Book excerpt: This study examined the institutional advancement programs of successful American private/Catholic universities, two private universities in the United Sates, and two institutions in the Congo. Funding strategies constitute the backbone of advancement programs for successful American private universities/colleges. This study also investigated the funding mechanisms that successful private universities in the United States utilized to obtain philanthropic dollars. Further, the research assessed the roles of the successful private university presidents and trustees, and determined how public relations impacted the institutional advancement results of those institutions. Finally, the results of this investigation suggested practical applications for the Congolese/African universities. Grunig s Four Models of Public Relations (1992) provided the conceptual framework of this research. Grunig developed the assumption that excellent private organizations, such as private universities/colleges in the United States, utilized the two-way symmetric model of public relations/communication, which accounted for the advancement effectiveness of those institutions.