Mt. Lebanon to start over with capital campaign fundraiser
The Mt. Lebanon School Board announced earlier this month it plans to “reset” its Century of Excellence capital campaign after the fundraising effort lost money.
“A lot of lessons have been learned in the past,” board President Michael Riemer said during the board’s March 12 discussion meeting. “It did not fulfill the mission of what they thought it was going to earn, bringing in $6 million, and it cost a lot of money. I’m happy to see a reset and to see if we can get things going.”
When the campaign started in 2012, the original goal was to raise $6 million. Riemer wouldn’t give specific numbers for how much the campaign lost, though he said it wasn’t a cause of anything “improper” but rather was due to the district’s inexperience. He also said Sloan Astorino, who was the head of the capital campaign, has resigned.
“This capital campaign was innovative and had never really been attempted in a public school system, and thus there was no manual on how to achieve our goals as we proceeded,” Riemer said. “We learned a lot over the last five years on how to better approach and improve upon our procedures.”
Riemer said the goal of the district-wide fundraising effort was to “provide funding for other innovative programs without imposing additional tax burden onto our community.” While the campaign wasn’t a success, Riemer said more than 250 donors have contributed to projects like Matt’s Maker Spaces, STEAM initiatives and the athletics and fine arts programs.
“We are now at the point where we will reset the philanthropic effort with the goal to establish a culture of philanthropy in this community that will be sustained into the future,” Riemer said. “This will be a more inclusive ongoing fundraising effort rather than a campaign tied to a specific timeframe or a dollar figure.”
The new effort will be led by Bill Morehead and Noelle Conover, both of whom were involved with the Century of Excellence capital campaign. Morehead and Conover will present their “Lebo Gives” initiative to the board during its April discussion meeting.
“I too believe strongly that it is in the best interest of the district to recognize the achievements and the people in the past but move it forward,” board member Larry Lebowitz said. “I look forward to the presentation where we’re going to learn about the ideas for the reset with the idea being that we will then decide how to answer a lot of these questions (we have).”