Don't get Serge Arpin wrong: The chief advancement officer at Carleton University deeply appreciates the $15 million that money manager Eric Sprott donated to the school over the past six years.

But what's got Mr. Arpin really pumped about Carleton's fundraising efforts is the steadily growing number of new donors, mostly twentysomethings, willing to throw $50 a year back to their alma mater. Three years of intense grassroots campaigns have boosted the number of Carleton students supporting the Ottawa school by 27%, to 10,600 alumni. Gifts average just $82 a year, but Mr. Arpin is confident his team is laying the groundwork for gifts from the next generation of Eric Sprotts. "If we can't engage a donor enough to make a $50 gift, how on earth can we expect to engage and excite that donor about making a $50,000 gift?," asks Mr. Aspin, who recently received a donation of just that size from a trucking executive who started out giving the school just $10 a year.

Welcome to a world of fundraising that requires the patience of a dedicated angler, a world in which Mr. Arpin and his colleagues at schools across the country toss out thousands of hooks, catch hundreds of minnows, and occasionally reel in that all-important whopper of a donation that can transform a school. "Major gifts have become increasingly important to all schools," said Alan Marchant, executive director of UBC's development office. "If 80% of the donation used to come from 20% of donors, now it's 95% from 5% of donors."

"However, that doesn't diminish the importance of grassroots giving, since the big gifts always come down the road from alumni, when their fortunes change," says Mr. Marchant. At UBC, that change in fortunes saw Ike Barber, a forestry executive, cap a lifetime of ever-growing support for the school by giving $20 million to a library that now bears his name.

Turning graduates into big-time boosters is essential because fundraisers find that the total amount given by university alumni is increasing, yet the percentage of graduates who donate to their alma mater is slipping. At the University of Alberta, for example, 14.8% of alumni were sending money to the school in 2000. Last year, participation had dropped to 12.7% of former students. Those numbers are in step with the experience across all North American schools. Yet total gifts to the University of Alberta jumped from $35.6 million in 2000 to $48.2 million in 2007. In part, that reflects the success of a program that sees donors ascend no less than six "circles" of support as they increase their gifts. Give $1,000 and you're ceremonially inducted into the U of A's Pembina circle. The Athabasca circle is for those who pledge $50,000 or more. This series of circles helped the university boost its endowment fund, the country's 4th largest, by 21% in the past two years to $746 million.

Strong alumni donations have helped smaller universities build endowment funds that compare with the largest institutions in the country, when endowment funds are adjusted for the number of full time students. Storied McGill ranks at the top of this list, with its $908 million endowment translating into $49,011 for each student, and a campus population of 18,500. But that's not far ahead of Mount Allison University, which has an enrolment of just over 2,100 and yet still manages $47,712 of endowment money for each student. Also respectable is University of King's College in Halifax, which has over 1,000 students and gets about $29,431 per head.

Endowments are occasionally earmarked for capital projects, but most of the money that is dispersed each year goes to student assistance, such as scholarships. Engaging a high percentage of graduates can start a virtuous circle, as college fundraisers find that government and corporations will look favourably on strong alumni support for institutions when they consider grants or gifts.

The total amount of money held in endowments is rocketing up, in part due to generous alumni, but also due to solid returns on investments. There was a total of $10.9 billion in 72 domestic university endowment funds at the end of 2007, according to the most recent statistics from the Canadian Association of University Business Officers, or CAUBO. That's up from $8.9 billion in 2005.

Fundraisers agree that the key to successful campaigns for first-time donors is to tailor fundraising efforts, and to start early. Carleton now starts its pitch for support the day students graduate, rather than waiting three to five years for alumni to get established, as it did in the past. And Mr. Arpin says, "we try to create a unique experience for individual donors."

That "unique experience" plays out in handwritten thank-you cards for each new donor, campaigns from different faculties and campus groups such as the high-profile basketball team, 100 different alumni events around the country each year (a tenfold increase from 2005) and additional resources for call centres, e-mail and old-fashioned letters. The school's fundraising staff grew from 25 to 35 over three years, while the goal grew from between $6 million and $8 million in annual gifts to between $12 million and $15 million. Meanwhile, the endowment fund jumped 30% to $238 million.

UBC's Mr. Marchant says that to pull in cash at a grassroots level, it helps if you don't annoy graduates. He says the school's fundraisers "go to considerable lengths to ensure calls are co-ordinated, so alumni who graduated from several faculties aren't getting bombarded with calls." That courtesy is as helpful with millionaire donors as it is with alumni giving $50 from their first real paycheque.