WHAT WE DO
We teach you how to set up and govern your foundation, communicate it to those who can help, and raise money in strategic and sustainable ways. We bring you all the tools you need to have a measurable impact ...seminars, power tools, strategies and consulting. You will know exactly what to do. We are focused, fueled, and passionate about helping kids succeed.
You will exceed your own expectations.
Training
Whether it's customized onsite training or on the web, we provide the skills you need to build a successful foundation. All training is conducted as part of our Leadership Training and is credentialed by the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Staff and Board members can each receive enough credits to be a School Foundation Fellow at both the Certified Board Member and Masters levels. The Education program will also include a Leadership Institute at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2011.
Topics:
- Starting a Foundation
- Elevating an Existing Foundation
- Branding, Marketing and Communications
- Annual Fundraising
- Building a Continuum of Success
- Major Gifts/Endowment Campaigns
- Developing a Case Statement
- Strategic Planning
- Systems and Process
- Long-Term Planning
- Governance
- Board Development
- Developing Earned Income Initiatives
Delivery Strategies:
Our work comes in many forms, depending on time, budget and, most importantly, your needs.
- Webinars (live)
- Conferences
- Web-based video workshops
- Customized onsite training
- Customized web based training
- Board retreats
- Webinars - live and interactive
- Conference and day-long pre-conference workshops
- Board retreats – on site and via webinars
- Speeches
Fundraising
Whether it's annual fund raising, a major gifts campaign, or building endowments, we will give you the strategies and tools to be successful. Let us talk to you about our hands-on approach to helping you raise money (see Work Examples).
Marketing & Branding
Who are you and what do you do? People are more inclined to give when it is an organization with a clear mission and vision and a reputation for success. Marketing and Branding services for Foundation Excellence are provided by its affiliate partner, Voss & Associates.
Services include:
- Determine Your Brand (we take you through the process of brand, logo and slogan design)
- Market Your Foundation (we help you create and implement a Marketing Plan)
- Graphic design, Print, Web, Video Production (we provide all the services you can't do yourself)
Consulting
We will develop a course of action to meet the specific needs of each client.
Power Tools
- Software
- SmartXcellence
- Home Town Fund Raising
Why should your foundation use the Home Town Fund Raising Discount Coupon Book?
Because it works. It'll bring additional revenue to your schools.
Foundation Excellence is proud to offer this discount coupon book as an easy way to allow a community to support its schools through its school foundation. It offers an opportunity for public education and private resources to combine to benefit the entire community – children, schools, the school foundation and local businesses.
Benefits:
- This coupon book is a proven model that has had success with schools across the country;
- It is an easy way to raise funds; minimal administrative time is required; we find the advertisers, design and print the book and help with distribution, while you concentrate on building your foundation;
- It is fast; from the moment we begin to work together it is often only 1 to 2 months before you have a check from us;
- This coupon booklet provides the highest percentage of return of a program of its kind;
- It combines a way to raise funds and promote your foundation. This booklet is a way to tell the foundation’s story to people throughout the community;
- It provides a way for the Superintendent and the School Board to promote the excellence of the schools and to discuss needs;
- People and businesses that learn about the foundation through this coupon book can often become donors at a higher level;
- It is a program that can be used to provide an income that the foundation can count on each year. Typically, the revenue increases each year;
- We have built in many features that are unique to our program. For example, we have ways to use the coupon book that do not require children to sell.
Specific uses of the funds generated:
- It can provide a launch fund when school foundations are first getting started;
- It can be an annual source of funding to support the foundation’s operating expenses, so that it can concentrate more time on its good work;
- It can provide funding on a recurring basis for the annual grants program that funds the extraordinary and creative work of teachers and students;
- It can be tied to a specific program, such as the Individual School Endowment Program, which develops permanent endowment funds for each of the schools in the district, or the Technology Initiative, which develops a technology fund specific to each school.
