About this chapter

Trustees and senior managers of universities and nonprofit organizations commonly encounter challenge when seeking alignments that optimize fundraising. The chapter incorporates understandings for fundraising success from structured study of strategies, processes and behaviors for institutional advancement employed by leaders of some of the world's most successful universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. 

The chapter outlines: 1) Strategic uses of organizational communication in high-performing universities; 2) Key assumptions and practices evident in world-class university advancement operations; 3) Relevant organizational communication strategies, processes and behaviors that might be applied in a wide range of contexts for institutional advancement. 

The conclusion of the chapter details a menu of concerns, from which an organization contemplating best practices in institutional advancement might tailor an approach for implementing internal and external benchmarking to develop best practices. 

[Thoughts shared with invited senior leaders of Institutional Advancement at The Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Washington DC, May 1995]

Keywords: organizational communication, educational leadership, organizational development, benchmarking, institutional advancement, public relations, fundraising, best practices, nonprofits.