Publication Date: Friday, January 30, 2004
The power of two
The power of two
(January 30, 2004) District fund-raising organizations to form super-group
by Rachel Metz
Will it be PAFEASF? ASFPAFE? Or perhaps an entirely new combination of letters when local fund-raising groups the All Schools Fund and Palo Alto Foundation for Education come together as one super-group.
In the first year that both groups have co-existed in the school district, there's been some confusion about who raises money for what. But now that the groups are joining forces, pre-donation head-scratching might become a thing of the past.
With the joint venture, "People's attention isn't split in more than one direction," All Schools Fund secondary-school campaign chair Elaine Hahn said.
The All Schools Fund was formed in 2003 to consolidate and equalize fund raising efforts for each district school. The money the group raises is distributed proportionally. The Palo Alto Foundation for Education has been raising funds for longer-term projects like new science equipment at Palo Alto and Gunn high schools.
The groups hope by combining forces it can help the district's budget crisis. The groups want the district to use $1.5 million of the district's reserve funds for the coming year while they raise money to backfill the depleted reserves.
"We need the money," district Deputy Superintendent Bob Golton said.
Aside from saying organizers wants to hire a professional fund-raiser, the super-group is not revealing how or when it hopes to raise the funds.
"We take seriously what we've committed to and feel that the track record, the strengths of both groups combined together, will enable us to be successful," foundation co-president Anne Avis said Wednesday.
This track record includes about $1 million raised so far this school year for the All Schools Fund's $1.1 million elementary school campaign. The Palo Alto Foundation for Education has raised about $700,000 between this and last year toward its goal of donating $1 million to high school science programs.
Fund raising options for the super-group could include a communitywide direct appeal and soliciting funding from businesses -- things the All Schools Fund currently does, fund co-president Louise Valente said.
The groups have been talking about combining for a while, All Schools Fund co-president Louise Valente said. This fall they formed a task force to figure out how they could raise funds for the district's budget crisis, Valente said.
The partnership formed by the combination of the groups is new to Palo Alto, local PTA Council President Kate Hill said. In 1996 the PTA Council and Palo Alto Foundation for Education started a districtwide fund-raising group, but not all district schools were represented. And in the absence of 2002's district policy preventing site-based fund raising for school staff positions, people didn't see the need to support the effort, she said.
Now, the All Schools Fund and Palo Alto Foundation for Education are hoping locals see it their way by donating to the new conglomeration.
Though they haven't announced the new group's leadership or even its name, they felt they needed to stand up at Tuesday's board meeting so they could help the district's planning for dealing with the crisis, Avis said.
"The timing was not ideal from our standpoint because we are still developing the components of the campaign," she said.
Despite the haziness, the groups' announcement received cheers from audience members and a positive reception from the school board.
"This is a terrific opportunity for the Palo Alto community ... to show what a generosity of spirit we have here in our community," Price said.
Rachel Metz can be e-mailed at rmetz@paweekly.com
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