Date of Award

3-14-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

School Name

Annsley Frazier Thornton School of Education

Department

Education

Major Advisor

Dr. David Paige

Second Advisor

Dr. Michael Vetter

Third Advisor

Dr. Perry Sangalli

Abstract

This study sought to determine the relationship between young alumni participation in alumni association sponsored events and young alumni giving through the research questions (a) is there a relationship between young alumni participation and giving to the university?; and (b) is the giving behavior of young alumni who are donors to the university affected by attendance at alumni association events?

This study utilized a univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis with three separate dependent variables: pre-event giving, post-event giving, and total giving. The independent variables were factors describing specific young alumni behaviors: (a) attend but do not give, (b) do not attend but give, and (c) attend and give. Each of the three models were significant at p ≤ .001. When the effect of event attendance was compared to post-event giving, young alumni who attended an event in fiscal year 2014 – 2015 gave an average of $164.42 in the three years following attendance, compared to the three year average giving of $77.26 of those who did not attend an event, confirming the first research question. The giving behaviors of young alumni who are already donors is positively affected by event attendance. Young alumni who were already donors and subsequently attended an event give at a much higher level post-event. Additionally, all three of the dependent variables were significantly correlated with each other and total attendance shows an increasingly significant positive relationship between pre-event giving (r = .357), post-event giving (r = .433), and total giving (r = .581), demonstrating that young alumni event attendance and giving are significantly correlated.

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