special skill set. And development officers are in very high demand,” says Rae Goldsmith, CASE’s VP for communications & marketing. “The market is wide open.” Most universities, colleges and private K-12 schools already have development offices, though it may be called by a different name. What’s just beginning to surface, says Goldman, are K-12 public school districts that want to open development offices to supplement their public funding. She offers this advice for institutions considering opening a development office. “The most important thing to do is to hire the right person to lead it,” Goldsmith says. “You need to have somebody with fundraising experience in the leadership role if you’re going to start a [development] office.” An experienced fundraiser may not come from an institutional position; he or she may have a non-profit background. And since, as Goldsmith says, “nobody graduates from college with a degree in development office,” they come from all walks of life. “Sometimes they’re attorneys,” she says. “Sometimes [they have a] sales or marketing background. Sometimes they’re people who are homegrown within the institution. They come up through other avenues and end up in development because of their knowledge of the institution.”

Recommendations 1. Learn how to write a “mini-grant” (under $5,000) before attempting to write a major grant, especially

a federal or state grant. 2. Consider going after corporate and foundation grant opportunities because they have fewer

requirements and more funding cycles. The federal government usually has just one funding cycle a year, while many corporations and foundations have multiple funding cycles. Many corporations and foundations usually require grant applications of one to 10 pages, while federal agencies and some states require applications of 50 to 100 pages.

3. All schools -- K-12 and higher education -- should consider establishing development offices to go after big grants and gifts rather than spending a lot of time on bake sales, candy sales and car washes.

4. Depending on the size of the project, you might want to consider multiple funding sources, including corporate, foundation and government grants, as well as grants and gifts from individual donors.

The average salary for that top person is $75,000, says Goldsmith, based on the results from CASE’s last salary survey. Salaries vary based on the type of job, level of the institution and management experience.

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What characteristics should you look for in staff members? Goldsmith says it depends on the type of work being performed. Planned giving officers--who work with people on estate planning--tend to have legal backgrounds. Annual fund people--those who work the phones to call graduates and ask for $25 or $100 each year--may come from sales or marketing. Those people who focus on major gift fundraising may have a background in business, communication, strategic planning, or simply understand how a foundation works. Others, says Goldsmith, come out of the “athletic side of house, because they’re used to working with the public, and that could be an aspect of the job.” The head of the development office will typically report to the institutional leader, because that person is critical in the fundraising effort. “A major donor”, says Goldsmith, “is going to expect and want to interact with the president on some level. That’s one of the key components of a good fundraising operation is that you have leadership that is willing to be part of that. So typically [the development officer] reports right to the top.” You’ll also need to have a volunteer leadership board, people connected to the institution who are going to help you reach out, using their own connections, to solicit potential donors on the school’s behalf and also make significant leadership gifts as well. Setting up the right tools is also important to the creation of a development office. Says Goldsmith, “Typically, if you’re going to have fundraising operation... you have to have a database of people; you have to have a way to track how you contact those people and what their responses are; you have to have a way to find out who might have the capacity to give.” Software tools should help you mine the data you have and keep track of the use of the donations for donor stewardship, “Because after somebody has donated, you still need to have the confidence that their gift is being used as intended. You still want to keep them as part of the family,” she explains. Also, applications built specifically for development offices now offer predictive models, to help you figure out who’s in the best position to donate. “The more times an individual has contact with the institution, or more times an alumnus comes back to the institution, the more likely that they’re going to give and the more likely that they’re going to give more,” Goldsmith says. Next, you need to have a realistic understanding about how quickly a development office can ramp up. “Fundraising is always a long-term process,” says Goldsmith. “You may not see results from people for many, many years. But if you come in and you start building awareness, and you start with an annual fund drive of graduates, you can probably see some pretty good results within a couple of years. Big time results are more likely to take three to five years. That’s always a challenge for development officers--to ‘preach patience.’” Traveling is a key part of the job. You have to be willing to meet graduates on their turf, which, these days, may mean traveling the world, says Goldsmith. “It’s time consuming. If you’re going to be in an area, and you have five or six alumni that you want to meet, then you’re going to work very hard to schedule them all on the same trip.” You also need to participate in the development of specific goals--translated into a case statement. Says Goldsmith, “Most people don’t give to fix sidewalks, for example. They’re going to give if you’re going to enhance technology for students or try to create access. You need to know what it is you’re trying to raise funds to accomplish and how that will transform the institution, because that’s what makes your case.” Also, she says, the whole campus has to be involved in that discussion, “so there’s buy-in across the institution.”

