What Do We Talk About When We Talk About HBCU Fundraising?

In 2023, I published Fundraising at Public Regional Universities: Under the Radar, Below the Fold (Palgrave Macmillan) because after nearly two decades as a university advancement official and university fundraising executive, it was a book I desperately wanted to read that had not been written.  

At national conferences presented by organizations such as Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and in periodicals such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Inside Higher Education, stories about megadonor donations to prominent flagship and private universities (e.g., Harvard, University of Michigan) dominate the landscape. Those institutions rarely feature stories about the challenges fundraising personnel face at those schools, even though most U.S. students pursue higher education at public regional institutions (aka, “state schools”), and they are responsible for serving the most diverse student populations while embedding themselves in service to the regions they serve as stewards of place.  

Grounded by the story of my own family’s three generations of public regional university educated graduates and its impact on our lives and careers, I focus on how these institutions determine fundraising success by their ability to provide resources—through program funding, scholarships, and emergency aid resources—to wide swaths of first-generation, low-income,  and racially and culturally diverse students, who, if not for these institutions, would not be able to attain college degrees.  

The Outsized Impact of HBCUs

Within the public regional university sector (which currently educates over 3 million students and award 66% of the nation’s bachelor's degrees at nearly 400 institutions), HBCUs noteworthily punch above their weight as institutions that provide low-cost educational opportunities that provide diverse student populations with a socioeconomic ladder in big cities and rural communities across the Deep South and Midwest.  

Much has been said about these 100 private and public two-year, four-year, and professional schools and their unique ability to produce engineers, lawyers, educators, social workers, and medical doctors despite their historically underfunded status relative to their predominantly white institutional peers. In the past five years, largely due to significant increases in giving after the Summer of 2020 and the focused philanthropy of billionaire Mackenzie Scott (who has given over $1 billion to HBCUs), discussions about the impact of HBCU fundraising have proliferated. 

While this has increased the focus of the impact of private support on HBCU campuses and spurred other megadonors and prominent corporations to increase their giving, it has at times overshadowed contributions of hundreds of thousands of faithful alumni donors, organizations such as the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), and the day-to-day work of HBCU fundraising professionals and volunteers who have sustained these institutions for over 170 years.  

The Post-2020 Fundraising Renaissance

Much of my research over the course of my career has been motivated by a desire to examine the impact of HBCU fundraising in these times, which find HBCUs in a fundraising renaissance. This decade began with North Carolina A&T completing a $181 million campaign, the largest ever for a public HBCU, and growing its endowment to over $200 million. Xavier University of New Orleans launched a $500 million campaign, and the UNCF launched a $1 billion campaign, bolstered by a $100 million commitment from the Lilly Endowment, the largest gift in its history. Recently, Bowie State University and Norfolk State University announced the completion of $100 million+ campaigns, and the R1 arms race has propelled institutions such as Morgan State University and Howard University to new fundraising heights.  

The emergence of new centers of excellence on many HBCU campuses, driven by private investment, has propelled their ability to educate and meet students’ financial needs and provide a crucial counternarrative to prevailing headwinds challenging the value of higher education in media parlance.  

Newfound fundraising success is not without controversy, however, presenting an increased need for critical consideration. A pernicious history of chronic underfunding defines the need for private support at HBCUs, and new funding from sources that have traditionally provided limited financial support provokes questions about donor intentions, the potential for mission creep, and self-determination.  

Navigating Modern Philanthrocapitalism

In my forthcoming book, Perspectives on HBCU Fundraising, I explore the new landscape of athletic fundraising, and how the impact of new NCAA legislation creates new fundraising opportunities for HBCUs while funding gaps between HBCUs and their PWI competitors continue to widen. 

I also examine philanthrocapitalism and new concepts such as reputation laundering among the U.S. donor class and the potentially deleterious impact of their giving motivations, especially how their largesse can negatively impact alumni and student perceptions of HBCUs’ historical educational and cultural commitments. I look into how new national ratings metrics, such as those of U.S. News and World Report and CASE, shape HBCU fundraising and engagement strategy as HBCUs compete for prominence in national rankings for branding purposes and how that competition shapes perspectives while eliding/masking more significant challenges at HBCUs. 

I also scrutinize HBCU workforce partnerships, which on the surface provide excellent marketing material for HBCUs and opportunities for students and alumni while also pulling HBCUs into the inevitable controversies those corporations encounter, especially as Black and female populations are impacted by workforce discrimination as they realize those opportunities. Finally, I comment on how fundraising expectations impact the evaluation of HBCU executive leaders, who now must add fundraising to their myriad definitions for success in a sector plagued by executive turnover.  

Through in-depth analysis of HBCU fundraising infrastructures, unique partnerships, and innovative resource strategies, I attempt to shed light on the complex networks that sustain these institutions. Combining data, critical analysis, historical and cultural insights, and personal narrative, I endeavor to provide a fresh perspective on HBCUs’ resilience, from historical challenges to the modern impact of major philanthropic investments. Throughout, I focus on how HBCUs balance mission integrity with external pressures amid today’s evolving philanthropic landscape. 

William Broussard, Ph.D. is Vice Chancellor of University Advancement at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has authored over 160 book chapters, essays, articles, reviews and conference papers and served as an award-winning fundraising and intercollegiate athletics executive and professor of English, literature, and journalism for 26 years. Dr. Broussard is the author of the forthcoming book, Perspectives on Fundraising at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, available May 2026 from Palgrave Macmillan.