Helping Your Hometown Foundation
Phone: (914) 833-2340
Copyright in 2008 by Jacob Goodwin
The need…
A boy finishing his junior year in high school has studied hard and has brought home impressive report cards, but because his parents have frequently been out of work and have not been able to save very much money, the chances of his attending a college or university -- or even a 2-year community college -- are very slim.
A girl entering her sophomore year in high school dreams of becoming a school teacher, but she recognizes that her family can’t afford to send her to college, so she has lowered her sights and plans instead to become a hairdresser.
These two high school students, like countless others across the country, harbor career aspirations that are likely to go unfulfilled because their families simply can’t scrape together enough money to pay for the tuition, board and books they will need for a higher education.
Unlike middle- and upper-class kids, who largely take for granted that they’ll be able to continue their studies beyond high school, these working class kids often have very few educational opportunities open to them.
Of course, in rare instances, full scholarships or inexpensive tuition plans are made available to some of these deserving students, but those occasions are few and far between. The vast majority of students of modest economic means simply end their educations at their high school graduation. And that’s a tragedy for the students, their hometown communities and our nation.
The plan…
That’s where we come in. The Helping Your Hometown Foundation tackles this problem head-on by raising money to ensure that in certain specified communities, any student who graduates in good-standing from his or her local high school can attend the nearest 2-year community college -- and earn an Associates Degree -- at virtually no cost to them or their families.
We raise this money not by magic, and not by appealing to community residents at large, but by targeting those remarkably successful businesspeople, professional athletes, entertainers, philanthropists, doctors, lawyers and other high net worth individuals -- those who have amassed millions during their lifetimes -- who might be willing to contribute generously to help their own hometown.
Everyone comes from somewhere. The Wall Street investment banker who regularly earns a $5 million annual bonus and lives in
The Helping Your Hometown Foundation will provide these prospective donors the rare opportunity to help worthy high school students realize their full potential as human beings. And we’ll provide the donor with the even rarer opportunity to become literally a “hometown hero” by donating money to the very community in which he or she lived as an adolescent.
These philanthropic “Win-Win-Win” situations will occur wherever and whenever the Helping Your Hometown Foundation can match a deserving local high school with a nearby 2-year community college and a wealthy donor willing to establish a generous, targeted scholarship fund in his or her name.
Students in the targeted high school will be told that, if they graduate, 100 percent of their tuition, board and books will be covered for two years at their local community college, thanks to the special donor. The college will agree to accept any graduating senior, who meets pre-established academic standards, and whose costs will be covered by the Helping Your Hometown Foundation tuition fund. The college will also agree to recognize the donor and publicize the newly-established scholarship fund in ways that are acceptable to the donor.
Our foundation is based on several bedrock principles:
· Many under-privileged students deserve higher educations, but can’t afford them.
· If these students know the opportunity to go to college exists, they will work even harder in high school to achieve their academic goals.
· No matter how successful, worldly, self-confident and forward-looking, most people have a warm spot in their hearts for the towns where they grew up and in which their parents lived during their teenage years. They will welcome the chance to be seen as hometown heroes.
· Community colleges want to attract more local students, but too often lack the financial resources to offer the necessary scholarships.
· If a charitable organization devotes itself to drawing together these three separate groups, it can succeed at attracting the funds necessary to educate hundreds or thousands of students, while bringing an enhanced public reputation and an inner satisfaction to the generous donors who make it all possible.
The methodology…
How does the Helping Your Hometown Foundation operate?
We believe that the proper motivations exist naturally among all the parties. Our job is simply to fit the pieces together, much like assembling a complex jigsaw puzzle.
For the high school students, we need to identify the students for whom the availability of free tuition, board and books would make all the difference. We need to understand their high school accomplishments, academic interests and career goals. We need to appreciate their family’s economic circumstances.
For the local school districts, we need to establish ground rules under which a graduating senior would be eligible to attend the local community college free of charge. Who evaluates the students’ academic records? Who chooses the eligible graduates? Who markets the availability of these scholarships?
For the community colleges, we need to determine the academic programs that would be appropriate for scholarships. Who will administer the program? Who will interact with the Helping Your Hometown Foundation?
For the donors, we need a well-organized and detail-oriented research methodology and a vigorous outreach effort. After compiling lists of thousands of affluent “prospective donors,” we need to cull through public records, resumes, speeches, published biographies, yearbooks, curriculum vitae, newspaper and magazine articles, Internet sites and other information to identify their respective hometowns.
We’ll also compile records of their other charitable donations. Once we’ve identified their home areas and the high schools from which they graduated, we can make preliminary contacts with the school district and community college in that area to line up the necessary community support. After putting those pieces together, we can make a coordinated approach to the prospective donor, presenting a well-integrated, “seamless” plan for their philanthropic gift.
First steps…
(1) Determine the organizational structure of the Helping Your Hometown Foundation. (I’d love to hear from lawyers, accountants and foundation executives with experience in organizing start-up foundations.)
(2) Identify volunteers who will serve as CEO, General Counsel, Research Director; Marketing Director; Student & Family Liaison; School District Liaison; Community College Liaison; IT Director, etc.
(3) Draft template documents for the donor’s contribution agreement; the establishment of community-based scholarship funds; the agreement between the scholarship fund and the individual high school graduate; the agreement between the scholarship fund and the community college; the marketing and public relations plan to draw attention to the donor’s generosity (if so desired by the donor); the unified agreement laying out the complete scenario, to be signed by donor, school district, community college, and city/town public officials.
(4) Raising “seed money” to cover basic administrative costs for the Helping Your Hometown Foundation, but not to cover salaries for any participants, all of whom will be volunteers initially.
(5) Identifying the hometowns of wealthy individuals who might be inclined to make substantial donations to the communities in which they were raised. If you know of the hometown (and high school) of well-known celebrities, entertainers, sports figures, Fortune 100 CEOs, industrialists, philanthropists, etc., please let us know.
Thanks for your help in building this new foundation.
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