Mt. Lebanon School District’s Capital Campaign has $6 million goal
Mt. Lebanon School District’s Capital Campaign has $6 million goal
{child_byline}Harry Funk{/child_byline}
While they were living in southern Florida, Mt. Lebanon graduates Steve and Jo Posti took a close look at the school district their preschoolers would be attending.
“We decided, it’s time for us to move back to Mt. Lebanon,” Jo Posti recalled. “We wanted our kids to have as good of an education as we had.”
The school district actually has exceeded their expectations, and Jo Posti wants to help ensure students continue to receive a quality education. Following two terms on the Mt. Lebanon School Board, she is serving the district again as co-chairwoman of its Century of Excellence capital campaign.
Recognizing that traditional funding sources are drying up as the cost of public education soars, district officials in 2012 instituted a fundraising effort to try to mitigate the disparity, with a target of bringing in $6 million.
“Obviously, we want to reach the financial goal set for the campaign,” Posti said. “But one of the important outcomes of the campaign is getting people to understand how public schools are funded and to understand the challenges every school district is facing right now in order to maintain the quality of programs and the things they think are important to a child’s education.”
So far, Mt. Lebanon’s capital campaign has raised about $1.1 million in pledges, gifts, goods and services, according to Maggie Schmidt, the district’s campaign counsel and veteran of dozens of such efforts on behalf of nonprofit organizations.
Schmidt gave a recent update to the school board, during which she cited as positives a strong corps of volunteers on the campaign’s behalf and a general opinion that the effort is “good for the community.”
She provided some recommendations for moving the effort forward, most notably hiring a new full-time campaign director, a job that since has been posted. Alyssa DeLuca, the previous director, resigned in May, and Schmidt is serving the district temporarily on a contract basis.
Another recommendation is to make the campaign more visible in the community, especially with regard to its purpose.
“That’s always a crucial element in any capital campaign,” Schmidt said.
Posti said that potential donors are receptive to the concept.
“We are really blessed to live in a community that has always supported public education,” she said. “They understand that in order for us to maintain who we are as a district, we have to do things much differently.”
The district has been improving the means by which donations can be made. Last week, the school board approved a contract with DonorPro, the district’s software vendor for the campaign, for online contributions with credit cards.
While capital campaigns are common fundraising tools for private schools and public colleges and universities, Mt. Lebanon’s venture is one of the first for a school district. As such, it has been a learning experience.
“This is a bold experiment. There’s not a real set playbook for what we’re doing,” school board member William Moorhead said. “I think you’re going to be seeing other districts following suit.”
Posti, who co-chairs the capital campaign with fellow former school board member Carol Walton, agreed with his assessment.
“We’ll probably be seeing a lot more of this type of funding in my kids’ lifetime,” Posti said. “It’s exciting for us to create a model for what can be done to support public schools.”