Historically Black College and University (HBCU) leaders face great impediments when raising private funds to support their institutional initiatives ( Brown and Hendrickson, 1997 ; Allen and Jewell, 2002 ). While alumni who attended HBCUs tend to value the nurturing education they received, those same alumni rarely give back to the institutions that gave them the affi rmation and care necessary to be successful college graduates ( Journal of Blacks in Higher Education , 1996; 2000). Raising money at public HBCUs is particularly important given the decline in public funding in recent years. Developing a strategic, innovative and comprehensive fund raising plan is critical to the survival of HBCUs. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the extent to which presidents of public HBCUs exhibited, used and exercised entrepreneurial framework leadership traits in order to secure funding given the context within which minority serving institutions operate. In analyzing the results of this study, the research revealed that HBCU leaders who have raised signifi cantly more money than their peers use specifi c entrepreneurial leadership traits in their fundraising endeavors .