As a long-time practitioner of international school fundraising, I am often asked if all international schools can fundraise to support their own budget. If you’re looking for a quick read, it’s, “No.”
But backing up a little bit, let’s start by defining what we mean by, “Fundraising” (with a capital “F”). For me, I’m talking about building a program that contributes substantial unrestricted amounts to the school’s operating budget, leading to major and planned gifts, capital campaigns, and eventually an Endowment that can secure the future of the school. I’m not talking about bake sales, galas, raffles, auctions, or other types of transactional fundraising. These are certainly held for the best of intentions, but they don’t build a reliable, sizeable, and growing revenue stream on which the school can rely.
Almost any non-profit school (even a for-profit school) can hold transactional fundraising events. But when it comes to building a successful Fundraising program, there are two main prerequisites: Demographics and a Board of Trustees that understands its role.
Current Demographics
In my experience, schools that have a highly transient population will have difficulty gaining any meaningful traction. The intial source of most donations for any school is current parents (followed only later by Alumni); if most families stay for just a short period of time, the ability to develop them into donors of any level is severely limited. It’s for this reason that so many international schools resort to transactional fundraising, essentially running an event business and declaring the profit as donations.
Schools that have longer-term families offer greater prospects for development. It’s at this point that I often hear, “Yes, but it still won’t work here because we have a low number of Americans,” as if all Americans spring from the womb ready to give their money away. No, it’s a case of educating the community about the why’s and how’s of giving (the “Case for Support”). I have found that the constituents who give the most, and the most often, are those with a long-term commitment to the school. That tends to be the local population, whether they are citizens of that country or long term expats (or “lo-pats” as I call them). So if you have a significant number of locals or lopats, you’ve got one of the prerequisites for establishing a real Fundraising program.
The Board of Trustees
Does the Board of Trustees understand its role? It’s actually quite simple: the Board hires the Head of School, supports her or his decisions, and then concentrates on ensuring the long-term success of the school. Trustees should be pondering questions like, “Should we become a boarding school?” or, “Should we purchase land that we might need 20 years from now?” or, most importantly, “What might we do now to ensure the long-term financial stability of our school?” If the Board is in essence duplicating or directing the work of the administration, then either they need a new Head or they’re avoiding the real work of a Board.
As I’ve said, these are just two prerequisites; if you have these in place, it’s worth digging deeper. I’ll touch on more aspects of how to go about establishing a successful Fundraising Program in future posts, so please subscribe to get updates.
This blog is coming at the perfect time for my school as we are dipping our toes into the exciting world of fundraising. Can't wait for more!
Great kickoff to your blog! Thanks for starting the important conversation.