A school foundation is valuable for its partnering school or district for the following reasons:
- Improves communication with your community
- Raises awareness of school needs
- Initiates and cultivates Alumni fundraising
- Improves academic and educational opportunities
- Prepares future school board members
- Adults representing the school’s needs to the community
- Assist and support administration
- Offers the community the opportunity to be a part of the solution…support education
Adults in our children’s lives:
Foundation boards offer another set of organized adults structured around the mission of supporting the education of the community’s children. Research has spoken; another set of adults in a child’s life can be very influential. The average board size is 12, and the average board has 3.5 committees made up of another 5-6 people each. This amounts to a lot of adults available to work for the good of the lives of the district’s children. The members of the board are creative and often very energetic about getting others involved.
Volunteers: more tasks completed, more needs met, a great resource for schools:
We all know that volunteers can be the life blood of an organization, and much of the literature demonstrates that volunteers are much more likely to leave a gift to an organization. Foundations leverage on average over 115 volunteers in any given year of operation. They offer an opportunity for community members and retired staff volunteer involvement in the school’s activities
Trains future school leaders:
According to the Rand Study, the foundation board and or one of its many committees can be a perfect place where creative, energetic and dynamic leaders of the community can get involved Not everyone wants to be a school board member, nor has the time to be a school board member…this can be a perfect outlet. Members of the CCEF (Californian Consortiums of Education Foundations) have reported that the foundation board is a great resource from which future BOE members can be recruited.
Secures new and improved resources for the school:
The school’s administrators and its school board are responsible for securing resources, as many and as quality as possible, to support the education of the children of the community. Alumni fundraising, corporate partnerships and naming rights are all methods of securing significant financial support for a school or district.
Improves community relations, a new marketing arm for the school:
Foundations can serve as a marketing arm of sorts for the district, faithfully providing social events, activities and of course effectively communicating the successes of the district. Bring alumni back, welcome parents and community members back into the schools. With over 80% of today’s homes childless, this is a great way to bring them back in to the school.
Offers an opportunity for the community to express its support for the school:
The K-12 foundation offers your community an opportunity to express its support of great resource; the children enrolled in its public schools!