A letter from Rachel about donation allocation

So… Where does the money go?

This question has come up in more than one conversation I’ve had over the last few weeks.  As The French School and The Spanish School continue to grow and as SLLIS plans for the future, charitable contributions will become increasingly important.  Donors retain the right to instruct how their gift is used.  Many donors make an unrestricted gift, and these gifts are typically used where they are needed most – for example, an unrestricted gift could be used to maintain our required fund balance, make capital improvements and support our Social Equity Campaign.   Some donors choose to be more specific about where their gift is used – in this case (and these are just examples), a donor could specify that their gift be used to endow a teaching position, purchase supplies, enhance a music program or support a particular grade/classroom/school.   As a donor, you always retain the right to know how your gift was used and what impact was made.

If you have not yet given, I encourage you to consider a tax-deductible gift to SLLIS.  An anonymous donor has offered to match parent donations between now and the end of the year, up to $1000.  If you have any questions or would like to learn more about SLLIS & charitable giving, please do not hesitate to contact me!

In January, I will share the results of our appeal and the next steps necessary to create a strong, multi-channel giving program for SLLIS.  In the coming months, I will be working with members of our board, staff, and parent volunteers to launch a variety of planned initiatives to ensure SLLIS’ long-term success.  I look forward to working with you and creating a stable foundation for SLLIS’ growth.

Wishing you the best,

Rachel D’Souza-Siebert

Director of Development

Ways to Give

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and here we are – in the thick of the holiday season, waiting for our first snow fall.

As you may know, the holiday season is also a popular time for charitable giving.  Below, you’ll find a variety of ways to support SLLIS in the months and years to come.

• Annual Appeal: Giving in response to the letter you received. Donors can provide a “restricted” or an “unrestricted” gift to SLLIS.  Unrestricted gifts will be used where there’s the most need.  Restricted gifts will be used as the donors instruct.

• Matching Gifts: Your place of employment, affinity organization, or credit card company may match your gift to SLLIS, up to a certain amount each year.  Some employers will even double or triple your gift during targeted campaigns  For help locating the necessary, documents, please email Rachel.dsouza-siebert@sllis.org.

• Gifts In Kind: Our students always benefit from contributions of classroom supplies, art materials, books and other material goods that enhance the school day experience.  These types of charitable gifts are tax deductible as well!  When donating an in-kind gift, please make sure to fill out the In-Kind Donation Form.

• Host a Friendraiser: Everyone loves a party!  Volunteer to host a friendraiser – it can be a themed gathering or just an evening happy hour with close friends.  SLLIS can give a small presentation at your event and follow up with your guests for a continued relationship and/or monetary contribution.

• Corporate Giving: Does your place of employment have a foundation?  Put SLLIS in contact with the foundation officer or community outreach staff and we’ll take it from there!

For questions, don’t hesitate to contact Rachel, our Director of Development, at 314-633-8318 ext. 871 or Rachel.dsouza-siebert@sllis.org.

Happy Holidays!  Stay warm this week!

 

 

Online Donations Now Accepted!

By now, you should have received  SLLIS’ 2011 Annual Appeal.  We apologize if you tried to donate online and could not, but rest assured – the problem is fixed.

You can go online to our “Giving” page and donate any time.  Feel free to share this link with aunts, uncles, grandparents or anyone else who is interested in supporting your SLLIS student.

http://sllis.org/wp/donate/

For questions, please contactRachel at rachel.dsouza-siebert@sllis.org.  And don’t forget – your company might offer a gift matching program.

Funding opportunity

The founders of Partners for Developing Futures are considering supporting SLLIS’ development and early years of operation.  Today the President and Vice President of PDF are in St. Louis to meet our school community.  We submitted the full application to PDF in January and in March we had a conference call with Ramona and John (we’re already on a first-name basis).  The conference call was overwhelmingly positive and I’m really looking forward to meeting them and introducing them to our community.  I have lunch with John and Ramona at noon, and then they meet with our key staff, Board directors, community partners, sponsor and parents.    Our potential funding support from PDF is not calculated in our financial forecasts, so there is no negative financial impact of their visit.  That said, I vacillate between feeling nervous and anxious about the meetings to knowing that we will get exactly what we need to successfully deliver on our promise.  Inhale.  Exhale.

PDF is similar to Charter School Growth Fund and New Schools Venture Fund, two organizations that we will approach in future years of operations.

SLLIS awarded $60,000 grant

This afternoon we received the excellent news that the Walton Family Foundation has awarded us a Phase III planning grant in the amount of $60,000.  Last week Vince, Steven and Joel from our Board and I met with the Walton grant committee to present our full grant proposal.  We felt positive about the interview and are elated that the foundation has already committed the Phase III funding.  SLLIS was awarded $60,000 in Phase I and II in 0708.  The final installment of this planning and implementation grant will be awarded once the state has authorized our charter.

The next two grants on our list: AmeriCorps*State and Federal Foreign Language Assistance Program.

Go SLLIS!

More on the federal grants

The official press release from the state association:

Federal Grants Totaling $2,000,000 to New Charter School Programs

The Missouri Charter Public School Association (MCPSA) would like to announce that four new charter public school groups in Kansas City and St. Louis have been awarded Charter Schools Program (CSP) grants by the US Department of Education.Hope Academy, KIPP St. Louis, St. Louis Language Immersion Schools and Confluence Academy of the Arts have received grants totaling over $2 million for the planning, program design and initial implementation of their schools.These grants will be administered over a three-year period.CSP grants are competitive grants awarded to state education agencies and charter school developers.

Hope Academy is a dropout recovery school in Kansas City that is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009.The first of its kind in Missouri, Hope Academy will serve students ages 16-21 in grades 9-12.Hope Academy will be receiving $558,046 over three years.

KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) St. Louis will be a charter public school modeled after the KIPP Academies that are currently operating in 65 locations in the nation which features an extended school day and year.KIPP will open in July 2009 with approximately 85 fifth-graders, and will add a new fifth grade class each year until reaching maturation with approximately 320 students in the fifth through eighth grades.KIPP St. Louis will receive a total of $662,620.

St. Louis Language Immersion Schools (SLLIS) will open in the fall of 2009 and will focus on total language immersion and the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme.The school will begin by serving kindergarten and first grade and grow its enrollment one grade per year, eventually serving grades K-5.SLLIS will open with both a French and Spanish track for students to follow.$781,200 will be administered to SLLIS in federal CSP grants.

Confluence Academy of the Arts (CAA), St. Louis, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009 and will serve grades 6-12.CAA will have a strong focus on arts education while meeting the core-learning needs of its students.CAA is the newest addition to Confluence’s multi-campus network in St. Louis.CAA will receive $472, 750 over the three-year period.###

About MCPSA

The Missouri Charter Public School Association is a non-profit organization that supports Missouri’s public charter schools.Charter schools are schools that are free and open to the public, operating with an independent school board and are accountable to a sponsoring entity for specific results.Missouri currently has 28 public charter schools, operating on 35 campuses.Public charter schools in Missouri are located within the Kansas City and St. Louis public school districts.

SLLIS awarded 3 year federal grant

Woohoo!!!!!!!! I just spoke with the grant administrator who confirmed that we are one of the awardees of the Charter School Planning and Implementation (CSP) grant. The grant amount and budget details are forthcoming, and we’ll send out official press releases once we have the specifics. This grant makes all of our work thus far seem so much more real. See everyone for the school project group meetings next week.