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Mt. Lebanon School District begins new fundraising effort

By Jacob Calvin Meyer staff Writer jmeyer@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
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In 2012, the Mt. Lebanon School Board decided to start a “Capital Campaign” to raise additional money for the school district.

With pension costs rising and a high school renovation on the way, the board thought a fundraising effort — separate from property taxes — could help the district financially. While the campaign raised about $1 million from 254 donors in the last six years, it fell far short of its goal of $6 million. Board president Michael Riemer said during the March 12 meeting that the campaign lost money.

“A lot of lessons have been learned in the past,” Riemer said. “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.”

In response to the campaign’s failure, the board decided in March to “reset,” leading to the district’s new fundraising effort, “Lebo Gives.”

Mt. Lebanon residents Noelle Conover and Bill Moorhead, co-chairs of the Lebo Gives initiative and, presented a plan to the board during its April 9 meeting.

“We want it to feel like it’s a community effort that’s an inclusive, ongoing fundraising effort,” Conover said. “Compare that to a campaign, which makes you think of a specific timeframe or dollar figure stuck to it. We’re looking at more of basically installing a culture of philanthropy in the community. The name Lebo Gives says that you have something to give and I have something to give.”

Conover said many of the “flaws” with the capital campaign started with the planning phase of the project. Since a general fundraising effort for a public school district was rare, the board hired a consultant, Pursuant Ketchum, to plan the campaign.

The firm’s projections set the goal at $6 million and recommended significant upfront costs, including a full-time executive director.

“I believe that a lot of the flaws in the campaign go back to that study,” Conover said. “Doing this was a first of its kind. No one had really done it in a public school district and there weren’t a lot of standards to go off, so Pursuant Ketchum had to pull some things from their experience.”

Though the campaign didn’t reach its goal of $6 million, Moorhead, a school board member from 2013-17, still believes the campaign was “successful.”

“Starting from scratch, raising the amount of money that was raised was spectacular,” Moorhead said. “I think the expectations of what was possible may have been too high and may not have been managed the way they should have been managed.”

In contrast, Lebo Gives will not have as many costs and will be volunteer driven. Moorhead said it will help Lebo Gives that it can benefit off the “existing infrastructure” of the capital campaign.

“We’re not starting from scratch,” he said. “It’s rebranding the existing campaign and moving it to more of a grassroots kind of campaign. We’ll take the big donations when they come, but the Capital Campaign program was based off going after the big donations. This is going to be getting everybody involved.”

Conover said the specificity of Lebo Gives is important, rather than a general fundraiser like the Capital Campaign.

“People do not want to donate to a general fund as much as they want to donate to something specific,” Conover said. “Now I can ask them what they’re passionate about. … Now, you can make a difference. You can make a difference in education, and it’s pretty easy to do it.”

Conover hopes to develop a nine-person, volunteer board for Lebo Gives. The rest of 2018 will be used for planning, and fundraising is set to begin in 2019. Conover hopes for Lebo Gives to host a “kickoff event” next spring.

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