Catholic Business Group helps schools set up Endowments – Yeshivas take note

I know that I have people who sit on the boards of Jewish day schools among my readership. You liked my post comparing Catholic schools to Day Schools. Well, here is a model to take note of. Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS) is moving from creating scholarship funds to creating endowments for 7 Philadelphia Catholic Schools. They have put the businessmen and CEO’s in charge. Maybe you can give them a call and brainstorm together? From the list of donors, it seems they are going for corporate gifts from major national companies and from law firms.

A business group has pledged $4 million in matching grants to help seven urban Catholic schools create endowments during the 2010-11 academic year.
Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS) on Thursday announced that it had signed partnership agreements with the schools as it launches its urban endowment initiative.
The pilot program advances an approach to helping financially strapped urban parish schools that BLOCS officials have been discussing for the last few years.
Five of the schools are in Philadelphia, and one each is in Chester and Lansdowne.
Joe Garecht, BLOCS executive director, said in the past that the organization’s primary focus was on raising scholarship funds to help low-income students attend Catholic schools. He said the organization decided to broaden its scope to include helping to save Catholic schools, because so many were closing.
“Schools continue to close in places where they are needed most,” he said.
In the last decade, the city has lost 30 percent of its Catholic elementary schools and enrollment has dropped by 41 percent.
Under the initiative, each of the seven schools will raise money and BLOCS grants will match each dollar. The money will be deposited in individual endowment accounts managed by BLOCS that will help cover schools’ operating costs.
The schools’ principals and pastors have agreed to work with BLOCS for the next two years, Garecht said.
The ultimate goal, he said, is for each school to have a $7 million endowment in three years.
source

You can make the calls Tuesday. Have your secretaries arrange meeting for after holiday season. Here is the board of directors. And here are the donors. Notice the broad base of the donors.