Sandy Springs Going After $25M in Grants As the Solution?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hiring a bunch of consultants who have never raised money for a school and haven’t got any of it yet in the pipeline - who just declared a target amount with no plan isn’t exactly an exhale for anyone involved in what is obviously going to be an enormous public debacle

One correction. It’s not a “bunch of consultants”. It’s one security guard turned grant writer who graduated from liberty university.

Not knocking liberty university. I don’t really know much about it, maybe it’s a great school. But my point is who thinks of Liberty university as graduating financial whizzes?

It's not a great school and it is totally worthy of knocking for a litany of reasons. Carry on. This whole debacle makes it look like the school is run by a bunch of chucklef**ks.

[Anonymous]

That’s unethical and goes against the guidelines of several national grant and fundraising professional associations. I sincerely hope they haven’t contracted someone like that.

Anonymous wrote:It’s possible that the “consultants” are compensated only as a percentage of grants received, but even so, they lose any shred of credibility based on their press release and “projected” yield. What grants are they expecting?

As a PP wrote, hard to imagine a less grant-friendly time for education.

[Anonymous]

I'd resign from the Board if I sat on it. They replaced an inept and seemingly corrupt or at least conflicted former head of school with one that's just dumb? Who in their right mind would "announce" a contract with a fledgling first time fundraiser as if its news, much less choose such a firm without a bake off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hiring a bunch of consultants who have never raised money for a school and haven’t got any of it yet in the pipeline - who just declared a target amount with no plan isn’t exactly an exhale for anyone involved in what is obviously going to be an enormous public debacle

One correction. It’s not a “bunch of consultants”. It’s one security guard turned grant writer who graduated from liberty university.

Not knocking liberty university. I don’t really know much about it, maybe it’s a great school. But my point is who thinks of Liberty university as graduating financial whizzes?

It's not a great school and it is totally worthy of knocking for a litany of reasons. Carry on. This whole debacle makes it look like the school is run by a bunch of chucklef**ks.

It really does. Staff or consultants from Liberty University? Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hiring a bunch of consultants who have never raised money for a school and haven’t got any of it yet in the pipeline - who just declared a target amount with no plan isn’t exactly an exhale for anyone involved in what is obviously going to be an enormous public debacle

One correction. It’s not a “bunch of consultants”. It’s one security guard turned grant writer who graduated from liberty university.

Not knocking liberty university. I don’t really know much about it, maybe it’s a great school. But my point is who thinks of Liberty university as graduating financial whizzes?

It's not a great school and it is totally worthy of knocking for a litany of reasons. Carry on. This whole debacle makes it look like the school is run by a bunch of chucklef**ks.

It really does. Staff or consultants from Liberty University? Seriously?

Okay just looked up LU. Wow. Now I’m actually worried about this new HOS. I didn’t think they could hire worse then they had ..

[Anonymous]

Look, liberty is the worst, obviously, but most people get sent there under the influence of their crazy parents.

I know of at least two completely normal, non-fundie grads who came from evangelical families. They can’t leave their undergrad off their resume, though.

[Anonymous]

As someone who works in advancement for another Quaker school and has extensively researched grant opportunities to fund Quaker education, I can tell you that this isn’t going to yield even close to what they’re projecting. Most available grant funding for Quaker education comes from private family foundations and relationships between alumni and the school’s associated Meeting House. This is honestly irresponsible for the school to believe someone can magically unlock this kind of funding for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in advancement for another Quaker school and has extensively researched grant opportunities to fund Quaker education, I can tell you that this isn’t going to yield even close to what they’re projecting. Most available grant funding for Quaker education comes from private family foundations and relationships between alumni and the school’s associated Meeting House. This is honestly irresponsible for the school to believe someone can magically unlock this kind of funding for them.

I want to know if you can do this as someone working in advancement, why does ssfs have to hire someone. What does their advancement director do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in advancement for another Quaker school and has extensively researched grant opportunities to fund Quaker education, I can tell you that this isn’t going to yield even close to what they’re projecting. Most available grant funding for Quaker education comes from private family foundations and relationships between alumni and the school’s associated Meeting House. This is honestly irresponsible for the school to believe someone can magically unlock this kind of funding for them.

I want to know if you can do this as someone working in advancement, why does ssfs have to hire someone. What does their advancement director do?

They have a 4-person advancement staff for a school with 350ish kids. What does this former security guard have expertise in that they don’t?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in advancement for another Quaker school and has extensively researched grant opportunities to fund Quaker education, I can tell you that this isn’t going to yield even close to what they’re projecting. Most available grant funding for Quaker education comes from private family foundations and relationships between alumni and the school’s associated Meeting House. This is honestly irresponsible for the school to believe someone can magically unlock this kind of funding for them.

I want to know if you can do this as someone working in advancement, why does ssfs have to hire someone. What does their advancement director do?

They have a 4-person advancement staff for a school with 350ish kids. What does this former security guard have expertise in that they don’t?

Apparently grant writing to unlock $25 million.

Wonder why they are limiting themselves to 25 million? Surely this security guard grant writing whiz can get them 30? 50? I mean all this money that’s just waiting for ssfs to come along and ask for it …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He’s probably doing this on a contingency fee basis—and filling a gap the school can’t afford to staff. This is fairly normal.

Not in fundraising though. I worked in this field for years and contingency fees, finders fees, etc. weren’t (and aren’t) allowed in the professional association’s code. It’s considered unethical and bad practice. I have no idea if that’s the case here, but it shouldn’t be.

I don’t know but I assume this is nto the case for grant writers.

https://grantprofessionals.org/page/ethics ("19. Members shall not accept or pay a finder’s fee [3], commission [4], or percentage compensation based on grants and shall take care to discourage organizations from making such payments.")

Well that's just stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope Jeff shuts this down because this is just another attempt to defame this school for doing something totally normal, which is fundraising. These are not even people associated with the school.

I'm associated with the school and this is not *totally normal.* I have no interest in defaming the school, but the go along to get along didn't work out so great. We have a Director of Advancement, CFO, and a Board with, might I add, some pretty significant expertise in financial management. Why are we constantly hiring outside consultants? I thought we learned our lesson with that under RG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Jeff shuts this down because this is just another attempt to defame this school for doing something totally normal, which is fundraising. These are not even people associated with the school.

I'm associated with the school and this is not *totally normal.* I have no interest in defaming the school, but the go along to get along didn't work out so great. We have a Director of Advancement, CFO, and a Board with, might I add, some pretty significant expertise in financial management. Why are we constantly hiring outside consultants? I thought we learned our lesson with that under RG.

Yes, yes and YES!!! You speak my heart. What is this school doing? It’s so frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He’s probably doing this on a contingency fee basis—and filling a gap the school can’t afford to staff. This is fairly normal.

Not in fundraising though. I worked in this field for years and contingency fees, finders fees, etc. weren’t (and aren’t) allowed in the professional association’s code. It’s considered unethical and bad practice. I have no idea if that’s the case here, but it shouldn’t be.

I don’t know but I assume this is nto the case for grant writers.

https://grantprofessionals.org/page/ethics ("19. Members shall not accept or pay a finder’s fee [3], commission [4], or percentage compensation based on grants and shall take care to discourage organizations from making such payments.")

Well that's just stupid.

Yeah, ethics are so annoying and just get in the way, amirite?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd resign from the Board if I sat on it. They replaced an inept and seemingly corrupt or at least conflicted former head of school with one that's just dumb? Who in their right mind would "announce" a contract with a fledgling first time fundraiser as if its news, much less choose such a firm without a bake off?

Um…perhaps a school struggling to attract students?