Years ago, PTA cakewalks and bake sales usually raised enough money to provide the extra frills at schools.
But times have changed, and so has fundraising, for one major reason.
The money that’s needed is not for frills anymore. It’s not for swing sets or a new VCR. It’s for real programs, the type that many districts think are the difference between a good school district and an excellent one.
But because many school districts are walking that fine line between being in the red and in the black, they must think of new and more aggressive ways to raise money to deliver the best for their students.
Enter the foundation. It’s an old tool, reworked for a new purpose. Most of the foundations are organized as non-profit corporations. Trustees are usually parents, a few representatives from the school district and leaders from within the local business community.
Batavia School District has one of the oldest ones, with a startup in 1986; Elmhurst launched one in 1988.
A few years later, Indian Prairie Unit School District 204, West Chicago Elementary District 33 and Wheaton Community School District 200 jumped on board.
Most recently, Naperville Community Unit School District 203, Lisle Unit School District 202 and Glen Ellyn’s high school and elementary school districts have joined the rush to garner their share of charitable dollars.
Has it paid off? Most certainly. Elmhurst has raised more than $100,000 since the inception of its foundation. Wheaton raised $33,000 its first year. Indian Prairie School District estimates it raises about $50,000 a year. In most cases, money raised through the foundation goes directly back into programs, though Batavia funnels the money into an endowment and then funds programs from the endowment’s proceeds.
“The foundation is a great concept, especially in these times when tax dollars are at such a premium,” said Bob Riley, president of Gary-Wheaton Bank of Batavia, which contributes to the foundation in Batavia. “It’s just an idea whose time has come.”
Most of the foundations have a mission statement and set goals as to what kind of programs they want to sponsor.
In Elmhurst, it was writing.
“We would only fund programs that the board of education would approve, and focused in on some programs that were here in the district but needed some of the extras,” said Susan Olafson, executive director of the Elmhurst Unit District 205 Foundation.
At Elmhurst’s York High School, the foundation installed six computers in a writing center, with tutors available for help in developing writing skills.
Wheaton’s The New 200 Foundation chose as its theme Education Enhancement Through Technology, said Sherry Bowne. Bowne was instrumental in getting the foundation started in that town and now serves on its board.
“We asked for proposals for any program a teacher had a dream about that had a technology component, involved critical-thinking skills and would serve a large portion of the school population,” she explained.
The foundation got 38 proposals from teachers. Five have been implemented so far, including a National Geographic Kids Network that helps kids track information about weather and disseminate it to teammates and meteorologists across the United States and other countries.
Some programs that foundations have launched have become so well received that districts have put them into their regular curriculum.
“Several of the projects our foundation kicked off and were funded initially by us, have been taken over by the school district or the PTA,” said Penny Catour, director of community relations for Indian Prairie Unit District 204. She serves as a liaison between the district and The Indian Prairie Educational Foundation.
Most foundations in the district insist they were formed only to fund enhancement programs-that is, extra things the district cannot or may not think it should fund. They say foundation money, no matter how tight a school district may get financially, will never pay for regular budget items.
It would be dangerous to think that foundations would take an important part in funding regular curriculum, said Ron Logeman, Lisle High School principal and a member of the board of the Lisle Education Foundation.
But others aren’t so sure.
“It very well could go that way,” said John Hennig, superintendent of West Chicago Elementary School District 33 and a member of the board for the District 33 Foundation.
“That issue has been raised in the past few months,” agreed Lawrence Golden, Glen Ellyn District 15 superintendent and member of the board of Parents for Education Progress (PEP) in Glen Ellyn. “Obviously, as the situation with the state may continue, there may be a need to revisit that to look at that,” he said, referring to the decline in state funding of public schools and the tax cap that limits how much school districts may raise their levy each year.
Mostly, communities have been supportive of the foundations, say board members. “Some people do feel that their tax dollar is their donation and it should be enough to support the schools,” said Olafson. “But, in fairness, that stems from a general misunderstanding of how public education is funded today.”
A bigger concern is that as more foundations are launched, competition for charitable dollars will reduce the amount that foundations can collect. But if foundations rely on soliciting funds from local companies, they are likely to have a better chance of being successful in their fundraising efforts.
“If the foundation looks at the business interests within its own boundaries, then the competition will be very limited,” said Golden.
Indeed, some area businesses seem eager to get involved with helping out the schools. They say it helps them in the long run.
“Businesses have to support the education in the area they’re in” to keep a community thriving, said Bob Van Iten, owner of Village Pontiac GMC Truck and Saturn of Naperville.
Van Iten has donated driver’s education cars, cars for students to work on in repair classes and money to help host an honors awards banquet.
Lesley Arends, who owns her own communications firm in addition to being on the board of the Lisle foundation, also believes businesses and schools must work together in a partnership to obtain the best education for students.
“It’s essential that parents and the business community all work together to try to enhance that education, to give them every edge, because they are our future,” she said.
So, in order to keep up with the times, cakewalks are out, and big-time foundation fundraisers, such as golf outings, gala benefits and hosting top-notch performers, are in.
That’s because quality education today is more than just reading, writing and ‘rithmetic, said Olafson.
“Some people still think that the public school system should get back to basics,” she said. “But what’s basic today is more than just the three R’s. We need computer centers and library resource centers, because information is changing every minute, and we need to keep up. Schools today need more technological things than they ever have in the past. People need to accept that.”
