By Darla Martin Tucker

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education in Washington D.C. honored La Sierra University’s Advancement team recently with national recognition for its fundraising initiatives.
           
The council honored the team in June by including La Sierra on a list of 30 colleges and universities around the country that received an Overall Improvement award in the 2008 CASE-Wealth Engine Awards for Educational Fundraising. The award is a component of CASE’s Circle of Excellence programs that honor superior fundraising initiatives. The Overall Improvement recognition is based on judges’ analysis of three years of fundraising data.

CASE also issued awards for Overall Performance. All together the organization considered 427 colleges and universities and ultimately selected 67 for recognition – 30 in the Overall Improvement category and 37 in Overall Performance.

“Your institution is one of an exceptional group of colleges, universities and independent schools recognized either for overall performance or overall improvement in fundraising,” Deborah Bongiorno, CASE’s interim vice president for member relations wrote in a letter to Jeffry Kaatz, La Sierra’s vice president for advancement and university relations. “Because your fundraising program was judged by a panel of your peers, this award is not only a recognition of its high value to your institution, but also an acknowledgement of its stature as a best practice that contributes to the advancement profession overall.”

Institutions do not apply for the awards but become eligible upon submission of data for three or more consecutive years to the Council for Aid to Education’s Voluntary Support of Education survey. CASE also awards independent K-12 schools for their fundraising development programs and judges them separately. CASE judges are senior development professionals and volunteers with varying institutional experience.

“I think [La Sierra’s] fundraising in general has gone up in the past five years or so due to a more focused effort,” Kaatz said.  “We've been able to increase our staffing slightly and that has had an impact as well.  In addition, the formation and development of our LSU Foundation board five years ago has increased funding from non-alumni from the community.”

PR Contact: Larry Becker
Executive Director of University Relations
La Sierra University
Riverside, California
951.785.2460 (voice)