Making the Grade

Public schools raise millions with sophisticated techniques

In Los Gatos, Calif., a wealthy town near San Jose, residents banded together to quickly raise $1-million through an aggressive “Save Our Schools” campaign to avoid teacher layoffs. The Los Gatos Education Foundation rallied supporters by plastering banners around town in storefronts and in schools, sent letters to local families urging them to give $600 each, and recruited parents, teachers, and even the superintendent to participate in a phonathon to drum up donations. The two-month blitz this spring enabled the fund to guarantee teaching jobs and educational programs that might be eliminated next year because of the massive deficit facing the state of California and its city governments.

Now the organization is planning another big, but less urgent, campaign for next year. “We are grateful to the crisis because it caused people to come together and go for one goal,” says Alicia Barton, a parent who volunteers for the Los Gatos Education Foundation. “We are trying to capitalize on that and not let it die.”

In Los Gatos and a growing number of cities and towns across America, fund raising for public schools is becoming increasingly ambitious and sophisticated. Many school districts have full-time fund raisers, and are working to attract wealthy individuals — even those who don’t have kids in the schools — to give money. And as local governments face serious budget shortfalls, many experts expect that public schools will become even fiercer competitors for philanthropic dollars.

With the growth, however, have come revived concerns about equity. Many worry that such donation efforts will hurt schools in poor neighborhoods that do not have wealthy individual, foundation, or corporate supporters, or the professional staff or parents with time to spearhead fund-raising efforts.

Of the more than 16,000 school districts in the country, between 3,500 and 5,000 now have charities that raise money for local schools, says Dan McCormick, a consultant in Michigan whose company has helped set up more than 400 local education foundations in the last 20 years. Such estimates do not include schools that have their own supporting organizations.

While solid national figures do not exist, membership organizations for school fund-raising groups report big gains. The Public Education Network, a national association in Washington, welcomed 30 new organizational members in the last three years, bringing its total to 81. The California Consortium of Education Foundations more than doubled its membership in the last decade, to 450. And in Florida, 60 of the 67 counties have school fund-raising organizations, which collectively raised $23-million last year.

Most of these public-school groups raise less than $150,000 each a year. But in the last few years, several have surpassed the $1-million mark. Among the biggest efforts:

• The Boston Latin School, a public school for academically gifted youngsters, is poised to complete a $40-million capital campaign this fall. Started in 1998, the campaign resembles ones by elite private schools or colleges, complete with glossy fund-raising brochures, opportunities for donors to name classrooms and other spaces, and personal appeals by the school’s headmaster to wealthy donors around the country. Fund-raising experts say they believe that the Latin School’s campaign is raising more than any other public school has ever received from private sources.
• The Public Education Foundation, in Chattanooga, Tenn., received a pledge of $6.5-million over five years from two local foundations, the Benwood and the W.H. Osborne Foundations. The charity is now trying to raise $3-million in additional donations needed to match the foundation grants. The money will be used to improve third-grade reading levels and teacher education at nine low-performing elementary schools.
• The Irvine Public Schools Foundation, in California, raised $4.3-million last year, a large portion of which will help ensure that state cuts won’t affect the school district’s small class size for kindergarten through third grade. The group has set a fund-raising goal of $6-million annually by 2005. Among the group’s revenue raisers: a program to refurbish donated musical instruments and then rent them to students. Last year about 1,000 students rented cellos, French horns, trumpets, and other instruments, bringing in $300,000 in income. “We are really focusing on being a well-run nonprofit business and not thinking of ourselves as a little public-school foundation,” says Tim Shaw, the group’s executive director.
• The Clark County Public Education Foundation, in Las Vegas, raised $3-million last year. The fund-raising arm for this public-school district of 255,000 students oversees an annual charity golf tournament, has produced a video to help make its case to donors, and has succeeded in appealing to companies and foundations for aid. Such efforts mark just the beginning of the group’s plans. “Three million dollars in a community as affluent as ours is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Judi K. Steele, president of the Clark County Public Education Foundation. “There are a lot of needs and there is more money that we need to be raising.” The group helped pay for scholarships, grants to teachers for student field trips, free dental care for low-income students, vocational training, and a Web site urging children not to use drugs or alcohol.

Such successes, while serving as inspiration for some fund raisers, also have reignited debates over how public education should be paid for.

“If not done well or thoughtfully, this type of private fund raising has the potential to exacerbate the gaps between rich and poor schools,” says Howard Schaffer, a spokesman for the Public Education Network, a national association of local education foundations. Organizations that join the network primarily work to increase student achievement at schools attended mostly by students from low-income families.

Mr. Schaffer says widespread cuts in government education budgets have made it hard for parents and others not to step in to try to fill gaps. “The financial pain that America’s public schools are feeling is so pervasive, what once seemed like an isolated strategy is now widespread,” he says.

Still, the millions these foundations collect can’t compare to the billions the government spends on education each year, causing some observers to fret that money raised by school charities will keep pressure off lawmakers to restore funds to all public schools.

“They don’t raise enough money to make a huge difference, but they raise enough money to quiet people down so that it’s not that hot an issue,” says Linda Hodge, president of National PTA, in Chicago.

A Shift in the Debate

Most fund raisers for public schools say they are mindful of such concerns. But they also say the needs and opportunities for schools are too great right now to wait for policy debates to get resolved. For many, the issue has shifted from whether to raise private donations to what to do with the money raised.

