Foundation Announces New Grants From Unrestricted Fund

Congratulations to the winners of this year's district-wide unrestricted grants competition. In an April 18th surprise visit to each project leader during the school day, Foundation grants were awarded to these creative projects that will be conducted during the 2006-07 school year.

• $10,000 to West High for the "Personal Learning Plan" project (Len Mormino, Project Leader)
• $8,177 to Lincoln, for the second phase of the "Cob Wall Project" begun at Midvale in 2005-06 (Gwen Kong, Project Leader)
• $5,500 to Falk, for the "Schools and Families for Math" project (Barbara Gerlach, Project Leader)
• $4,268 to Memorial High, for the "Getting Ahead Study Center" (Kristine Larson Brown, Project Leader)
• $4,000 to Stephens, Jefferson and Spring Harbor, for "A Helping Hand for Autism" (Jane Hallock, Brent Lodewyk and Kara Meyers, Project Leaders)
• $4,000 to the MMSD Fine Arts program for the "Art Museum Field Trips" initiative for all elementary schools (Mary Lau, Project Leader)
• $3,189 to East High for the "Cultural Center" project (Tara Affolter and William Gibson, Project Leaders)
• $3,000 to Memorial High, for the "School Coffee Café" project (Eric Hartz, Project Leader)
• $2,910 to West High for the "Biotechnology Video Tours Virtual Lab Experience" (John Rademacher and Betsy Barnard, Project Leaders)

These Foundation grants are in addition to nearly $11,000 in grants given through the Foundation's "field of interest" endowment funds and nearly $22,000 in grants made through 19 active individual school endowment funds.

First Grant Winners Under New Arts Education Funding Partnership

Congratulations to Hawthorne and Shorewood, the first two grantees from a new $20,000 fund created within the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission exclusively for arts education programs in Madison's schools. This new partnership has been made possible by an anonymous gift of $10,000 secured by the Foundation and a matching gift of $10,000 secured by the Commission from American Girl's Fund for Children. Hawthorne will use its $4,000 grant for a music residency program while Shorewood will use its $5,000 grant for a quiltmaking residency. Both programs will occur during the 2006-07 school year. Look for more announcements of grants from this special fund this coming Fall.

Individual School Endowment Initiative's First Phase Nears Completion

By the end of this school year, 45 of 47 schools will have established their individual endowment funds through the Foundation for Madison's Public Schools. Congratulations to Kennedy and Sandburg Elementary, the latest to join the school endowment family by raising at least $5,000 to match the $5,000 challenge gift from John and Leslie Taylor's Clay-Price Fund! Lindbergh and Toki are following right behind, having garnered many recent pledges. They will earn their Clay-Price challenge gifts as soon as a few of their outstanding pledges have been collected. And Franklin and Randall are working toward earning their challenge gift by September, 2006, linking their fundraising with Randall's upcoming 100th anniversary year.

All told, nearly $800,000 has been raised in just three short years for these individual school endowments. The Foundation is planning an exciting celebration for Fall 2006, to publicly announce completion of the first phase of this initiative: that every school has an active endowment fund of at least $10,000! This event will also be used to announce the Adopt-A-School portion of the Individual School Endowment Initiative to the general public, to encourage a wide variety of community groups to step forward as partners with our schools.

Individual School Endowment Initiative's Second Phase Well Underway

The Foundation continues to work with school-based fundraising committees to achieve the second goal of the individual endowment initiative: to grow each school's endowment balance to at least $50,000 and establish a system for effective school-based grant making using the income from these individual endowments. Congratulations to Shabazz for being the first school to achieve this goal! By the end of this school year, at least 12 other schools will have exceeded the $25,000 mark, with fundraising efforts now being planned to significantly grow current balances at several schools.

At present, 19 Madison schools are eligible to receive individual school endowment income for grantmaking that supports programs and projects that are outside the core school budget. The next round of school endowment grantmaking will culminate in December 2006, for projects during the balance of the 2006-07 school year.

Individual Endowment Initiative's Third Phase: Adopt-A-School

Phase III of the Foundation's Individual School Endowment Initiative is to get each Madison school adopted by a community partner. Officially introduced at the March 7, 2006 "Principal for a Day" event, the Foundation has already welcomed several businesses and community organizations into the "Adopt-A-School" fold.

• UW Retirees adopted Midvale/Lincoln and Hawthorne, by providing funds to help build their respective school endowments and volunteering to work one-on-one with students. Volunteers at Midvale/Lincoln also serve as 'classroom grandparents,' helping in the library and providing child care so parents are able to attend student-teacher conferences.
• First Business Bank adopted both Lowell and Sandburg, by providing funds to help build their respective school endowments.
• WPS adopted Allis, by providing volunteers to work one-on-one with students and providing clothing and supplies that students need.
• GE Healthcare Lunar adopted Muir, by providing volunteers to work one-on-one with students as well as volunteers to help with "done-in-a-day" maintenance projects
• M & I Bank adopted East High, by providing financial support of the school's Advanced Writing competitions.
• Lonesome Willow adopted both Elvehjem and Jefferson, by providing funds to help build their respective school endowments.
• Webcrafters adopted Mendota, by providing an annual $10,000 gift for use where it is needed most.
• Heritage Credit Union adopted Sherman, by providing volunteers to work with students on a weekly basis and providing materials for student use. Heritage also recently made a $2,000 gift to Sherman's endowment fund.
• CUNA Mutual Group has donated the use of its space for special fundraising events to help build a school's endowment fund.

If you know of a business or community group that would consider adopting one of our schools, please contact Mary Bartzen at the Foundation office, 232-7820 or mbartzen@fmps.org.

Other Related Links

• Foundation for Madison's Public Schools