Putnam City Schools Foundation:
Established in 1987
District Serves
: 19,419 students in grades preK-12
Executive Director:
Jennifer Seal
Great Idea to Share
: Foundation Teacher Ambassadors
By Jennifer Seal
The largest group of donors to the Putnam City Schools Foundation and one of the most consistent are the district teachers and staff members. For the past several years, the revenue brought in by this group has grown thanks to consistent communication and strategic thought. Despite this, only about half of our teaching staff supports the automatic payroll deduction program we call Friends of the Foundation. In an effort to reach more teachers more often, we designed the Ambassador Program.
As the President for the PC Foundation, I have limited access to large groups of teachers on a regular basis. When new teachers come into Putnam City, I make a welcome pitch and offer the enrollment form for Friends of the Foundation. My other chance comes when I visit their site faculty meeting for a short presentation and discussion of how we’ve helped their schools. Both of these opportunities have increased enrollment, but there is still more opportunity.
Since our teachers meet monthly we thought having teacher ambassadors at each building could be a good way to have more messaging from the Foundation on a regular basis. I chose the ambassador for each site based upon person knowledge. I was looking for someone already enrolled in the program who has had a positive experience with the PC Foundation. Each month, I provide these people with three informational bullets to share about good things happening or upcoming events. The Ambassador is also asked to help provide support to any colleague working to write a grant to the foundation.
For their service, ambassadors got a t-shirt and a few little fun surprises in their mailboxes throughout the year. As of yet I am not able to ascertain the program’s efficacy, but hope to have a “normal” school year using the ambassadors in '20-21 and be able to report changes therein.
