Facing the - Culver Academies

Julie Hanna ’78
John Bollman ’75
Thomas Mayo ’75
14 The Culver Educational Foundation
From The Culver Fund
national Co-Chairs and director:
Why should Culver settle
for second-rate results?
Every gift counts, but why should culver settle for below-par?
At most college preparatory schools, annual giving provides 8 percent to 15 percent of the annual
budget. At culver, annual giving through The culver fund accounted for 13 percent of the annual
budget in the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Student financial aid, an excellent faculty, and quality
programming benefit directly from culver fund gifts, allowing the culver experience to be a lifechanging
event for our diverse and international student body.
in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, your generosity led to record culver fund results. cash-in totaled
$6,276,044, up 8 percent from the last year and exceeding our goal of $6,250,000. Thank you!
Particular recognition goes to our leadership donors who have made five-year commitments to
the culver fund – the importance of which is discussed in our chief Advancement Officer Mike
Perry’s comments in this Annual Report. Also, we want to recognize and thank our volunteer
corps whose class solicitations resulted in substantial contributions to The culver fund.
While we are grateful for these results, which also help preserve the endowment for future use, we
find that we have work to do to become the highly performing culver fund that we want to be.
Opportunities to grow the fund are many, but we want to take the time to highlight just two. first,
participation at every level is important. Even small gifts make a difference. As a matter of fact,
72 percent of our culver fund gifts are donations of $250 or less. We could not reach our goals
without these donations. Many scholarship students are supported by these gifts, as are talented
faculty members.
The average secondary school annual giving program’s participation rate is about 37 percent.
Surprisingly, even with culver’s committed and loyal alumni base, our participation rate is just 22
percent. few (if any) of us believe that culver should lag below average in participation rate in
support of The culver fund. in order to improve the participation rate, we must demonstrate the
importance and impact on the school of smaller gifts to broaden our base of support.
if we are successful in raising our participation rate to just the secondary school average, this alone
would add several hundred thousand dollars to our annual culver fund results. have you been a
regular participant in annual giving? if not, will you make an effort to be so?
Second, we want to continue to grow online giving, which increased 51 percent from the previous
fiscal year, yet represented only 7 percent of annual giving. This secure and easy way of giving
can be encouraged with web content giving donors the opportunity to direct their gifts to support
programs at our school toward which the donor has affinity. Also, we have just rolled out the ability
to make automatic recurring online gifts and pledges via direct debit and credit card. This will
allow donors to spread their contributions over the year resulting in the possibility of improved
cash flow flexibility for donors.
in closing, we want to make our gratitude clear for record culver fund results. Nevertheless, we
have work to do to seize the opportunity to become a top performing annual fund. Like everything
at culver, we want to strive to be exceptional. With your help, there is no doubt that we will
become a top performing annual fund in the future. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Julie hanna ’78 John Bollman ’75 Thomas Mayo ’75
culver fund National co-chairs culver fund director