From the Chalkboard to the Bank - Teaching Educational Leaders to be Effective Fundraisers

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dabgoudw

Financial resource management is essential for K-12 schools, especially as public funding declines and states compete with other agencies for scarce budgets. The study focuses on how school leaders can learn to raise private funds effectively, addressing the limited education principals and superintendents receive about fundraising. It reviews historical K-12 fundraising, regulatory pressures on leadership preparation, and the need to identify and compare methods for teaching leaders fundraising effectiveness.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Funding Pressures and Resource Competition

Underfunding and the Shift to Fundraising

Regulatory Context for Educational Leaders

Background of the Study

Growth of Fundraising Across Education

External Benefactors and School Outcomes

Critiques of Leadership Preparation

Requirements and Rubrics for Leadership Roles

From the Chalkboard to the Bank: Teaching Educational Leaders to be Effective Fundraisers Michael T. Miller University of Arkansas Mei-Yan Lu San Jose State University G. David Gearhart University of Arkansas The effective use of financial resources is critical for all educational institutions, especially those K-12 schools that rely on public funding for their main operating revenue. As public entities and state governments increasingly struggle to find the revenue necessary to operate prisons, fund Medicaid/Medicare, improve an aging infrastructure, support social welfare programs, and recover from the Great Recession, educational institutions are finding themselves directly competing with other public agencies for scarce resources. These factors resulted in 29 states reducing funding for public education (Evans, Schwab & Wagner, 2019; Leachman, Masterson, & Figueroa, 2017). In the face of fierce competition, educational leaders must learn how to effectively compete for scarce funds in order to provide the necessary resources that will allow their schools to flourish. Keywords: fundraising; school leadership; school funding; alternative revenue streams Traditionally, public educational institutions have been subsidized through a society’s willingness to tax itself. Most states identify an appropriate personal or property tax rate that all individuals pay, and these funds are then allocated for commonly used services, such as providing free education to all children under a certain age; in most states, this provision is a constitutional requirement of the government. Despite the long-standing tradition of funding education, public schools are often underfunded, especially given the wide range of students these schools attempt to educate. This underfunding leads to cutting and eliminating programs, partially funding other programs, and having to make difficult decisions about how to educate students. Additionally, it also forces public schools into educational fundraising and creating independent school or school districtwide foundations. The fundraising process is not new to education, and higher education in particular has over 200 years of history aggressively seeking contributions to underwrite their activities, programs, and personnel. And yet, despite the growing need for K-12 schools to diversity their revenue streams, they have engaged in relatively few fundraising activities. Part of the reason for this lack of aggressive fundraising by K-12 schools is the lack of education about how to raise private funds by principals and superintendents. The process of qualifying an individual to be a school leader is increasingly regulated, increasingly challenging, and has been historically debated for reform for 30 years (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 1989) . Much of the regulatory creation for school leaders has come about due to legal challenges and errors of the past, including concerns over child welfare, fiscal management problems, risk management, etc. Recent regulations placedon school leaders hinder their ability to creatively solve problems, resulting in a strong national movement to completely deregulate school leadership, allowing politicians, former military and business leaders, for example, to assume these leadership positions with little to no experience in education. Some of these individuals have been highly successful, and others not successful at all, but the common theme throughout the process of assuming a school or district leadership position is that there are minimum necessary skills that an individual must hold to be effective. The current discussion is framed around the skills necessary to garner private resources for schools, and the purpose for conducting this study is to identify and compare methods for teaching K-12 leaders about how to be effective fundraisers. Background of the Study Fundraising has become prominent in all sectors of education an

FAQs

Why are educational leaders increasingly focused on fundraising for K-12 schools?

Public education faces reduced state support and greater competition for scarce public resources. Underfunding forces schools to cut programs or seek private support through independent foundations and fundraising activities.

What problem does the study identify regarding K-12 fundraising?

K-12 schools have diversified revenue needs but have engaged in relatively few fundraising activities. The document attributes part of this gap to insufficient education for principals and superintendents on how to raise private funds.

How do leadership regulations affect the goal of training effective fundraisers?

The text describes school leadership qualification as increasingly regulated and shaped by past legal challenges and errors. It argues these constraints may hinder creative problem solving and motivates discussion about deregulating leadership while defining minimum skills needed for effectiveness, including fundraising skills.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dabgoudw