Answers to some common questions about SVEF
What we do
Scotts Valley Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit fundraising organization that raises money for Scotts Valley Public Schools.
Who we are
Our board is made up of 17 – 19 members. We have parents of our students, community members, teachers, principals, and administration from within our school district.
Our executives
We’re always looking for more help, and we have some openings available on our current board for next year. The board consists of the following positions: President, Vice President, Recording Secretary, Treasurer, Auditor, Marketing Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator, and Directors.
How we raise our money
We host key fundraising events such as the Mt. Charlie Challenge, Ice Cream Social, Christmas Tree Lot, and Letter Campaign. We also are often a part of other organizations events. For example, the Rotary had Oktoberfest and contributed to SVEF. Kiwanis held Music in the Park in combination with SVEF. San Augustin shared their donations from the Angels Auction with SVEF. The Tutoring Club and Elite Martial Arts donate member initiation fees to SVEF when mentioning us.
What we do with the money
We keep a reserve of cash for operating expenses. We roll a percentage of our annual income into our Endowment Fund that was created in 2009. The balance we can distribute to Scotts Valley Unified School District to save a program of our choosing.
How we decide what to fund
Every spring we research and analyze what is needed to help the schools. We get recommendations from the principals and we discuss as a board to make our decisions. We traditionally have not funded salaries directly. We have funded saving the Music Program, Libraries, Technology, and the Dollar-a-Day Program. We try to contribute to all four schools in our district evenly.
We occasionally have a donation that is given for a particular school and we just pass it through. As an example, for a few years The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz had a client that wanted to donate a fairly large sum anonymously to Brook Knoll Elementary School and SVMS. There was a few stipulations and we had to handle special reporting on it. For SVEF it was a pass through. We gained community awareness and were able to handle the donations as a non-profit entity.
Going forward
We will continue to have our regular fundraisers. We will handle the Dollar A Day program for our district. Our district needs to raise $950,000 for the general funding for year 2011/12 in order to stay where we will be for year 2010/11. We need to do this through a Dollar A Day campaign in conjunction with the SVUSD moving forward on a Parcel Tax.
To get involved
We are have our next SVEF Meeting on April 15th and there is a collective group of parents, teachers, board members and administration personnel coming up with the plan on what steps to implement for Dollar a Day. Email Charlotte if you would like to be involved in the campaign.
For Parcel Tax campaign you can contact Michael Shulman, to get involved.
Donate now to Scotts Valley Educational Foundation via mail or use the donate button on any page on this website. You may also do a recurring payment through our website through our Help Us page.