New Data

I discovered today that earlier this month, America's Promise Alliance released their 2009 Crisis in the Cities report, "Closing the Graduation Gap."

Bottom line, it presents bad news for Indianapolis. The Circle City is now 50th out of the 50 largest metropolitan cities in the country, for a graduation rate of 30.5 percent. Last year the report had Indy at 49th of 50 and it's no fun being one of the cities that went down, not up.

The report covers some traditional ground, looking at the disparities between urban and suburban districts, potential earnings of non-high school diploma holders vs. those with more education and rates of poverty for those without a diploma compared to those with or with more education.

I think the conclusion of the report draws some of the strongest attention to what this crisis really means.

At no point in our nation's recent history has the economy found itself in such dire straits. And at no point has the critical role of a quality education been more evident. For individuals facing a worsening economy and weakening labor market, a strong education may offer the best protection for weathering the storm. Likewise, it is also clear that the brunt of the crisis will be borne by those with the least education -- those without a high school diploma.

As this report and other research have shown, two very different worlds exist within American public schooling. In one, earning a diploma is the norm, something expected of every student; in the other, it is not. The stakes attached to graduating have never been higher.

I remember, in my previous time as a reporter, one school board meeting where a parent asked why the socioeconomic level of students in school buildings mattered. At the time, I remember being shocked as I sat there, about the complete lack of understanding this parent had about the challenges faced by those growing up in poverty and how much more it takes from schools and the community to help those children succeed.

Clearly, the parent lived in the first world and too many students in the school district were living in the second world.

I sent the Crisis in Cities report out to my colleagues here at Starfish. It's sobering data, but as I said to them, when you are at the bottom, you can only go up and that's why we're here.

New Website

One of the things I've been doing during my out of office exile is to work on updating the new Starfish Initiative website.

There's still to be work to done to update all the text, but the new site is leaps and bounds ahead of the old site, and far more professional looking.

So, check it out.

The new Starfish Initiative website.

Grants and Monopoly

Today is a $5,000 day.

As in, we just got a check for $5,000 from a repeat foundation. This is, I'm fairly sure, the third year they have supported us and specifically our Algebra Camp and Homework Club. These programs make a huge difference for our students academically and this continued support is great.

Second, today is the day of the IndyCrew Monopoly tournament for which Starfish Initiative is the charity of choice this year. Joyce (the executive director) and I are headed to the Conrad Hotel downtown later this afternoon for the tournament. We'll get to meet the players, talk about Starfish and perhaps Pass Go and Collect $200. I've got the camera, so hopefully, we'll have some event pictures from this one to post later.

Meanwhile, back to writing reports.

Breakfast 2.0 (and the pending construction racket...)

I can't believe I'm thinking about breakfast planning again.

But, honestly, it is time to start some of the planning already. In fact, last week, we decided on our venue. We're not having it at the same place as last year, because we're really going to work to get 500 people and 500 people won't fit in the room we had it last year. (Which is sort of too bad, because it was really pretty...)

This morning, I'm meeting with our event planner VISTA to brainstorm sponsorship opportunities for the breakfast and get our sponsorship stuff ready so we can contact businesses, etc., about that. The idea is to get sponsors for everything -- the invitations, the food, the table decorations, all of it, along with just general event sponsors.

Also... the construction is really supposed to start here at Starfish this week. We've been saying "next week," "next week" for the last few weeks, but this week is really supposed to be it. There's signed contracts now and everything...

I'm excited because the end of the blue office is near. I'm also excited for my current VISTAs who will get to move into MUCH better work spaces than where they are. (The blue office will become the gray and orange office with new furniture, better lighting, comfortable chairs and will go to one of the new VISTAs).

The construction, I'm sure, will make it hard to work somewhat, but the end result will be so worth it that I'm willing to put up with just about anything.

A little lesson

Here is a little lesson on not giving up on your goals too soon.

Remember how I said at $967,000 it was time to reset the money count for the next year because everything I'd written for during my VISTA year had come in? Remember how I said I just missed raising a million bucks?

I may have spoken a bit hastily.

There was an outstanding $50,000 grant that I forgot about. I wrote it in July. Five-six months ago. It was passing through a bunch of hoops that I didn't have anything to do with and what with the breakfast and becoming a VISTA supervisor, etc., it dropped off my radar.

Until today, and a copy of the $50,000 check was on my desk.

So, the money total now.... drumroll please... $1,017,000.

Yes, that's a "1" the millions column.

I guess this is what that expression about "feeling like a million bucks" refers to.

Big News, Part 2

Here's the rest of the news --- this was just too much to put in one Big News post.


Last week, Starfish was awarded the capital improvements grant from United Way! No more blue office for Bethany!

