Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Stumpf, Arthur D.

Committee Member

Davis, James E.

Committee Member

King, Stephanie B.

Committee Member

Wiseman, William M.

Date of Degree

5-6-2017

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Community College Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Educational Leadership

Abstract

Recently, the Mississippi community college system has experienced significant budget cuts. Although fundraising has long historical significance, it has not been fully embraced by the community college system. With the transfer of wealth estimated to be $41-$136 trillion over the next 40 years, there has never been a better time for community colleges to tell their story. Studies reveal that planned giving is a key strategy for fundraising and that new innovative ideas must be developed to take advantage of private sources of funding. Planned giving in the form of forestland donations is an innovative avenue that can benefit the institution and the potential donor through charitable estate planning. Although there are examples of planned giving through donations of forestland, there is not any extensive research on this subject involving community colleges. The purpose of this study was to use the concept of the Bulldog Forest at Mississippi State University to determine if the idea of the community college foundation forest would be feasible and valuable to implement within the Mississippi community college system. Holmes Community College (HCC) alumni, who fall into the non- industrial private forest landowner category, were surveyed to determine their interest in donating their forestland to the institution through charitable estate planning options. Through the use of growth-and-yield models, hypothetical management regimes were employed on hypothetical forestland donations to produce long-term cash flow scenarios for a specific rate of return for a specific rotation. These scenarios determined the level of funding that could be generated through a planned giving program involving forestland. The findings revealed that HCC alumni do not have an immediate interest in donating their forestland to the HCC foundation. It is recommended that personal connection(s) be established with these alumni along with the facets of planned giving explained by a trained professional. The findings also revealed that the donation of forestland can be very profitable for a community college foundation. However, further research is needed to explore the other charitable estate planning options since it was assumed that all of the hypothetical forestland donations were outright gifts.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16564

Comments

planned giving||fundraising||forest management

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