Endowment at
THE ROEPER SCHOOL
Endowing Roeper’s Future A gift to endowment is a commitment to the future. By contributing to an endowment fund, your gift is preserved in perpetuity. In this way, you are helping to ensure that future students at Roeper will have the same opportunity as today’s students to discover who they are and gain the skills they need to build their place in the world. Our endowment funds are carefully managed to allow part of their assets to be used each year, thus providing a reliable contribution each year, while ensuring that it will be available next year, and the next, and the next.
Q: Why does the school need contributions in addition to tuition and fees? Tuition at Roeper, as with all independent schools, does not cover the total cost of educating each student. Each year the school asks for contributions from trustees, parents, faculty, alumni, alumni parents, former faculty and staff, grandparents and friends of the school for the Annual Fund. In addition, when a major construction project is planned, the school launches a Capital Campaign to collect gifts and pledges for new buildings or renovations. Annual Fund and Capital Campaign contributions are meant to be spent.
Q: How is an endowment gift different? Contributions to endowment are preserved as principal, and the school directs part of the assets to its operating budget each year. The majority of the endowment assets are managed by the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees, using best practices of accounting and reporting according to the National Association of Independent Schools. Assets are invested in a range of financial instruments to provide a predictable rate of return with a moderate amount of risk. The school expects the funds to provide an average return of 7 – 9% annually, through capital appreciation, interest and dividends. Each year, 4% of the value of the total endowment assets (averaged over 16 quarters) is contributed, thus protecting the integrity of the principal. By providing predictable, ongoing support, endowment funds improve the ability of the administration and the Board of Trustees to plan for the long-term financial health of the school.
Q: Is there just one endowment fund? The current value of the school’s total endowment is $7.1 million. These assets are segregated into a number of funds dedicated to different purposes, depending upon the request of the donor or the decision of the Roeper Board of Trustees.
This total represents substantial gifts from individuals and foundations who believe in the mission of The Roeper School. Many independent schools, particularly East Coast schools, were established with a large donation settled on them by a wealthy founder or benefactor. That is not the tradition for most independent schools in the Midwest. George and Annemarie Roeper arrived in Detroit with no money of their own, and spent the next 40 years building a nursery and grade school with nine students into a flourishing preschool through high school with a national reputation for gifted education. Their ability to raise funds was prodigious, but money was needed to construct buildings and expand the program.
Q: How did Roeper build its endowment? Roeper was not unique in its focus on meeting immediate needs over seeking funds for endowment. In the mid-1990s, the Community Foundation for SE Michigan and The McGregor Fund issued endowment challenges for area independent schools and non-profits to secure their legacies. Roeper, for example, received $1 from The McGregor Fund for every $3 raised for endowment, McGregor’s maximum match. Those campaigns helped take the school’s endowment levels from $242,000 in 1990 to more than $1 million by 1997. Other major endowment gifts have also come to the school, including $2 million from the Malone Foundation in 2000, and $1 million in honor of Joseph and Helen Iten in 2010. Mariann Hoag, a key figure in the school’s development who worked closely with the Roepers beginning in 1948 until her death in 2009, left her entire estate to the school, adding almost $500,000 to endowment. Other individuals, beginning with pace-setting gifts from the Kellogg and Hurd families at the time of the school’s 50th anniversary in 1991 and continuing through recent gifts by the Bernard and Stafeil families, have helped build our endowment over the years. ENDOWMENT FUND GROWTH 2002/03 — 2012/13
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* Decline in asset value due to economic crisis.
Q: What specific purposes are the Endowment funds used for? About 80% of endowment funds are designated for Scholarship and Financial Aid, fulfilling a central mission of the school while relieving pressure on the operating budget. In 1965, George and Annemarie led the Board to its first statement of principles. To fulfill the school’s mission of educating gifted children to be “true members of a modern world society,” the school had to enable a diverse student body of all races, religions and economic levels: This means that the basic philosophy of the school must be carried out with parental and community support for an extensive scholarship program because, without this, one of the most fundamental principles of the school would be violated. The gates must be open to all children who need this school and who should be a part of it. Statement of Policies of the City and Country School of Bloomfield Hills, February 3, 1965
Over the years, the school has remained faithful to this charge. While most independent schools award tuition assistance to approximately 15 – 25% of their student bodies, Roeper allocates 35 – 40%. Increasing the amount of Scholarship and Financial Aid derived from the endowment frees more of the operating budget for other programs while still fulfilling a core mission.
