Higher education relies upon private philanthropy as a significant source of outside revenue, yet competition for donor resources escalates annually. Competency for building enduring donor relationships may positively influence institutional fund-raising outcomes by addressing this problem. Qualitative data are presented examining the utility of the Donor/Organization Integration Model for identifying long-term donor linkage. In the context of three public institutions of higher education, relational embeddedness interaction and formal structural interaction were specifically identified as factors. Four distinct strategies were found to illustrate interaction between individual relationships and organizational structure to categorize donor integration levels.