Read the Spring 2006 Newsletter.
Why a Quaker Inner-City School Endowment Fund? QICSEF is based on the fact that having a Friends school in an inner-city environment exerts a strong influence for good; that inner-city children, surrounded by drugs, violence, crime, ethnic/racial tensions, unemployment and despair, benefit by exposure to the spirit and procedures found in Friends schools and that these Friends schools provide excellent models for inner-city education.
How did QICSEF get started? If you’d like to know how QICSEF came into being, read on: Imogene and Brad Angell were trustees of Friends School in Detroit for a combined 18 years. During its almost four decades, FSID has constantly teetered on the edge of closure. Several times, after the board had said the school had to close, the parents rallied, drove around the school honking horns, then settled into bake sales, car washes and a myriad fund-raising activities! “There’s nothing else like it for our children,” they said. Miracles began. The Detroit Free Press’s lead editorial on April 7, 1987, was titled: “Best Friends: This jewel of a school would be shame to lose.” In 1989, FSID received a 1.2 million dollar bequest. A few years later, a foundation made a matching-funds grant. Little by little, the school moved forward yet always financially unstable. Thus, when the Angells were retiring, they & Bob Glass, another FSID trustee, looked for a way to help schools like FSID because the sad truth is that few if any inner-city schools have the endowment needed to sustain them. QICSEF is the result of the creative thinking of Imogene and Brad Angell and Bob Glass. The way indeed opened.
The story of how Friends School in Detroit was founded is just as inspiring. The following is an extract from an article by Imogene B. Angell in the October 1991 Friends Journal: “When a suburban independent school refused to admit an African American student because of her race, civic leaders in Detroit were gravely concerned. (The girl was the daughter of Wade McCree, then judge of a U.S. district court in Michigan and later solicitor general of the United States under President Carter.) Knowing Quakers have a strong involvement in solid education and a long history of recognizing the worth of each individual regardless of race, the Detroit civic leaders asked the newly formed Green Pastures Quarterly Meeting to found a Quaker school. A small group of sponsors pooled enough money to get it started. The school began with 65 students in grades 1 - 5 in a storefront. Today, FSID has its own building on 4 ½ acres in downtown Detroit. "
Who does QICSEF help? A group of inner-city Friends schools with a special mission: to serve a student body that represents a microcosm of their inner-city population. These schools are well integrated racially, ethnically and economically and they deal directly with the difficult problems associated with densely populated urban areas. Since they serve a lower than usual economic class, they must keep tuition low, financial aid high, and they cannot expect high levels of giving from their school communities. It is often difficult for them even to keep their operating budgets in balance and they have little or no endowments.
Do schools need endowments? An endowment is an absolutely critical ingredient in running schools and colleges today. Without an endowment a school is treading a very fine line between living and dying. Endowments provide a kind of long-range security which operating funds cannot provide.
Gifts to endowments are enduring contributions. They yield operating income year after year and, when well managed, income and principal grow as the economy grows.
How does QICSEF help? QICSEF seeks to help these schools build sufficient endowments for long-term financial security by matching funds raised by the schools themselves. It is much easier for these schools to solicit endowment funds when donors know their contributions will be matched.
If a participating school should be laid down or cease to be a Friends school, that school’s endowment and income will be apportioned among the others. In this way QICSEF’s and the donors’ intended objective – to support Quaker education in integrated inner-city Friends’ schools – will be preserved.
How are schools selected? To qualify, a school must:
What schools are participating? Five schools have established endowment funds with QICSEF: Friends School of Atlanta, Georgia; Friends School in Detroit, Michigan; Frankford and Greene Street Friends Schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Friends School of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
How is QICSEF organized? QICSEF is a nonprofit, tax-exempt Quaker corporation (exempt from taxation under Section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986). Its purpose is to “solicit contributions and bequests to an endowment fund for participating inner-city Friends schools and to distribute the income to these schools.” Its bylaws require that 3/4 of its 5-15 directors be Friends. It has no paid employees.
How are the funds managed? QICSEF Funds are managed by DOMINI Social Funds and The Deburlo Group, whose investments are guided by principles of social responsibility and have been fiscally successful.
These funds include a general fund and a separate fund for each participating school.
Contributions can be made to QICSEF for an individual school’s fund or to the general QICSEF fund. The general fund is used to match funds raised by the schools themselves. All contributions are tax deductible.
Will you be a donor? QICSEF is looking for three types of donors:
All donors are important. The first and second are essential for QICSEF to qualify as a public charity.
All contributions are tax deductible. Checks made out to QICSEF can be sent to:
QICSEF, Phil Gilbert, Clerk
152 Crosslands Drive
Kennett Square, PA 19348
Plgilbert@aol.com