This also significantly changes the VISTA year money total. It now stands at $967,000. The capital fund grant was around $370,000 on its own. This grant pretty much closes out the grant writing I did as a VISTA, so the money coming in now is not part of this rolling total. (The counter has been reset to $0... or more like $2,000.)

So, I didn't quite hit the million-dollar mark. There were a couple grants that we didn't get that would have easily propelled me over that bench. But, I have to say, I'm exceptionally pleased with this total. (The prospect of the non-blue-office is quite appealing as well.)

We're meeting with the design and construction team again next week to finalize the design (it's been June since we really talked about it) and figure out who's moving to what offices and finalize picks of furniture, etc.

Hopefully, I'll have pictures to post of the renovations within a few months.

Check Presentation

It's time to update the money total again.

This is still from what I did during my VISTA year. The new total raised as a VISTA is: $594,000. That's right folks, we were awarded a two-year grant for $50,000 each year. I'm counting it all at once for purposes of the money total.

Yesterday, we went to a small awards ceremony for this grant.

Here's the "official" event photo.

Money

I hope I'm not counting this twice (this money might have been in the total from the breakfast), but best I can tell, my total is now $499,000.

I'm still counting this in what I raised during my VISTA year because it's related to the breakfast which happened then.

Two Weeks Now

I've had a real job for two weeks now.

Today, I got my first paycheck. I don't want this to come off as sounding materialistic, but WOW, is it nice to have a check that will let me buy more than rent and some groceries.

What's been more worth it is coming through this experience with a set of skills that let me have a job. Granted, I stayed here at Starfish and didn't have to go through a long job hunt, but even if I'd had to do that, I'm sure I have the skills in development now that would have helped that to happen.

More on the $100K grant

The official press release about the 100K grant I said we were awarded has been put out.


Here's the full scoop:

INDIANAPOLIS (Oct. 28, 2008) — More than $500,000 is being pumped into local programs that help students find success in the classroom and prepare for life after high school.

The gifts come from the College Readiness Fund, created earlier this year through a $2.6 million grant from the Lumina Foundation as a way to improve access to college, help students prepare for continuing education and enhance college success.

The Fund administrator, Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF), announced this week that 10 local organizations would be among the first to receive grants, which will be used to reach out to Marion County students and their parents, particularly minorities, low-income families and students who are the first in their families to attend a two- or four-year college.

“Many first-generation students have not even considered college as an option,” said Roderick Wheeler, grants officer at CICF. “We’re working to break down those kinds of barriers with this program. Our message is simple: College is possible for all students.”

Two organizations received $100,000 gifts. The Center for Leadership Development will use the funding for its College Prep Institute, a program designed to equip African-American college-bound students and their parents with the necessary tools to succeed in college. Starfish Initiative, which works with at-risk and economically challenged high school students, will use the funding to continue to provide and build its one-on-one mentoring programs for youth.

“We are thrilled and sincerely honored the College Readiness Fund has selected CLD as one of its collaborating partners to help the students of our community excel in high school, college and life,” said Dennis Bland, president of the Center for Leadership Development. “This tremendous grant affords CLD a powerful opportunity to help prepare hundreds of youth throughout Indianapolis for the highest academic, college and career success. Along with other community partners who care deeply about the academic crisis we face, we can begin to lay a foundation for establishing within our city and state, a culture of academic excellence where high school and college achievement is the expectation and norm.”

The College Readiness Fund will provide grants annually to nonprofit organizations with programs focused on reducing the high-school drop-out rates, increasing college readiness skills or increasing college attendance rates.

“Most students understand that going to college is important, but they don’t all know how to take the steps to make it possible,” said CICF’s Wheeler. “The College Readiness Fund will help provide additional resources, so professionals dedicated to helping youth succeed can show students and their parents the steps they need to take.”

An important partner in the College Readiness Fund is the 21st Century Scholars, a publicly funded program that facilitates training and provides scholarships to students who wish to attend a two- or four-year public college or university in Indiana. The 21st Century Scholars program registers participants in grades 6 to 8 and leverages additional financial resources for College Readiness Fund participants and their parents.

College Readiness Fund grants awarded to 10 organizations
Center for Leadership Development: $100,000
Starfish Initiative: $100,000
Indiana University’s University College: $70,000
Encouragement Services, Inc.: $50,000
YMCA of Greater Indianapolis: $60,000
LaPlaza Inc.: $40,000
College Mentors for Kids: $30,000
The Indiana Partnership Center: $25,000
Indiana Youth Institute: $25,000
College Resource SAT prep: $10,000
Total grants awarded $510,000

At the Last

So. This is it. My last day as a VISTA.