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Ad Adt“g Sertp

Evaluating Results • What is my cost per dollar raised? • What is the rate of return givers? • How many new donors did we have this year? • Did we meet our fundraising goals? • What is the staff turnover in advancement? • What were the results of our PR efforts? • What was the readership of our publications? • How many alumni did we individually meet with last year? Excerpted from, “Changing the Odds: Lessons Learned from the Kresge HBCU Initiative.” Reprintedwith permission from The Kresge Foundation.

long those lines, you need a communication strategy so that the messages are consistent. “Whoever is oing it has to have a firm knowledge of the institution and what it’s trying to do,” says Goldsmith.

nother necessity: people with a good understanding of the legal and accounting and tax ramifications of onations. This is important in several ways. You may need to understand to what extent you can protect he anonymity of a donor who is going to request it. Or sometimes you have gift pledges, says Goldsmith, so you can only count part of that pledge based on when it’s going to be received in the fiscal year. You’re etting into some pretty complex tax and accounting issues there.”

ound like a tough endeavor? It is. And if your fundraising focus for the present is on technology, that’s ven a little bit harder. Says Goldsmith, “Technology projects are a little harder to sell than medical esearch or scholarships, but they’re viable.” As she points out, “The idea is to focus not so much on the echnology, but on what it will do for the students. Because the real message is how it’s going to help eople.”

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Additional Resources Stan Levenson, head of Stan Levenson and Associates can be reached at stanleylev@aol.com or (619) 540-4706. Levenson’s most recent book, Big Time Fundraising For Today’s Schools (Corwin Press, $34.95), offers examples of winning grant proposals, techniques for preparing a budget, tips for overcoming obstacles and getting grants, reproducible marketing documents, campaigns, and scripts and a list of foundations and corporations interested in giving to schools. His earlier book, How To Get Grants and Gifts For The Public Schools (Allyn and Bacon, $27.99), is still in print and as one Amazon reviewer writes, “helps everyone, from beginners to expert grantwriters, to cultivate the skills, relationships, and savvy it takes to be successful in the competitive arena of public school fundraising.” Campus Safety Magazine recently published an article titled, “Finding Funds for Your Equipment Programs and People.” It includes a number of pointers for getting the funds you need to ensure campus safety and security. http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/Articles/?ArticleID=67 CASE, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, provides training, books and publications for “advancement” professionals at all levels who work in alumni relations, communications, and development. Its membership includes more than 3,250 colleges, universities, independent elementary and secondary schools and public school districts in 54 countries around the world. Make sure to check out the “Management Checklist for Development,” here: http://www.case.org/Content/AboutCASE/Display.cfm?contentItemID=5601. It can help your development office conduct an internal self-assessment of its information and programs. http://www.case.org. You’ll want to make sure your school gets listed on this reference, a popular site for philanthropic people. Charity Navigator, “Your Guide to intelligent Giving,” http://www.charitynavigator.org/. The Kresge Foundation has an interesting and compelling mission: to make nonprofit organizations stronger. Be sure to download “Changing the Odds: Lessons Learned from the Kresge HBCU Initiative,” a 180-page PDF document that profiles the Foundation’s five-year, $18 million program to help five historically black colleges and universities develop comprehensive advancement programs. Even if your educational institution doesn’t fit that profile, the advice offered in this well-written guide can help any development office do a better job. You’ll find that here: http://www.kresge.org/cms/uploads/changingtheodds.pdf. And you’ll find The Kresge Foundation here: http://www.kresge.org/.

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About Campus Technology Campus Technology, the only monthly publication focusing exclusively on the use of technology across all areas of higher education, launched in October 2004, replacing the highly respected Syllabus magazine, a recognized leader in the coverage of technology on campus since 1988. Campus Technology provides in-depth coverage of specific technologies and their implementations, including wireless networks and mobile devices; enterprise resource planning; eLearning and course management systems; ‘smart classroom’ technologies; telecom, Web, and security solutions - all the important issues and trends for campus IT decision makers. Targeting administrators, IT professionals and tech-savvy faculty, Campus Technology provides direction, analysis and detailed coverage of emerging technologies to assist technology leaders in their specific roles on campus.

About NEC Unified Solutions NEC Unified Solutions Inc., a leader in converged voice and data communications solutions, offers a broad range of the industry’s most innovative suite of communications products, applications and services designed to meet the specific needs of higher education. Our products include mobility and collaboration, classroom and distance learning, student services, fund-raising and revenue generation, network management and security, and campus safety and security.

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