Charitable contributions to the College fell from $152,419,767 in fiscal year 2010 to $146,756,731 in fiscal year 2011, according to a survey done by the Council for Aid to Education's, which collects information about funding to private educational institutions. Dartmouth ranked 42nd in total donations among respondents this year, Amy Kaplan, director of the Voluntary Support of Education Survey, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The decrease is unusual among nationwide institutions, as charitable contributions to American colleges and universities increased by 8.2 percent overall following several years of slow growth, according to Kaplan. Despite this year's drop, the College's overall contributions have grown from $137,109,659 in 2009, demonstrating that Dartmouth is doing "quite well," she said.
"[Universities] were making a case for support," she said. "That's what they do or should be doing when times are good and when times aren't. When the capacity to give is there, you receive money."
As in previous years, the largest group of donors to the College consisted of alumni, who gave $63,012,340, according to the survey.
This figure represents approximately 42.9 percent of total donations to the College. Among nationwide private research institutions, a total of 29.3 percent of donations came from alumni in 2011, while 42 percent of funds were contributed by alumni among liberal arts colleges, Kaplan said.
The College received the lowest amount of money among its Ivy League peers, a fact consistent with fiscal years 2009 and 2010, according to previous reports. The group of institutions receiving the most charitable contributions tends to remain relatively constant from year to year, Kaplan said.
"You'd see a group of 30 institutions, and in that 30 you'll always have the top 20," she said. "There have been years where there have been windfall gifts that have propelled an institution into the top for one year. Then they went back to where they were."
Stock market patterns until the end of the 2012 fiscal year will be "very important" in determining future charitable contributions, Kaplan said.
"Even though people still feel some depravation, we're not, technically speaking, in a recession now," she said. "You'd expect current operations giving to grow at least a little bit."
Carrie Pelzel, senior vice president for advancement, attributes the large amount of alumni donations to three factors the quality of education, the bond created between students and the College and the realization that support from alumni is crucial to the College's operations.
"If you are a student here and have benefitted from the alumni's generosity, you want to pay it forward," she said.
About 70 percent of the donations to the College come from individuals, including alumni and parents, according to Pelzel.
Dartmouth is not currently involved in a major donation campaign, with the most recent campaign ending at the end of 2009. The Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience which ran from July 1, 2002 to Dec. 31, 2009 raised approximately $1.3 billion for the College, according to Pelzel.
The College will be launching another campaign after the strategic planning process concludes.
Dartmouth's endowment of $3.4 billion is small in comparison with some of the other schools in the Ivy League, such as Harvard and Yale Universities, which have endowments of almost $32 billion and $19.4 billion, respectively.
Pelzel said this disparity results from the College's smaller size and alumni body. Dartmouth's alumni body consists of approximately 70,000 individuals Harvard's. for example, includes more than 300,000.
Currently, the College reaches out to alumni and parents through regular mailings. Alumni are also invited back to Dartmouth for reunions, and Dartmouth alumni clubs have locations throughout the world. College President Jim Yong Kim and other faculty members travel around the country to speak to alumni clubs and organizations about contributions, and students involved with the Green Corps on campus solicit donations from alumni.
The College is also experimenting with social media outlets such as Facebook as a new way of connecting with alumni and parents, Pelzel said.
Dartmouth receives donations from private foundations, which account for about 30 percent of total gifts. These are independent funds, usually supported by wealthy families to facilitate their philanthropy, according to Pelzel. Contributions from these organizations amounted to about $12.2 million last year.
"Dartmouth's constituency is a very generous one," Pelzel said. "We are fortunate that so many alumni, year in and year out, want to support their successors."
