DPS Turns to Alumni, Businesses for Alternative Funding (MI)
December 27, 2010
The financ ially strapped Detroit Public Schools is launching an effort to find alternative funding for programs to benefit students and staff.
Three new entities — the DPS Foundation, DPS Alumni Association and DPS Volunteer Business Corps — will aim to identify private donors and nonprofit funding to help pay for costs such as classroom supplies, activities and training.
The DPS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is governed by a board separate from the school district, said Chacona Johnson, its president and CEO. It was reinstated last year and has raised about $2.6 million so far.
"I think our biggest barrier is people think it’s part of DPS," said Johnson, formerly a fund-raiser for the University of Michigan. "We have our own board. … We’re trained to professionally look after this money."
The foundation is working on its annual community appeal, asking 3,000 businesses and individuals to donate. Donors can choose a school or program to support.
The foundation also is selling bricks from old Cass Tech High, which is slated to be demolished. The bricks are painted gold and have a bronze, silver or gold plate. Alumni who pony up $45-$125 per brick, plus tax and shipping, will get their names engraved on them. All of the funds will benefit students at the current Cass Tech.
In the future, the foundation will aim to raise larger sums of money and raise its profile, possibly with a signature event, Johnson said.
DPS needs the assistance — the district’s deficit is about $327 million, leading to budget cuts.
The other two organizations are overseen by DPS.
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The DPS Alumni Association will help the foundation identify alumni — from magnates such as Little Caesars Pizza founder Mike Ilitch to recent graduates — to solicit donations. But the association primarily will provide scholarships, field trips and other enrichment for students, while supporting and working with existing alumni associations based in the individual schools.
"Now is a wonderful time for alumni to get involved," alumni manager Gloria Cunningham, a graduate of Mackenzie High, said in a statement. "The academic plan is raising the level of achievement in our schools, but teachers and principals need the support of a strong alumni body."
The Volunteer Business Corps will be launched in January in cooperation with the business, faith-based and nonprofit communities to provide tutoring, mentoring, school beautification and more.
That initiative will seek assistance and expertise from companies and will be modeled after the Volunteer Reading Corps, in which more than 5,700 volunteers have pledged to tutor pre-kindergarten students for free for one hour each week.