Despite significant gains over the past few years, Macalester is feeling the financial strain of historically low alumni giving.

According to Interim Vice President for Development Mark Kronholm, Macalester averages about $10 million in fundraising gifts each year, significantly lower than many of the top liberal arts colleges with which it competes for students, including Carleton, Grinnell and Oberlin. Many of these schools raise upwards of $20 million annually.

In recent years, the only time Macalester surpassed its peers was 2001, when the college received a bequest (a monetary gift left in a will) of $28.5 million. Macalester usually averages about half a million dollars in annual bequests, while its peers average about $5 million.

According to Kronholm, there are many reasons for historically low alumni giving. Kronholm said that the biggest factor may be that a large gift from DeWitt Wallace in the 1980s made many alumni feel that the college was not in need of their gifts.

“We were so fortunate to receive a gift from DeWitt Wallace and many people suggest that alums felt their support wasn’t needed,” Kronholm said. “There is probably some truth to that. Alums haven’t been made aware of their role in providing financial support.”

Kronholm said that the practice of alumni giving has deeper roots at Macalester’s peer institutions.

“In our peer group, a tradition of giving developed sooner than ours,” Kronholm said. “They developed that tradition without a significant benefactor. [At those schools], there is a clearer and broader sense of alumni responsibility for charitable support.”

According to Chris Gliedman ’95, chair of the Summit Society Committee, giving among young alumni was low for a long time because the college did not do an adequate job of asking young alumni to give. The Summit Society is composed of young alumni who have given every year since graduating from Macalester and older alumni who have given consistently for five years.

“The college did a poor job of asking [for gifts] and explaining to young alums why giving was important,” Gliedman said. “The messages sent to older alumni weren’t reaching young alums effectively.”

According to Kronholm, low alumni giving is affecting Macalester’s finances today in areas such as faculty salaries, which have slipped in comparison to peer schools in the past few years. In U.S. News and World Report’s 2000 college rankings issue, Macalester ranked 27 among liberal arts colleges in faculty resources. In the 2005 issue, released in Sept., Macalester ranked 61 in the same category. Macalester dropped from 26 to 37 in the category of financial resources over the same time period.

Low alumni giving is affecting both Macalester’s ability to pay its daily expenses and the principal of the endowment, according to Vice President for Administration and Treasurer David Wheaton. Wheaton said that there are presumably spending cuts that may have been avoided if the college’s income from gifts had been larger.

“Over time, all schools with large endowments have those balances grow by investing wisely (as Macalester does) and by adding to the principal from gifts from donors,” Wheaton said. “Since Macalester receives gifts for the [endowment] at a much lower rate than other institutions, our endowment will cover less and less of the college’s expenses over time relative to institutions whose [endowments] are being fed by these gifts.”

Kronholm said that alumni support is one of the keys to maintaining the quality of programs that alumni have come to expect from Macalester.

“Macalester needs to build its tradition of philanthropic support to match expectations for quality that alumni have,” Kronholm said. “Recent rankings indicate that we haven’t been able to provide as much financial support as our competitors. Our competitors have the resources to do more.”

An October 22 article in The Mac Weekly described aggressive efforts by President Rosenberg and other college staff members in recent years that have helped begin to reverse the trend of low giving.

“Macalester has emphasized the need for alumni support in the past, but it has taken a while for alums to understand the reality of the needs of the college and they are beginning to respond,” Kronholm said. “Rosenberg has made alumni involvement a clear priority and has emphasized the challenge to alums in his first year. The best indicator of alumni response is a record number of contributers [last year].”

Young alumni have been integral in helping to reverse the trends of low alumni giving. According to Gliedman, the college changed its methods of reaching out to young alumni and found a way to make the case for giving in a unique way.

“The college has recognized that young alums are a priority and that they will be the ones who carry on the tradition of giving to the college,” Gliedman said. “If you can get young alums to think contributing to the college is valuable and to give regularly, they will continue the tradition.”

Gliedman added that young alumni have a vested interest in the college because of their recent ties to the school.

“Young alumni have had the best Macalester experiences,” he said. “The college is the most dynamic now.”

Despite historically low numbers, Kronholm said he is optimistic about the future of alumni giving.

“I am looking more at areas of momentum than reasons for low giving,” Kronholm said.