Save Our Schools FunCard Campaign

Save Our Schools “SOS” FunCard Campaign

Save Our Schools FunCard Campaign is an ongoing philanthropic initiative operated and managed by a local non-profit civic organization and a collaboration of community stakeholders for the purpose of providing emergency funds and resources to schools.

The fiscal challenge facing our nation is having a significant impact on North Carolina Schools and most other schools across the United States. The impact we are experiencing in the marketplace has trickled down to a reduction in public services.

Our schools are now being forced to make dramatic changes in their budgets, which will result in deferred maintenance, a deficiency in teaching resources, and the loss of educators. In the end, we are hurting our children. While there are parents, individuals, and organizations who are working hard to support our schools, it is clear that there is a need for more. 

Recently, an alliance of community leaders and socially responsible companies committed to launch a unified effort to “Save our Schools”. This effort will utilize entrepreneurial creativity and proven strategies to deliver emergency funds first to NC Schools and following, schools across the nation.

• NC ranks 42 in the Nation in the amount of money we spend on our students (2007-2008).
• We are facing another 16% decrease.
• 2009-2011 report shows a loss of 16,253 paid positions in NC public schools
• If we don’t rally as a community to achieve new strategies and solutions, our course of action will be dictated by someone else.
  

Goals:

• Funding: To utilize creative strategies and assist NC Schools by raising funds that will help subsidize school budgets.
• Volunteers: To organize volunteers from the community to help schools and teachers accomplish their goals.
• Government: To communicate with the State and local government as to where we can direct funds and resources to best serve our NC Education System
• Educate: To provide every child the same opportunity to receive an education and graduate from North Carolina Schools. 

The mission of the SOS “Funcard” Project™ is to provide schools with an easy, profitable, and ongoing source of funding where the “school” retains 100% of all monies. The “Funcard” project improves the opportunity to make up for the shortfalls of local and state funding. The FunCard project also bypasses the worries and other non-traditional revenue “profit-share” campaigns associated with typical fundraisers. 

*SOS FunCard - A recurring discount/incentive card redeemable at thousands of locations on every visit for a 12 month period. Cards are sold for $20 each. Participating schools retain total $20.
 
Here’s how The Ideal SOS FunCard Fundraiser works:

*SOS “ Funcards” (look and function like a typical grocery store loyalty card) and provides card holders with valuable discounts & incentives on their everyday purchases to hundreds of businesses each visit. (example: Buy One Get One Free Pizza, $5 off Oil Change, Free Kids meal, 20% off Dry Cleaning, Carwash, Car Rentals, Movies, Grocery Store Coupons, etc). There will be 20 business discounts on the back of the card that represent businesses in the cardholder’s immediate community. Card-holders also have thousands of discounts and incentives available to you locally and across the United States. The FunCard also has an online shopping mall with tons more discounts that are split between the FunCard holder and their school of choice.
 
FunCards costs $20 a year

Campaign Example:
Average 1,000 students, parents, local orgs, and businesses per school participate: (Research shows 35% of families participate in fundraisers for their school)
Each student or community partner sells 5 Funcards each @ $20 ($100)
Min. raised is $100,000.00 per school 
 
All monies raised are distributed to school of card-buyers choice.

Strategies:

1)      By 2015, to secure a $20 (FunCard) sponsorship per student in NC school. We will encourage partnerships from local media, businesses, community leaders, parents, organizations, and churches to sponsor and promote to sponsor every child in our NC schools by purchasing 1 FunCard per child. This effort would allow us to inject $50M per year in our NC schools.

2)      By 2020, to establish a community Adopt a School program for every NC school. Alleviating a minimum expenditure of $10,000 per year per school, by allowing volunteers to assist schools in mentoring, tutoring, student services, job placement programs, school resources, and assistance with the grounds and maintenance. This effort would allow us to save from the States budget $23M per year in our NC Schools

3)      By 2020 to secure a minimum of $10,000 per year per school from corporate and small business donations and sponsorships. This effort would allow us to inject $23M per year in our NC schools.

About Generous Community: 

Vision:            To change lives through generosity

Mission:          To transform cities by encouraging and developing individuals to positively impact their families, communities and the marketplace