Q: What else is supported by endowment funds? The ability of endowment funds to provide recurring support makes them particularly valuable for programs that are core to the school’s values and goals. Endowment funds have been established to support the Athletics, Forensics, Debate, and Chess programs, to bring in visiting artists, underwrite faculty professional development, and cover costs of extracurricular activities for students on financial aid so they can participate fully in the Roeper experience.
Q: How can I help grow the school’s endowment? Thank you for wanting to contribute to this important need. While we have made great progress in growing our endowment, the larger it is, the more secure our future will be. Donors may make general endowmnet gifts to the George and Annemarie Roeper Endowment Fund, which will be placed where they are most needed, or contribute to existing funds for specific purposes. If a donor is interested in endowing a fund for a new purpose, there is a minimum donation of $50,000 to reduce administrative overhead in tracking the funds.
Two Endowment Narratives The Malone Family Foundation A chance encounter with co-founder Annemarie Roeper and Tracy Malone lead to the single largest endowment gift of $2,000,000 awarded to The Roeper School. The backdrop for this remarkable convergence was a National Association for Gifted Children Conference, where Annemarie presented a series of lectures on giftedness, and Tracy Malone’s participation at the same conference included her thoughtful study of leaders in the field and how she and her family might best serve this population. The creation of the Malone Scholars Program soon followed. Through the Malone Scholars Program, the foundation has provided scholarship endowments to select independent secondary schools throughout the United States, insuring continuing support for top students who are motivated to excel but lack the resources to fund such an education. Malone network schools have been selected through a rigorous research process, and the schools themselves select Malone Scholars annually.
The Zoreslawa Slusarczuk Fund for Student Travel In an early commencement speech delivered by George Roeper, he noted: Maybe these years have given you a sense of community with the school, a sense of having gotten values dear to you, a sense of having had meaningful relationships with friends. If that is so, I cannot see how we can ever forget each other. Marko Slusarczuk, Roeper Alumnus – Class of 1970, did not forget, and in 2007 he established The Zoreslawa Slusarczuk Fund for Student Travel. The sole purpose of this endowment is to fund travel costs of students who cannot otherwise participate in school sanctioned activities. The purpose reflects Marko’s personal experience as a student at Roeper, when his parents could not afford to pay for him to participate in a school trip to Washington, D.C., the school or some anonymous benefactor paid for him to be able to participate. He and his wife, Norma Lynn Fox, hope to similarly impact other lives.
Roeper Endowment Funds The Athletic Endowment Fund in Memory of Al Vagnetti Bernard Family Forensics and Debate Endowment Fund The Tim Booth Endowment Fund Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan The Joseph and Helen Iten Endowment Fund The Susan and Elizabeth Kellogg Scholar Endowment Fund The Lori A. Lutz Endowment Fund The Malone Family Foundation Scholarship Endowment The McGregor Fund The Erin and Blayne Milbeck Fund The George and Annemarie Roeper Endowment Fund The Stafeil Family Chess Endowment The William Wetsman Endowed Scholarship Fund The Zoreslawa Slusarczuk Fund for Student Travel Roeper Endowment for the Arts
If you would like to help sustain the long-term financial health of The Roeper School by supporting our endowment program with an immediate gift or through planned giving, please contact Denita Banks-Sims, Director of Development and Publications, at denita.banks-sims@roeper.org
Cover photos by Christopher Rainone
Published July 2014
THE ROEPER SCHOOL 41190 WOODWARD AVENUE BLOOMFIELD HILLS MICHIGAN 48304-5020 248.203.7300 www.roeper.org