The Value of Daisy Dollars" />
The official student newspaper of The Hockaday School

The Fourcast

The official student newspaper of The Hockaday School

The Fourcast

The official student newspaper of The Hockaday School

The Fourcast

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The Value of Daisy Dollars

THE WOMEN BEHIND THE MONEY Development Office employees Caroline Parrack, Amy Spence and Katuri Beatty help to raise money through parent and alumni donations.

Many hours of hard work go into raising money for the Annual Fund

After the payment of each Hockaday student’s tuition fees, a $6,424 gap remains to fill the actual cost of each girl’s education. This gap equates to 21 percent of the funds needed to operate the school. The Development Office oversees the Annual Fund, which raises money to help fill that gap.
But it is an operation that could not be completed successfully without the help of over 300 parent and alumnae volunteers.
“The parents are the reason why Hockaday is able to be so economical and raise so much money without having to spend much,” Director of Development and External Affairs Kathy Limmer said. “They write the letters, they stuff the envelopes and they make the calls. They really are a fabulous, organized and convincing team that helps raise money for the Annual Fund, which in turn supports all of the girls.”
Bridget, a freshman new to Hockaday this year, compares the amount of parent volunteers to her old school, Prince of Peace Catholic School.
“At my old school, there were only about 20 parents who volunteered to help with fundraising,” she said. “I really appreciate the Hockaday parents volunteering and taking the time to contribute to [our school].”
The Annual Fund is divided into two divisions—the Parent Division and the Alumnae Division.
“The Parent Division is the campaign to contact and request an Annual Fund gifts from the parent of every current student,” said Deborah Michel, the 2011-2012 Chair of the Parent Campaign. “Our emphasis is always on achieving participation from every family in the school rather than focusing on how much money anyone is able to donate.”
Within the Parent Division alone, numerous people are involved in the network of communication.
“I have about 150 parent volunteers from all three subdivisions of the Parent Division. There is a Chairperson of each Division (Upper School, Middle School and Lower School) and a Chair of each Grade Level below them (grades Pre-Kindergarten through Form IV),” Michel said. “There are also New Family Chairs for Middle School and Upper School. The Grade Chairs each have eight to 12 caller volunteers reporting to them. There are also parent volunteers dedicated to contacting boarder families.”
The Alumnae Division is also an important part to the Annual Fund.
It is a way for “our alumnae to demonstrate school loyalty and appreciation for the value and benefits of having received a Hockaday education,” Allison Taten ‘89, the 2011-2012 President of the Alumnae Division, said. “It is a way to ‘pay it forward’ as we were the beneficiaries of Alumnae giving since the founding of the school. We have the opportunity to help out, now that we are Alumnae.”
Like the Parent Division, the Alumnae Division also contains subcommittees.
“In our Alumnae Division, we have two Executive Committee members whose focus is on Annual Giving,” Taten said. “There is a VP-Development who chairs the Leadership Giving Committee, made up of Alumnae volunteers. And, the President Elect of the Alumnae Association is charged with heading up the entire Alumnae arm of the Annual Fund as a primary responsibility.”
In addition to the alumnae volunteers, there are two types of class agents for every graduating class—Communications Class Agents and Fundraising Class Agents. In addition to her larger role as President of the Alumnae division this year, Taten also serves as a Communication Class Agent.
“I serve as a liaison between Hockaday and my class to help keep them engaged with the school and each other and foster class connections,” she said. “I help make sure that we have Reunion Activities planned, make sure we have current contact information for classmates, find lost classmates and gather class news for the twice yearly Hockaday magazine.”
On the other hand, the Fundraising Class Agents send letters to classmates about Annual Fund, coordinate reunion year giving efforts for their class, volunteer at Connectathons, an event where the alumnae contacts their classmates, and encourage classmates to support the goal of 34 percent participation by forwarding information to them as needed by the Alumnae Association and Annual Giving office.
“Our Alumnae participation is that 29 percent of our Alumnae have made a gift to Hockaday,” Limmer said. “That’s one of the highest Alumnae participations in an independent school.”
The amount of volunteers and the time spent by them has paid off. As of April 24, between the efforts of both the Parent Division and the Alumnae Division, the Annual Fund had raised $2,080,000; the goal is $2,275,000.
The Parent Division has achieved 99.2 percent participation from the Hockaday parent community this year for a total of $1,235,989, a record amount in the history of Hockaday.
A portion of the money donated to the school, however, is used to cover the initial cost of raising the money.
Director of Annual Giving Keturi Beatty determined for every dollar amassed in the Annual Fund, it costs six cents to raise that dollar, a figure that is on par with schools comparable to Hockaday.
“Pat Basset, who is the president of the National Association for Independent schools, has done a lot of research, and the average cost per dollar for an independent school is between three cents and ten cents,” she said. “We are fit right into the national standard at six cents.”
Beatty primarily works with the parent and alumnae volunteers to help implement their ideas and their passions by providing them with data, reports and information.
“The best part of interacting with all these people is hearing everyone’s stories.” Beatty said. “I was just talking to an alumna from the Class of ’62 who had just celebrated her 50th reunion this weekend. She was talking about how remarkable the entire weekend was and how they closely they were still bonded 50 years later. Their experiences at Hockaday were what kept them all together, forming that strong bond between them.”
The hard work and time spent by the hundreds of parent volunteers and alumnae has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated by the Hockaday students.
Sophomore Kendall said, “It means a lot to me that people would sacrifice their free time to help raise money to support students and to provide us with such an exemplary education at Hockaday.”
-Courtney
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