In 2010, a new question and a new section were added to the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey. Both were optional and do not affect the national estimates or the standard tables in this publication.
The new question appeared on the precollege and the higher education surveys. Respondents had the option of reporting hard- and soft- credit gifts from governing and board members. The standard is to count only hard-credit gifts, but board members also contribute to institutions via foundations, corporations, and donor were not previously included on the VSE survey.
In 2010, 370 higher education and 79 precollege respondents reported soft-credit gifts in addition to hard-credit gifts in addition to hard-credit gifts form governing board members. The gifts are reported separately on the survey, and the hard-credit count still appears in this publications, respondents represented 67.5 percent of institutions that reported board giving. Only half the higher education institutions that supplied hard- credit board giving also supplied soft-credit data. More data will be needed to generate additional table in higher education section of this publication. However, the 2010 edition does have an additional table (19B) that summarizes the precollege results. Data Miner subscribers can benchmark soft-credit contributions where data were supplied.
There is a new optional section on the higher education survey that contains questions about advancement investment. The section is for recording information about salaries, benefits, operational expenses, and capital expenses of fundraising and advancement. In addition, respondents enter information about the numbers of staff in five advancement functions. Finally, the section identifies whether the responding institution is in the midst of a capital campaign, which would be expected to affect costs and staffing. In 2010, 113 respondents supplied data for the section. Summary tables and graphs are available on CD. Details by institutions are available to Data Miner subscribers.