Says Mr. Shaw, of the Irvine Public Schools Foundation: “Do you want to sacrifice a generation to wait for [government officials] to figure it out?” He adds, “Even if we were able to rectify public spending, there is always a need for extra help.”

Some school organizations have mandates to pay only for items outside a school district’s bailiwick. But as state budget crises loom, some school groups that originally formed to provide extra programs and supplies to public schools are instead paying for more basic needs, such as teacher salaries.

When several Minnesota parents started the Orono Alliance for Education, in Long Lake, three years ago, they intended to raise money for additional language instructors, sports teams, and after-school drama and music classes in the public schools. Instead, the group has spent the majority of the $1.3-million it has raised to save teaching positions that were to be abolished as the school district received less money from the state.

“We want to be more in the visionary mode than the Band-Aid mode,” says Tamara Hauser, the group’s executive director. “The only way we are going to get there is to raise so much money that we have the problem of where to give it away.”

Among its fund-raising efforts: The Orono Alliance for Education sent out a special postcard appeal last winter to its mailing list of 4,500 asking people to donate the property-tax rebates they would be receiving from the state. In Minnesota, property taxes pay for the education budget, says Ms. Hauser, so in effect the group was asking donors to “give the money back.” The appeal brought in about $20,000, with at least three donors, including a retired teacher, giving their entire rebate amount.

Talks and Trivia Contests

A growing number of school fund-raising groups are trying to reach far beyond the parents of public-school students. Many pitch themselves as community-improvement charities, not just a fund-raising unit for the schools.

As its inaugural program in 1994, the Weston Education Foundation, in Connecticut, organized a lecture open to the public given by town residents who had expertise in technology. Subsequent “Weston Talks” on topics such as architecture and writing have helped the organization gain visibility and good will among the town’s 3,000 residents, says Liz Stokes, the group’s chairman. In addition, the fund tries to find projects that will benefit town residents as well as students. For example, after the organization paid for a media lab in one of the schools, officials arranged for a class open to the public on how to produce family movies, as “a way to thank the community for making these labs happen,” says Ms. Stokes. Donations from residents help the foundation raise between $40,000 and $100,000 each year, depending on what school projects the foundation is seeking to finance.

In Massachusetts, the Lexington Education Foundation holds an annual trivia contest to raise money. Last year, 42 teams paid $375 each to answer questions, such as: Who said, “The only thing I do not want to be called is First Lady. It sounds like a saddle horse”? (The answer: Jacqueline Kennedy.) The event raised $22,000 for the organization, which pays for teacher training, technology in schools, books from other cultures for school libraries, and other programs not included in the school budget.

Some school fund-raising groups have found that a broad representation of local residents on their boards leads to more donations, says Susan Sweeney, executive director of the California Consortium of Education Foundations, in Stanford, which offers training and support for local education foundations in the state.

“One reason people tend to give to an education foundation is because it is composed of community members, and people feel there is an accountability,” she says. “The money raised by these foundations is discretionary and it can go for what the community feels is important.” For example, board members of the San Francisco Education Fund include a vice president of Wells Fargo bank, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, and a retired school principal.

‘License for Learning’

In Florida, the 60 charities that raise money for local schools benefit from sales of the “License for Learning” license plate, which raised $631,000 last year, says Janet Ekholm, manager of the Consortium of Florida Education Foundations, in Tampa. When a person opts to buy or renew the license plate, $15 from the sale goes to the public-school charity in the county where the person purchased the plate. Local charities promote the license plates on their Web sites.

While public education has proven to be a popular cause with people eager to keep their schools from lagging behind, such fund-raising efforts have not been entirely immune to the economic downturn of the past few years.

Last year, Debra J. Gould, executive director of the Nashville Public Education Foundation, was able to raise only $85,000 of the $200,000 she sought from local foundations for a project to turn an old elementary school into an up-to-date high school for students at risk of dropping out of school. Ms. Gould says that many potential donors told her, “This sounds like a great project, but we don’t have funds to invest right now.”

Officials at the Clark County Education Foundation opted not to solicit wealthy donors for gifts last year, as it had in the past. “The last two years have been very difficult to raise money,” says Ms. Steele, the foundation’s president. “We shifted from asking the community to bear the larger burden to looking at other foundations and grant opportunities.” The foundation recently won a $100,000 grant from the Lowe’s home-improvement chain, for example.

In Portland, Ore., the soft economy is hampering plans to double the Portland Schools Foundation’s $3-million annual budget, says Cynthia Guyer, the foundation’s executive director. “We are cognizant of the down economy and trying to be realistic,” she says. The group expects to raise the same amount next year.

Still, the economic uncertainty is not slowing the creation of new charities to raise money for local schools. In Shorewood, Wis., a group of residents started Supporters of Excellence in Educational Development in December, prompted by two years of million-dollar cuts in the school-district budget, says Diane Rolfs, the group’s president. So far, the organization has only raised $7,000 by holding a small cocktail party. But with the help of a school parent — a fund-raising consultant who is helping the organization develop a long-range plan — its goal is to eventually raise $1-million.

Shorewood is not the only town interested in starting a foundation. Mr. Shaw, of the Irvine Public Schools Foundation, says he has talked with people from 10 school districts in the last month who all want to know how his foundation works. While new foundations won’t reap large financial benefits until they establish credibility with donors, he says, “you’ve got to start sometime, and now is as good a time as any because there is a crisis out there.” And given forecasts for state and city cutbacks in education, he says, “this is not going away.”