River Valley Charter School
Minutes
Development Committee
Date and Time
Tuesday December 2, 2025 at 6:00 PM
River Valley Charter School welcomes your participation at Board meetings. The purpose of a public meeting of the Board of Trustees (“Board”) is to conduct the affairs of the organization in public. Your participation assures us of continuing community interest in our school and assists the Board in making the best decisions for our school. To assist you in the ease of speaking/participating in our meetings, guidelines are provided at the bottom of this agenda. All materials for all board and committee meetings, are available on our Board on track public portal found at rivervalleycharter.org.
Committee Members Present
E. Bradley (remote), E. Rankin, K. Kuse, M. Connerton, M. Curcio, M. Makin, T. Murdy
Committee Members Absent
C. Getz, J. Leslie
I. Opening Items
A.
Call the Meeting to Order
E. Rankin called a meeting of the Development Committee of River Valley Charter School to order on Tuesday Dec 2, 2025 at 6:06 PM.
B.
Record Attendance
C.
Approve Minutes
T. Murdy made a motion to approve the minutes from Development Committee Meeting on 10-07-25.
M. Connerton seconded the motion.
The committee VOTED to approve the motion.
II. Development at RVCS
A.
Winter Development
B.
Action Items
III. Closing Items
A.
Adjourn Meeting
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 7:00 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
E. Rankin
Annual Appeal Break Down - quick turn around worked well.
Office work was not a burden and mailing went out quickly as the letters arrived in bundles from volunteers which made addressing the envelopes manageable. Admin staff were instrumental in getting the mailing out. Good team work.
Grandparents addresses would be a great addition and something to consider collecting at school start.
Alumni addresses were added this year - only graduates from 2024. In addition, capture family connections from COL
Karen has invited all volunteers to a party at her house in January to thank everyone for their help and participation.
Karen has archived the to-dos for the annual appeal and we just need to make sure that everything is saved in Board on track.
Goals for 2026 fall: start earlier so that Giving Tuesday is the follow-up rather than the receive date.
Start collateral in the summer so it can be thoughtful designed with budget and mail pieces considered.
Find out who the new class captains will be ahead of time.
In the future, we would like the annual fund chairs to do the work of engaging the class captains by writing to them. Think about hosting a reception for donors in the future.
Talk about how to handle thank you cards for those who make donations — mass produce, but protect privacy of donors.
Write a personal note to those who donated, but send the thank you note to everyone, as this is a community effort. Protect privacy of donations and be sure to thank everyone in the community and focus on how many people participate. Be sure to include an opportunity to give in the thank yous as well.
Discussion on how to best administer thank you notes: Identify which class the donations came from and provide thank you cards to that team leader. It should work as long as we keep on top of it over time.
Make your own card if it works for you, but be sure to send them in a timely manner.
Meg will order blank cards to have kids decorate thank you notes this weekend.
We need to know and keep on top of progress for subsequent meetings: the number of participants, and averages and totals
Produce an annual report and include the gifts in honor of ____ in the annual report so that those are thoughtfully acknowledged.
Read a thon:
Business sponsorship opportunities
ER will reach out to previous sponsors.
How should we reward the kids for the read a thon?
Staff needs to be engaged - ER has connected with Colin and Laura and will meet with Laura in the new year. A dunk tank reward?!
Bonus: message to students to include summer reading
Bonus: message to students to include fall reading
Development member attend staff meeting?
To do for everyone is to reach out to a business to sponsor the read a thon
ER create spreadsheet to track sponsors and communication
remind everyone to use it
ER make sure communication options are in the development folder
ER teach MariANNE to do read a thon
Follow with idea to host a Grandfriends day - each classroom hosts grandfriends and we engage this group in our school culture. Send grandfriends photos. Need staff and teacher support for this to work well. Would be valuable to connect with someone who was here for a few to see how this worked in the past - maybe Caroline Keery?