My last VISTA monthly report has been turned in. I have a little bit more of my sustainability report to write, but it's mostly done.

I feel like I should have profound thoughts about what being a VISTA has meant this past year. Honestly, all I can think about right now is the fact that tomorrow I start earning a real paycheck again. My savings account will be very grateful.

I'll probably post some other thoughts over the next couple weeks as I transition. I hope to keep this blog going somehow, but I'm guessing it too will need to be adapted. Into what, I'm not sure yet. Stay tuned.

And thanks for reading this year.

If I'm Wearing a Goofy Grin..

If I'm wearing a goofy grin on my face right now, there's a really good reason.

I just got a phone call about a grant. A really good phone call. The kind where the grantor tells you that you've been awarded the full $100,000 you asked for.

I was really hoping to crack that 100K mark in a single grant during my VISTA time and with four-and-a-half days of service left, I got my wish.

So, the grants-only total now is $312,000.

If you add to that what we raised at the breakfast, my total now sits just $6K short of the half-million mark, at $494,000 and some odd change.

I'm guessing there will be an official press release coming out about this grant later and when it hits, I'll post it here. (I'm not sure the announcement of grantees is public knowledge yet, so I don't want to post about who funded this and spill the beans.)

Don't mind me smiling while I sit here working on our Scholar newsletter and my sustainability report.

The Breakfast

Went off fabulously.

Everybody who I talked to said they loved it (that's including people who had no idea I was planning it.)

We're getting ready to count the money.

I'll update with more info, hopefully later this afternoon. If I can stay awake. (it was an early morning...)

3:20 p.m update:
We've counted the money and the pledges and have a preliminary total.

Drum roll please...........

We raised more than $200,000.

We know there are guests who said they would mail in a donation later, so it's hardly a final total yet.

But, adding the breakfast donations to what I've raised this year in grants, the money total is now $412,000!

With a few outstanding grant applications still out there, I'm still really hopeful that I'll cross the 500K mark before the end of my VISTA service.

Title Change, or what I'm doing after VISTA

One month from today will be my first day as a non-VISTA.

It will also be the day my job title changes from AmeriCorps*VISTA member/Resource Development Associate (which is a bear to type, by the way) to Director of Advancement for Starfish Initiative.

Other than the title changing (and the addition of a paycheck so I can earn real cashy money ), not a whole lot else will be different on Thursday, Oct. 23 compared to Wednesday, Oct. 22.

The job I've been doing as a VISTA for the last 11 months will be much the same as what I do as the Director of Advancement. I will still write grants; still fund-raise, still do newsletters.

I had no idea when I started this year that this would be what I would be doing a year later, full-time. I thought I was interested in development/advancement. While I was pretty unhappy with where I was before VISTA (too far from home, frustrations with trying to get involved in the community, long/terrible hours), I wasn't really sure if I would be able to get the "ink" out of my blood. (There are days when I miss journalism terribly, but not enough to go back full-time.)

So, I'm going to keep going with this fund raising thing as a career.

It's been a good year.

End of a Task

I'm done with the donor records!

WHEW! I feel like I need a victory lap for being done with this job.

Let me back up and explain.

This spring, we got an online donor database system. Only when we ported our data over, it didn't translate well.

For the past, well, months now, I've been going through our donor records making sure all the gifts and donations and pledges were all entered correctly. The database system allows for quite a few complicated queries and reports to be generated, but without the data in right, the queries don't work. Fixing the records meant going through hundreds of paper files, making sure that what was in the database matched the paper trail. Sometimes they were perfect... other times, not so much.

So -- talk about a big sustainability leave-behind. Having the donor data in order is huge. It's especially important that it's done now as we approach our next fundraiser in a month. A month from today. Oh, gasp. (I could have another post here freaking out about how much work is left to get this sucker ready, but I'm going to refrain. And breathe deeply...)

Now that all the data is in the database, I need to go back to watching online training modules to learn how to use all the nifty features available to me.

Still, I'm celebrating getting done with this part of the job!

Money total

I haven't updated the money total for a while, because there hasn't been that much coming in.

Not for lack of trying, mind you, but things in the grant world are sort of between cycles and I've been doing a lot of planning and organizing for other things (United Way campaign, fundraiser breakfast, donor and Scholar newsletters, etc.)

Anyway, it's time to update the total.

Last time I reported in, I said I'd hit $250,000. This is just another example (ahem) of I'm a writer and not an accountant because accountants don't count the same grant more than once.

The actual total right now stands at $187,000.

Yes, it's less than $250,000 ($63,000 less, I know) but I'm still darn proud of that total. If I added in everything we've brought in this year including in-kind gifts, sponsorships, and individual gifts since I've been working on things, I'm sure the total would be very close to $250K.

