By Jessica Moskowitz
Madison Magazine
Special To Channel 3000

The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) Program at Roosevelt Elementary School in Janesville: Axed.

A referendum to exceed state revenue limits by $1.4 million per year for four years to maintain existing programs and services for the Wisconsin Heights School District: Failed.

Layoff notices, reduced advanced placement courses, indefinitely broken boilers -- these are the results of inadequate government funding for Wisconsin schools. In Madison, corporate giving of money, employee time and resources is vital to the continuation of crucial programs in the metropolitan school district. The Foundation for Madison Public Schools (FMPS) is a nonprofit organization that encourages community involvement to provide additional funding to Madison schools and CUNA Mutual Group is one business that gets an A-plus for their contributions to education.

Foundations And Donations

Martha Vukelich-Austin is president of the Foundation for Madison's Public Schools. Established in September 2000, this independent organization is dedicated to sustaining Madison's public schools by raising funds, making grants and developing partnerships within the community. Vukelich-Austin is both youthful and enthusiastic, and while her primary job for 16 years was taking care of her four children, today she's responsible for finding creative and innovative ways to fund programs and grants for the 47 schools in the district.

"What the foundation was set up to provide is sort of an innovative and creative funding outside of the core school budget," Vukelich-Austin said. "We are never intended to fund things that are really the responsibility of the school district but to be an enhancement to those or functions of the district."

According to the foundation's Web site, the FMPS has raised more than $4 million primarily in endowments and has given back more than $350,000 in grants to Madison schools since its establishment. Three programs that are at the forefront of the FMPS are Principal for a Day, Adopt-A-School and the Individual School Endowment Initiative (ISE). All three programs encourage local businesses and governmental agencies to interact with Madison schools by contributing both employee time and resources, whether it involves taking one school under their wing or literally having a CEO sit in the principals' chair.

The ISE is a unique initiative that promised matching grants for each individual school that raised $5,000. Today, every school has met this goal, including 12 schools that have balances greater than $25,000, and two schools that have over $50,000 in their endowment funds.

CUNA Mutual Group Foundation

According to the Wisconsin State Journal (“Where schools get their money,” 1/28/07) the breakdown for educational funding is as follows: 53 percent of money comes from state aid from sales and income taxes; 37 percent is from local property tax; 6 percent is from federal aid and five percent is from other sources. This chart only cites "program fees, etc." in this category, but the CUNA Mutual Group is one example of a company that donates significantly to Madison schools. With a 'people helping people' philosophy, the company founded The CUNA Mutual Group Foundation in 1967 and put together a volunteer-based employee philanthropy team in 2006.

On February 22, the company announced its partnership with the Children's Service Society of Wisconsin and pledged $218,000 a year for a to-be-determined amount of years to fund two kindergarten readiness programs at local Joining Forces for Families (JFF) Badger and Southwest locations. The "KinderReady" program aims to prepare low-income and minority children from birth age to 5 with the skills necessary for them to be successful when they enter kindergarten.

However, that's not the only contribution CUNA Mutual Group has made in recent years. The company has also been a major contributor to the FMPS and funded the start-up of the Adopt-A-School program. This means that CUNA Mutual Group has set the standard in forming private partnerships with financially disadvantaged schools. They also fund the annual Principal for a Day luncheon that will be held May 1 at the Alliant Energy Center.

Steve Goldberg, executive director of CUNA Mutual Group Foundation, deserves a gold star for his active participation in the Principal for a Day program. This year, he was in CUNA Mutual Groups' backyard at Jefferson Middle School. Goldberg got a firsthand look at everything from breaking up hallway fights to making presentations to new students. He advocates for the program saying, "It's helped me and other local business leaders understand how challenging it is to run a school and how good, professional, competent and intelligent the people are who run those schools."

Why Should Companies Be Involved?

Denis Collins has grayish hair, is trim and speaks with passion. Collins is a professor of business at Edgewood College. He teaches such classes as Social Responsibility in Business and Ethical Business Practices in Madison. He has his students waiting in line at soup kitchens and volunteering their time with local nonprofit agencies.

Collins explains why Madison businesses give to education: "The public school system is the heart of any community," he said. "That's where the future citizens, the future leaders come out of."

Collins said the state of Wisconsin comes up tragically short every year in its ability to finance high schools. "As a result of that you have high schools cutting arts programs, all the arts and cultural things that children really need to be exposed to, so there's this call out now to the business community, 'What can you do to help us because we want to graduate kids that are good citizens,'" he says. "Madison is extremely progressive, extremely socially conscious. If you're a business and you want to be a player in the city of Madison, you want to have a good social conscious because that's just expected of you. The bar in giving is quite high."

While the CUNA Mutual Group Foundation is an eminent contributor to the community, Goldberg is unpretentious about giving. Goldberg said he gives because the value of generosity was instilled in him as a child. "A lot of us learn philanthropy and volunteer involvement from our parents," he said. "My mom always thinks of herself last. She thought of her kids first and that helped me learn about thinking of other first."

Those interested in adopting a school or volunteering time in the Madison Metropolitan School District you can visit the FMPS at FoundationMadisonSchools.com. You can help the foundation reach its goal of having every school in the district reach a $50,000 endowment balance.