Broad-Based Strategies for 
Raising Private Support

Strategies The term contributed income is important. It is a gift. The donor does not buy a cake, wrapping paper, raffle ticket, car wash, t-shirt, candy bar or a ticket to something. According to the official language of the IRS, 'the donor has received neither goods nor services in consideration for the gift'. The donor does, however, receive recognition, a thank you, an acknowledgment, and the option to reduce taxable income by itemizing deductions on his or her IRS Form 1040 Schedule A tax return. The donor should also have input into how the gift is spent.

As public school districts deal with more and more budget shortfalls, organized parents, community members and educators are turning to alumni philanthropy to finance school construction and staff augmentation--just as America's public universities have done for more than a century.

Maintain Continual Communication. One comment that we heard from all districts and schools related to the importance of continual communication with the community at large.

Make It a Reciprocal Relationship. Both school and district officials noted the importance of creating a reciprocal relationship with business partners so that both parties feel they are benefiting from the relationship.

Finds Ways for Donors to "Get Their Feet Wet." Several school principals noted that one effective strategy is to find ways for community members to make modest contributions to support a school, and thereby get them introduced to the school and its needs. Once volunteers saw what was happening at the schools and got to know the students, they frequently came back with more support.

Make It Appealing for Individuals and Organizations to Become Involved. Districts and schools reported that they needed to be flexible and creative in their approach to making involvement appealing to prospective donors. In addition, several respondents stated that successful schools make everyone feel welcome.

Provide Training to Volunteers. Another effective strategy used by some schools was to provide orientation or training to community members who were interested in volunteering at the schools.

Know Your Resource Base. Representatives from the schools and districts discussed how the various characteristics of their communities affected how they approached raising private support. They suggested that identifying their resource base required a good understanding of their communities and what they had to offer in terms of support.

Private Support Garners More Private Support. Staff members from several districts and schools noted that when a school or district can establish some credibility with potential givers, other givers (including foundations, corporations, and the like) are more willing to give.

Focus On Individual Giving. If your school's alumni have the same dynamics in place that a university usually has, such as a sense of allegiance, a pride in having gone there, a sense of gratification for the good education they received, then it doesn't matter if it is a junior high, high school or a university because the major gifts and planned giving process will work and your school could be sitting on millions of dollars in contributed income.

Project Appleseed recognizes that today's philanthropists are demanding a more active role in shaping the outcomes of their gifts, a result both of their entrepreneurial wealth and an emerging belief that institutions need to be scrutinized more closely. To fund the rebuilding and renovation of America's public schools, parents and schools must harness alumni - but how?

Project Appleseed 
The National Campaign for Public School Improvement

Capacity Building for Your Schools

We can provide your administrators, school board members, parents, alumni and community leaders with the information, planning and leadership on key activities involving feasibility, capacity building, approval, and implementation. Our staff can help guide your schools through all fazes of your project:

• Project Proposal Creation
• Marketing
• Community engagement
• Alumni capacity building
• Recruitment of alumni leaders
• Web site development and on-line presentation
• Nonprofit organization and board development

E-mail Project Appleseed at info@projectappleseed.org. Tell us about your potiential project, schools, alumni and funding needs and we will provide you with information about what we can do to help your schools achieve it's major raising goals.

Can you spare a million?

By Carolyn Bower Of the Post-Dispatch

Sales of wrapping paper, entertainment books and T-shirts have become familiar ways for schools to pay for playground equipment, field trips and even classroom supplies. Now public schools have found another way to pay for extras.

Donations. Big ones. Gifts that can pay for the sort of projects that school tax money might have financed in more flush times.

Consider:

• A million-dollar gift from two alumni paid to renovate a wing of Affton High School into a student union area, with a coffee bar, study areas, a wall of computers, and indoor and outdoor dining.
• A million-dollar gift from an alumna of the Highland public schools paid for new band instruments and upgrades to technology labs. Some of the donation may be used to air-condition elementary school classrooms.
• Clayton parents and community members launched a campaign this month to raise $2.6 million for the high school's athletic field and track.
• Ladue alumni are raising $1.7 million to build a field house and renovate the track, field and press box at the high school.
• Project Appleseed is helping University City parents and alumni who are seeking $15 million to $20 million for a recreation center as well as air conditioning and other upgrades to the district's high school. (Illustration above)

For years, private schools and colleges and universities have raised millions of dollars from alumni for building renovations, teachers, programs and technology.

Now public school districts have begun to follow suit.