The latest grant that came into today was a small one, just $1,000. Still, as my office mate said, "$1,000 is more than zero" and she's absolutely right.

I'm also proud of this one because it's a to a new funder -- a small foundation that's never given us anything in the past. I thought an application to them was a bit of a longshot, but it turns out, it wasn't! With their support, we can pilot a new program, which is always a good thing.

I've got about 2.5 months left on my year of service (WOW, does time fly!) and I'm still optimistic that I will cross the quarter-million mark before Oct. 22. In current outstanding proposals, there's more than a quarter-million dollars that we could get from things I've written, so I don't think my hope is misplaced.

Starfish phone home

For weeks now, my cell phone hasn't been able to call into the desk phones here at the office. This started a long time ago after we switched over our phone service provider for Starfish.

It was a weird problem ... some of us with certain cell phone companies could not call into any of the work numbers. After a lot of test calls, calls to our old provider, our new provider and our cell phone companies, it seems to have been resolved. YAY!

Of course, this just means I have the ability to leave myself messages when I'm not at work....

After the Roof Stunt

With the roof stunt over, things are getting back to normal here at Starfish HQ -- though what "normal" is will change again.

We've got about a week and a half left with our awesome summer VISTAs before they head back to college this fall. They have been amazing and gotten so much great capacity-building work done.

Also, in about a month, we'll start having regular homework club again meaning we'll have Scholars here on weeknights which can be fun.

I'm back to proposal writing -- turned in one yesterday and working on another preliminary proposal that needs to go out by the end of this week. Also I'm busy with the planning for our fall fundraising breakfast. Things need to be in motion for that now to make sure we have a good event later.

Also, I'm doing some revisions to the capital grant to help that process. It's not dead, just tabled and I still have high hopes for this office not being blue for my entire year of service.

Raising the Roof on Gradution Rates -- Life on the Roof

Bob has now been on the roof for not quite 5 hours.



So far, the camera has been passing from staff to staff, so I can't claim that all these photos are mine, but here are some further glimpses of life on the roof for Bob.



Up with him on the roof, Bob's got his laptop, a table and chair, his cell phone, a very long extension cord to plug his stuff through the window upstairs, a tent, sleeping bag, umbrella, pillow, cooler, and, um, bucket. I don't think I need to elaborate on what that's for.



We've gotten a number of calls from people who have stopped by on the street or saw him live on TV this morning. The current count for potential mentors is ..... drumroll please.... 30!

48 in 48 should be no sweat!

Still Alive...

I realized it's been more than a week since I wrote anything here.


With the holiday weekend and the subsequent digging out/catching up from that, I've been very busy here in the blue office.


But time for some updates on a few things and what's occupying my time and head-space.

1. The major capital grant. We didn't get a "yes" or a "no" -- rather the committee tabled our request until we can come back with some more information in August. Round two of meetings for this is beginning next week as we meet with some other vendors and get some new quotes on furniture and construction pricing.

2. Being a United Way agency.
Yesterday we attended our first ever United Way agency fair for a campaign through the local office of a major company. We learned a lot through this first one and talking to other agencies also there. This is an exciting way to get our story out into the community.
Also, in two weeks, I've got training to learn how to be a United Way Torchbearer. This basically means that I will be giving short speeches at United Way campaign events, talking about Starfish and how being a United Way agency helps us. And it gets me out of the blue office... I hope they schedule me a lot. One of my goals for 2008 was to help coordinate our first year as a United Way agency and I'm doing a lot of scheduling right now to make this all happen.

3. "Raising the Roof on graduation rates: 48 mentors in 48 hours"
More info coming on this soon, but we're planning a crazy event here at Starfish to recruit more mentors. It involves our mentor services director, our roof and lots of PR.

4. 3.5 months of service left. YIPES. This year has flown by. Yesterday at the United Way fair, there were several other VISTAs and/or VISTA alums. It's fun to meet them and talk about doing service.

5. Grants, grants, grants. The deadlines don't stop coming and next week, I'm taking two days to do a proposal writing workshop put on by the Fundraising School. Obviously, I've been having some success at this writing thing, but I'm convinced I can always learn more things to make my proposals even better.

6. Dictionary Drive. Have $20? For that, you can buy a dictionary and thesaurus set for Starfish scholar who otherwise doesn't have reference books to help them with their school work. Maybe it's just the writer in me coming through, but I love this campaign and can't wait to get these letters in the mail to donors. I know I don't make much as a VISTA, but I am giving serious thought to donating a set because it means that much to me.

As you can see, there's a lot going on. I will try to update more on some of these initiatives/campaigns as I can.