Nonprofit foundations have been raising money for private schools and universities for decades. A few years ago, supporters of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System decided it was time to get into the act.
“It kind of fills the gap between what’s available with tax funding, and what we want to try in our school system that may be new, innovative, or looks a little different,” Keila Stovall, executive director of the Foundation for East Baton Rouge School System, tells Business Report in a feature from the current issue.
In 2011, a group of businesspeople, community leaders and other education stakeholders began meeting to craft a new strategic plan for the local school system. One of the committees proposed creating an independent foundation that would provide supplemental resources for programs that schools couldn’t afford on their own.
In preparing to launch the new organization, they relied on advice from the National School Foundation Association. NSFA Executive Director Robin Callahan says such foundations started springing up about 30 years ago and have become more prevalent during the past 15 years. Today, they’re one of the fastest-growing nonprofit sectors.
The most successful education foundations know what their students need and who in the community can best meet them, and then they serve as a conduit to fill the gap, Callahan says. That might include donating school supplies, providing internships or volunteering time in the classroom. Resources are limited and no organization can do everything, so savvy foundations are careful not to duplicate other group’s efforts.
“They basically come to us and say, ‘What do you need?’” says East Baton Rouge Schools Superintendent Warren Drake. “It has given opportunities for kids in our schools to do things that they would not have been able to do before.”
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