Work Examples
New Foundation:
- By Laws
- 501 C3 papers
- Marketing Plan
- Branding
- Logo
- Strategic Planning
- Board Development
- Developing your fund raising plan
- Webinars both generic and customized
Existing Foundations:
- Foundation Analysis of your strengths and areas of opportunities to help you raise your expectations and results
- Evaluate Strategic Plan
- Identify and connect foundations to companies that will add revenue through proven earned income methods help you run a sustainable, effective and efficient foundation
- Webinars, both generic and customized to your foundation’s needs
Conducting a Major Gifts Campaign:
Foundation Excellence will work with your foundation’s board of directors, staff and volunteers to develop and implement a major gifts campaign to augment the other areas of fund raising. As an example, one foundation raised $28,000 annually through its golf outing and a few thousand dollars through other events-based strategies. Working with Foundation Excellence, they developed a major gifts campaign with a goal of $340,000. In three months with just four onsite visits they raised $280,000.
Typically, consultants are used extensively in the planning phase and then usage decreases after the plan is in place, volunteers are recruited and trained, potential donors identified and materials prepared. Careful planning is essential for major gifts success.
Specific activities include:
- Determination of the case for support that will present your foundation’s goals in the most compelling way – increasing the grants to teachers and students, developing a program fund, such as a Technology Initiative, initiating an endowment fund for each of the schools in the district.
- Determination of the roles and time commitment of Board and Staff
- Identification of volunteer leadership
- Finalization of the financial goal – how much can we raise?
- Definition of campaign components – the amounts to be raised from families, businesses, alumni, etc
- Determination of campaign committee
- Identification of lead gifts
- Development of a brand and marketing plan
- Preparation of the campaign calendar
- Preparation of campaign materials, including brochure and pledge card
- Development of a system for tracking pledges and preparing thank you letters
- Analysis of potential donors, including gender and other demographic factors
- Implementing the major gifts component
- Implementing the public phase, tying your events to the campaign
- Assessing the ability to raise long-term, sustainable funds through earned income
General Outline of a Major Gifts Campaign:
Pre Campaign Phase:
- Determine needs - general and for specific projects
- Determine goal - for current needs and for endowment
- Determine institutional readiness to conduct a campaign - staffing, computer system
- Develop initial case statement
- Determine readiness of Board of Directors
- Conduct community assessment to test your plans with an external audience
Campaign Advancement Phase:
- Organize a Campaign Planning Committee
- Identify volunteers for leadership based on Campaign Organization chart; determine strategies for recruitment
- Begin review of database of all potential donors
- Develop campaign materials
- Theme
- Naming opportunities
- Additional donor recognition
- Brochure
- Pledge card
- Material for volunteers
- Video
- Determine staff "point person"
- Finalize office systems
- Space
- Computer system
- Files
- Budget
- Set up segregated account to hold campaign funds
- Determine plan for publicity
- Finalize Action Plan and Timeline
Campaign Implementation - Major Gifts Phase:
- Recruit campaign chair or co-chairs
- Recruit chair of each sub-committee
- Determine goal for each sub-committee
- Recruit additional volunteers for each sub-committee
- Solicit all members of the Boards of Directors and staff
- Identify top 5-10 donors in each category using Standards of Giving charts
- Determine education and cultivation necessary for each
- Hold cultivation event(s)
- Hold solicitation training session or all volunteers
- Progressive solicitation of all donors
- Publicity regarding progress and important successes
Campaign Implementation - Public Phase: (to be determined based on major gifts success and timeline of Phase I and II)
- Initiate wide-spread publicity of campaign
- Direct mail campaign
- Special events
- Celebrate success
- Determine how to have campaign donors become on-going and planned giving donors
Public Speaking
Whether it's a major conference or a staff meeting, we can provide the speaker to inform, motivate and inspire you to be successful. We have speakers who specialize in all of the topics listed above under Training.