Issaquah Schools Foundation

March Update to PTA/ISF Reps

Hello, everyone, and welcome back from break. Hope it was restful.

Attached to this email are ISF articles for your March newsletters. I understand they may be a bit late for some of you. Sorry about that; hopefully you can charm your newsletter chairs into allowing you to sneak them in under the wire, and/or get them out electronically.  

We're getting down to the wire on Calling for Kids, and people will start to see mailings about the campaign in their mailbox over the next few weeks. This is the time when we all really need to help keep the buzz going about Calling for Kids and Project GLAD so we achieve sufficient momentum to get those donations in and make our $300,000 goal. Use the cheat sheet I sent out to you before break to get the conversations going: have you heard about the Foundation's Calling for Kids campaign? Do you know what the campaign is trying to fund? Do you understand what Project GLAD is? Do you understand why the Foundation is helping the District accelerate the implementation of this strategic program? Anything you can do -- anywhere you can do it -- to help people have that 'a-ha' moment and donate!

A huge thank you to all of you for giving time to Kelly and me at your meetings to talk to your members about the campaign. I am very pleased to announce that 100% of our PTSAs stepped up to get this organized in their units, and we've either already been out to one of your meetings, or we'll be coming out in the next few weeks. 

Here are couple of other follow-ups:

1. We'd like some feedback on the letter from Dr. Rasmussen that was sent out by the District a couple of weeks ago. This was a new element in support of the CFK campaign this year. In the letter, Dr. Rasmussen explained the broader strategy that Project GLAD is a part of and why it's so important for families to support the District by supporting Calling for Kids. Every family in the district should have received this letter. Could you ask around for reactions to it? Do people remember receiving it? If so, what do they remember about it -- what key messages? What kind of effect did the letter have on them and their impressions of either the District and/or ISF? Did the letter make them more or less inclined to donate to the campaign? If you could just casually ask your friends to get a general sense of the response to this letter, then email whatever you've heard to me by this Friday, that would be wonderful. Nothing informal; just general reaction.

2. The postcards you ordered for your PTSA should be in by March 5th. I'll send out a reminder with information about how and where to pick them up. In the meantime, be sure you have your labels ready and that you have a crew of volunteers lined up to slap those  labels on the cards.

3. You should make sure that all the CFK signs allocated to your school are up by this weekend.

4. Last but not least, the video about Project GLAD referred to in the attached newsletter articles should be ready by late today or tomorrow. I will send the link out to you as soon as I get it. It's going to be critically important that each of you start the chain rolling in your community to distribute the video to as many people on your personal address list as appropriate, and ask everyone you're forwarding it to to do the same. Look for this link in an email from me in the next 24 hours.

Thanks for all your great work, everyone!

Leigh