Securing financial support in your community
Your school/campus may be well-versed in school levy and bond campaigns, PTA bake sales, and fundraisers for the band trips and equally well acquainted with school budget limitations. If you need to troll for dollars to support your participation in the Learning School Alliance, you'll find Six Strategies for Successful Fundraising below and learn about who should be on your fundraising team. You can also download a
letter of introduction and support from Executive Director Stephanie Hirsh to provide to prospective donors.
Six Strategies for Successful Fundraising
- Conduct two fundraising campaigns. One campaign targets likely donors and promising sources and includes strategies to make a personal pitch. The second campaign is a word-of-mouth communication campaign that includes each of your staff members sharing the news of your school's commitment to excellence and your efforts to raise funds to support it. Your fundraising goals for the first campaign would be contributions in the range of $100-1000, and for the second, $5, 10, 20. It all adds up.
- Tap concentric circles of support. Start with the education circle: your local education fund, state professional associations, and state department of education. Move to the community circle: Parent/Teacher/Student associations and organizations, the chamber of commerce, the equity-focused organizations — including large churches — that want to see all students succeed. From there, seek out the foundations and sizeable businesses whose service area includes you.
- Make it personal. Make an appointment for a meeting or a presentation to convey the good news about your intent to join with other schools to improve teacher practice. Don't try to raise dollars by e-mail, snail mail, or phone. If you want people to give, be prepared to give of your time to make the case. Regardless of whether they can contribute to your cause, prospective donors will be interested in what you're doing to improve teacher practice and increase student achievement — and it should be part of your communication effort to keep them informed.
- Do your homework. Learn all you can about your prospect pool to determine if there's real opportunity or if you're shaking the wrong money tree. What's the budget cycle for community giving? What are the giving goals — and how does this initiative fit those goals? If you're contacting a foundation, find out when they make decisions on grants — for some, it's quarterly, for others, once a year. You can even ask those you know are committed to other activities, e.g., the Lions Club is devoted to providing glasses, to give you suggestions for others to contact.
- WIIFM applies here too: What's In It For Them? The local business owner cares about the economic and social health of the community and will be more interested in how this Alliance will help the students in the neighborhood. The foundation supports long-range and ambitious goals: improving professional practice, for example, and will be interested in the prospects for significant leaps in professional learning.
- Make a request for matching funds. This strategy is more risky, but is also very compelling. Demonstrate the courage of your convictions by underwriting the first-year contribution with school/district funds. Provide activity reports to prospective donors that will convince them to support year two.
Your Fundraising Team
- Lucky enough to have a grantwriter in your district? Make a date with this font of knowledge to learn more about who contributes to education in your community: a local foundation? civic organization? chamber of commerce? Your quest is for knowledge, not necessarily to delegate the task — though help is always welcome if offered.
- Create a virtual team from your school/campus to scout for dollars. Use the most active social networkers to help identify the parent/community member with expertise in fundraising, and the compulsive web surfer who can mine such sites as www.schoolgrants.org and www.grantwrangler.com to locate both information and opportunities. This team should include both educators and parents/community members who can commit some time to this effort and share information regularly with each other.
- Use the six degrees of separation theory to find both the donor(s) who can help you and the friends who know them. If your community has a resident angel — a donor who gives but gives anonymously — make this question a part of your routine conversation: Do you know someone who knows someone who might help support our efforts?
- The students in your school will be beneficiaries of the Learning Forward Learning School Alliance. Bring them into the conversation early and share your excitement. Let them figure out ways they can contribute. A penny campaign can be an impressive show of commitment to the prospective donors, who can match a level of giving with dollars.
