Teaching People to Give: Peggy Kugel

Edgar M. Carlson was president of Minnesota's Gustavus Adolphus College in the 1960s. His comments apply to all institutions -- not just colleges -- and are just as relevant today.

"If a college has not succeeded in persuading its students to give after four years of experience on its campus, after having been subjected to the whole educational program of the institution, it has failed in its mission. If it trains people to get, but fails to train them to give, it really has no good reason for existence. It must be the hallmark of the alumni of our kind of institution that they are ‘giving' people. That applies to everything about them -- their vocational service, their family life, their church activity, and their community relations. ... It is in teaching people to give -- of themselves, their efforts, their devotion and their means -- that colleges like ours really have their mission."