Community Donors Respond to MMSD Staff Challenge

Congratulations to Lake View Elementary! They just reached the $10,000 milestone and established their own endowment fund through the Foundation for Madison's Public Schools, the 35th school to do so. This brings to over $670,000 the amount raised through the Foundation's Individual School Endowment Initiative (ISEI), the only effort of its kind in the country.

Volunteers at almost every school are now working hard to establish and grow these endowments with the dream that — every year, forever — income from their fund will enable teachers and other school staff to conduct special projects and programs for their students that they would love to try but can't due to tight school budgets. Thanks to a generous gift from MMSD parents John and Leslie Taylor and their Clay-Price Fund, the Foundation has been able to hire staff to meet with and support the work of these volunteers. Mary Bartzen, the Foundation's part-time ISEI Director, has been meeting with PTO boards for over a year to explain the Initiative and enlist their support and, since then, the number of schools reaching the $10,000 endowment milestone has more than doubled!

Bartzen said she is always asked where the funds in a school's endowment came from, given that the PTO is learning about it for the first time. The parents, she says, are always moved by her answer. "There is usually a moment or two of silence as the parents learn that the teachers and staff at their school have been contributing to their endowment fund, often for several years, and that the families didn't even know about it," said Bartzen. "They know how much teachers are already paying out of their own pocket for many classroom items, and hearing that they're also giving to their school's endowment gets the parents fired up to raise more money from the community."

Indeed, the success of the ISEI is due in great part to the generosity and support of teachers and other MMSD staff who have contributed close to $150,000 to one or more of the school endowments in the past three annual employee giving campaigns. This extraordinary level of giving has triggered support from parents, grandparents, other individuals and businesses across the community who have given generously, contributing over $520,000 to their school's endowments.

If you would like to learn more about the Individual School Endowment Initiative, please contact Mary Bartzen at the Foundation for Madison's Public Schools, 232-7820 or mbartzen@mailbag.com.

Other Related Links

• Foundation for Madison's Public Schools