At Boston College, "You Make It Happen." Or, at Least that's the theme dominating the alumni fund's 2005 e-mail campaign, with each edition pairing an alumnus who has given a small amount each year with a researcher at the school who has made an important contribution to his or her field.

"The concept is that unrestricted money that alums give allows flexibility to the university to use it wherever it's needed," says Christine Sanni, executive director of Advancement, Communications, and Marketing at the school.

The concept is interesting, the results compelling. The "You Make It Happen" e-mails have resulted in online gifts averaging between 35 and 40 percent higher than those made over the phone, she notes. "We've got alums that don't respond to mail anymore, or the phone. Now that we're sending them e-mail, this is a way they want to conduct business because it's more on their own terms."

After three years of decline, surveys show donations to educational institutions are on the rise, with higher ed donations comprising the biggest branch of the giving tree. Alumni seem to be opening their wallets wider, with charitable gifts to all Levels of education rising nearly 3 percent last year, according to Giving USA Foundation's 2004 data. Modest though it seems, the increase follows a three-year decline in giving to educational institutions.

But perhaps it would be more accurate to say alumni have started to open their browsers wider. Evidence is beginning to show that online donations tend to be greater--by about 33 to 50 percent--than those collected via telemarketing or direct mail.

"The rate of online giving is growing, if not exponentially, at least very rapidly," says Stacey Schmeidel, director of Public Affairs at Amherst College (Mass.). "And the gifts we're getting online tend to be larger. I don't think it's that people are giving the same gifts they'd give over the phone or through the mail. It seems there's an overall increase in both number and the size of the gifts."