The importance of personal relationships is one of the overlaps in courting foundations and individual donors. Talking to people — especially face to face — about what’s happening on a college campus is essential to gaining support.
Building these relationships with foundations is critical because many require an invitation to apply for funding. If they don’t know you or the work going on at your college, you won’t be asked.
Landing a grant involves patience, persistence, and a lot of back and forth to hone an idea until it aligns with both sides’ missions and goals.
Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Los Angeles City College Foundation, and his staff take every opportunity they can to meet representatives from foundations. If there is an event in their region where someone from a foundation will be in attendance, he said, “you can bet we’re there.” Once he meets them, he invites them to come visit.
Some relationships are built over long periods of time.
That was the case with Los Angeles City College’s partnership with the Herb Alpert Foundation, which this year resulted in a $10.1 million gift. It will establish an endowment to give all music majors a tuition-free education.
The connection between the community college and the family foundation — which has given millions of dollars to arts education, especially for music — began decades ago, when Herb Alpert’s brother attended the college. Herb Alpert, a noted jazz musician and founder of A&M Records, had sponsored a scholarship at the college in his brother’s name. In 2013, the foundation gave the college a bigger gift: three years of $100,000 of annual support for the music department, including private lessons for the music students.
After the first year of the three-year gift, Herb Alpert, along with his wife, Lani Hall, and Rona Sebastian, the foundation’s president, visited the campus for an afternoon. They took a hard-hat tour of the music building, which was being renovated, met with the college president, and — most importantly — talked with about 20 students who were receiving support from their foundation. The students shared stories about what led them to the college, about their dreams for continuing their education, and about how receiving financial help from the foundation was making a significant difference in their lives.
“It was very inspiring,” said Ms. Sebastian, who found the meeting to be extremely powerful.
This gift hits the sweet spot between our commitment to the arts and our commitment to compassion and well-being.
When it came time for the college to approach the foundation about renewing its grant, Herb Alpert and the foundation were thinking about something bigger — a legacy gift that would achieve the foundation’s goals of supporting arts education and leveling the playing field for students from underserved communities, who might not otherwise have access to it. The foundation proposed a gift to the college that would make tuition free for all music majors and also provide them private lessons and other financial aid. The college and foundation calculated it would take a $10-million endowment gift to make that happen.
“This gift hits the sweet spot between our commitment to the arts and our commitment to compassion and well-being,” Ms. Sebastian said. The foundation also added $100,000 to continue the current level of annual student support until the endowment can begin to pay out about $400,00 per year.
Herb Alpert, who is 81, hoped that the size of the gift would send a message to others about the value of supporting the work of community colleges, given the population they serve and the role they play in higher education for students who want a bachelor’s degree but cannot afford to start college at a four-year institution and also for students who are seeking a two-year degree that will help them get a job in their field of study. “It’s important, and it’s probably going to be even more important going forward,” Ms. Sebastian said.
The Herb Alpert Foundation was named Bernard Osher Philanthropist of the Year in November by the Network of California Community College Foundations. Accepting the award in front of 600 people, including the system’s more than 100 campus leaders, was meaningful to Ms. Sebastian. “It was a very gratifying day,” she said. She felt a recognition from the college leaders there that the gift was something special. “It’s symbolically for all the community colleges, but it had to be at LACC because of the history and the connection.”
At Los Angeles City College, Mr. Schwartz says he is using every opportunity to talk up the gift and invite others to be a part of what’s happening at the college. This summer, after the gift was announced, Mr. Schwartz was at the mayor’s residence for an announcement of the LA College Promise, which will offer eligible public-school students in Los Angeles one free year of community college. The leader of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation was there. Mr. Schwartz introduced himself, described the Alpert gift, and offered the Broad foundation the opportunity to top it.
The executive director is scheduled to visit Los Angeles City College soon.
Campus visits like that can open up new opportunities, too. Mr. Schwartz was recently giving a campus tour to someone from a family foundation who had come to see the music department after the college had received the Alpert gift. During the visit, she mentioned that the foundation was thinking of moving into supporting veterans’ affairs.
“I just spun on a dime,” Mr. Schwartz said, “and said, Let me take you over to our veterans’ office.”
The woman from the family foundation went back to her boss and described her visit to the campus. The foundation, Mr. Schwartz said, is now considering a combination of support for music students and veterans.
