Filling a void for cash-strapped districts: Golden firm helps schools find corporate sponsorships.

• Author: Caley, Nora
• Position: EDUCATION

PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE STRUGGLING with budget cuts, and corporations are looking for new ways to market their brands. Golden-based Education Funding Partners is working to bring the two together.

"Companies spend $150 billion a year on advertising," says Mickey Freeman, president and CEO of the two-year-old EFP. "There has got to be a way to redirect some percentage of that in an ethical and moral way into public education."

Advertising as a means of fundraising for schools is not a new concept. Local companies have long paid to display banners at sports venues and run small ads in the back pages of theater programs. Freeman says EFP's efforts are on a much bigger, and more strategic, scale. "Don't think about us as a signage company," he says. We give marketers the opportunity to invest district-wide."

EFP is a B Corporation, or socially responsible enterprise, that serves as a matchmaker between Fortune 500 companies that want to buy sponsorships and school districts looking for supplemental funding. The advertising can include corporate logos on school websites or on the Friday folders that students bring home, as well as signage. The school district receives 80 percent of the revenue generated by the advertising deals, and EFP earns 20 percent.

Some school districts already have corporate sponsorship policies, with rules on everything from types of advertisers to stadium naming rights. Schools generally do not want ads that promote smoking, or that discriminate against any group. Some do not want ads in the classrooms, so the marketing materials appear in parking lots and cafeterias.

One of EFP's first clients is SPARK, the education foundation for Prince William' County Public Schools in Virginia. Sharon Henry, supervisor, community and business engagement executive director for SPARK. says the 93-school district did a pilot with EFT and the drugstore chain CVS last year. CVS promoted its flu shots on flyers, the foundation's website, and on banners at stadiums. The schools earned S30,000 from the six-week effort. SPARK, an acronym for Supporting Partnerships and Resources for Kids, is currently looking at other proposals with EFT.

"The reason we did it is our donation dollars are drying up," Henry says. "We had businesses that used to donate every year, and then they stopped during the recession. This is a good way to counterbalance that." Now, instead of asking companies for philanthropic dollars. SPARK can talk to companies about...