Most successful school foundations are well known for building community relations, offering volunteer opportunities and finding resources for schools and school districts. The School Foundation Textbook focuses on defining and developing five major areas that are inherent to most successful K-12 foundations:

• Leadership: Includes development of the foundation board, school board, foundation director and school administration.
• Staff: Provides details about the “volunteer to employee” program.
• Community presence: Includes information on branding, logos, Web sites, publications and “relationship building.”
• Fund raising: Includes content about the annual fund, capital campaigns and planned giving. Also contains an overview of the tremendous number and variety of resources available to schools and districts.
• Recognition: No fundraising project is complete without proper recognition and rewarding of donors, staff and volunteers.