River Valley Charter School
Minutes
Development Committee Meeting
Date and Time
Monday October 23, 2023 at 6:00 PM
Location
Middle School Great Room
2 Perry Way
Newburyport MA 01950
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
C. Getz, D. Herrera, E. Rankin, J. Evans
Committee Members Absent
A. Hromadka, J. Hubbard, T. Murdy
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
II. RVCS 25 Anniversary Update & Next Steps
A.
Next steps in the 25th Anniversary Campaign
B.
Celebrate Throughout the Year - Habits of Learning
Discussed 25th anniversary plan to celebrate the 8 habits of learning. Each month of the school year will be paired with a Habit of Learning - one of the 8Cs. This structure allows us to reinforce and share Montessori values with the school community, provides a flexibility - ie allows for a variety of events and/or communication, can be repeated annually and will summarize well at the end of the year in an annual report. A November giving campaign will be paired with "Citizenship," December PA Solstice event will celebrate "Creativity" and January, "Curiousity" will provide an opportunity to highlight plans for improvements to the school grounds. In February "Courtesy," in March, "Committment" and in April "Communication," in May, "Critical Thinking." Some months will include a follow up to our ask to support the school with a financial contribution. And in June, the final month of schoo,l we will offer an annual report, round up of the year that can be presented to highlight our mission, impact and to make a case for other personal and institutional contributions.
C.
Holiday Card
Will send ot holiday cards to the community this year. Something simple that shows the community we see them and thank them.
III. Benevon Model/Donor Management
A.
Donor Management data storage
We had a short discussion about donor management systems, and ultimately decided to stay with Sustain this year, but look into other options like Bloomerang to see if there is a distinct benefit. In particular, a way to limit information access and allow parent volunteers access in order to streamline communication, asking so that development team does not need to rely on staff to pull lists..
IV. General Giving
A.
Leadership Giving
We discussed leadership giving. We are looking for 100% participation of the Board of Trustees and Foundation to personally give something that is meaningful to you that is in lie with one of your top charities that you support.
We will discuss as the full board meeting.
A letter celebrating the 25th anniversary will be sent to current school community families and other groups that might include past donors, founders, past board members. Jonnie Lyn will help determine lists and groups and share contact information.
A social media campaign will pair with the 25th Anniversary letter. Tanya suggested a "How we started"/"How it's going" style reel be launched to reinforce where we were, where we are and where we are going sentiments in the letter.
Will follow up on Thank you Letters from donations and get those in queue to go out.