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How the Trust Fund Will Work | |||
every year . . . . . . forever!
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Let's
say that the Class of '56 Trust Fund within the Sheffield Education
Foundation suddenly got contributions that totaled $20,000 this
month. What would happen that would benefit the program to improve
academic excellence at SHS?
Well, we haven't gotten all the details worked out yet. It's like a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. Now, we've got to develop regulations and guidelines--while raising the funds. There is general agreement between the Sheffield Education Foundation and the small group of Class Gift instigators (Buck and me) that the money in the Fund won't be used arbitrarily by the Foundation when it dispenses grants to teachers and school projects that it supports. The Foundation will invest the contributed funds in prudent ways that will generate income that will accrue to the Fund. At a Fund total of $2,500 as it is now, there will be only $200 to $250 in income next year. If the Fund total were $20,000, the income generated by next August would amount to $1,600 to $2,000. Now, that's getting into serious funds available to support a worthy project. Another point of agreement between us and the Foundation is that our class will have a say-so in how the funds that are generated will be spent. As soon as possible, we need to find a classmate who will be willing to sit with the Foundation Board or the subgroup that makes decisions on grant requests or funding of projects. The class representative should probably be a resident of the Shoals area, but an "advisory board" of class members might be created to consult with the representative on ideas for the use of the funds. If any of you would be willing to serve as representative or as a member of the advisors group, Buck Locke needs to hear from you. |
At
this stage of the development of this project, we think that it would be
good for the Foundation Board and the Class Representative to come to
general agreement on the general class of projects that we want to
fund. With this decided, the availability of funds for teacher
grants or school projects might be publicized. Then, when the
funds from the income of the Trust are available, the Foundation Board
would meet with the Class Representative and a decision would be made on
granting one or more requests--or none, if none of the requests
addresses the purposes of the Trust as decided early in the development
of the implementing guidelines.
A role of the Advisory Group might be the recommendation of the purposes of the Fund or the development of suggestions for projects that might not be forthcoming from the faculty. We have many teachers in our class, and we know you teachers have a wealth of experience that, no doubt, will qualify you to offer valuable advice to this project that our Class Gift will support. Your participation is eagerly sought. So, the bottom line is: A contribution total of $20,000 right now would not result in the funding of a project during the 2006-07 school year. But, it would put the activities that are needed to get the Class Representative and Advisory Group together with representatives of the Foundation to develop the purpose of the Fund, the guidelines for grants, and the proposal of projects on the fast track. The first distribution of funds would take place during the 2007-08 school year.
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