Blog: The Well Runneth Dry

It’s started. A month into the new school semester and, already, we’ve been asked to pull out our checkbooks on behalf of our schools’ foundation, “fill-in-the-blank”-a-thons, sports teams and music program, to name just a few of the programs that need underwriting to exist.

Do the people who send out these appeals realize they’ve got competition–from their brethren school programs but also in the form of living costs, orthodontia, insurance and the myriad other expenses that present themselves daily? Granted, the school system doesn’t have enough money, but even fishermen and farmers know they need to let their lakes and land lie fallow occasionally to re-build the stores of fish and minerals in soil upon which their survival depends.

Heck—we’re in the midst of a recession: unemployment is up, salaries are flat (and/or declining) and disposable income is all but a distant memory. Again, it’s time to think outside the box, to circumvent the usual and traverse another route to find the funding that these cherished programs so dearly need and deserve.

Grants abound. Private and public foundations are great sources of money for many of the programs parents are being asked to fund. Our schools seek volunteers of all sorts; why not seek one or two in the form of grants researchers and writers to ferret out possible opportunities for funding? Even a part-time grant writer could pay for himself or herself with one or two successes.

And what about corporate contributions? Why not make large-scale development (i.e., Golden Gate Fields) contingent upon some sort of contribution toward our schools, since, at least theoretically, some within the generation currently being educated might ultimately seek to find employment there? Instead of asking parents to cough up money for sports, aren’t there businesses in Albany that would like to support a team in exchange for seeing the logo on the back of team uniforms (think bowling leagues…)? All these kids… what about the pediatric and orthodontic practices that depend on our children for their livelihood? A nice way to say, thanks, sure, but also a way to engender appreciation —and future business—from us, the parents. It’s time for some payback (plus, it’s a drop in the bucket and a tax write-off for them).

I spent a lot of years working in the nonprofit sector, where the mantra was always: “Do more with less.” Unfortunately, over the past couple of years many of us have also had to adopt this practice. It’s time that our institutions recognize this and take a fresh perspective on how to find the funding they need. This isn’t the first time I’ve encouraged “out-of-the-box” thinking here, and I expect it won’t be the last.

Long ago, a friend of mine told me something that I’ve never forgotten: “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” I would agree that these may be desperate times, but I wouldn’t necessarily call the measures I’ve suggested above “desperate.” Merely different.