Gift Opportunities

The President’s Strategic Initiatives C ampaign

Gift Opportunities 2012 - 2015

The American Farm School Thessaloniki · Greece

The President’s Strategic Initiatives Campaign provides specific giving opportunities for donors to consider as the American Farm School begins its second century of service as an educational leader in contemporary agriculture, the environment and life sciences.

Gifts in support of these initiatives will be a catalyst for immediate action and help the School meet its priority goals over the next several years.

The opportunities listed here are intended as guidelines for donors and campaign volunteers. In addition to a range of naming opportunities at a variety of giving levels, expendable gift options in each priority area are also available. Gifts may be made over a period of five years or less.

Volunteers and staff look forward to working with donors to match their specific interests with the needs of the School.

For more information, please contact Ms. Joann Ryding Beltes, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at +30-2310-492-734 or email jryding@afs.edu.gr.

Thank you for your interest and consideration.

Endowment The American Farm School’s Scholarship Program for promising students with limited financial resources in its secondary school and Perrotis College of Agriculture, Environment and Life Sciences is a central aspect of the institution’s mission and among its most critically important funding needs. Since its founding, the School has provided tuition assistance to more than 90% of its students, making it unique in the region and among the many reasons it is universally admired and supported by the people of Greece. A gift to establish an endowed scholarship will provide scholarship assistance in perpetuity for students in the secondary school or Perrotis College.

Endowment Naming Opportunities $500,000

Endowed Scholarship in the secondary school

or Perrotis College

$700,000

Endowed Professorship

Any size gift may be made to the general Endowment, the Scholarship Endowment, or the Faculty Support Fund.

Naming a faculty member to an Endowed Professorship is the highest academic honor bestowed by the School as it recognizes exceptional teaching and service to the institution. A gift towards an Endowed Professorship supports faculty salaries for the institution’s teacher-scientists and helps ensure ongoing distinction in its Learn by Doing approach to teaching excellence.

Establishing a Primary School:

Environmental Education through Experiential Learning Primary School Naming Opportunities $1,000,000

Primary School Complex (Grades 1-6)

$500,000

Preschool Building (PreK and K)

$75,000

Science Laboratory (Grades 1-6)

$50,000

Media and Technology Center (Grades 1-6)

$50,000

Discovery Gardens (serving PreK-Grade 6)

$30,000

Quadrangle Courtyard and Garden

in Primary School Complex (Grades 1-6)

$30,000

A Classroom

$20,000

Preschool Greenhouse

Environmental Education Curriculum and Professional Development $150,000

Named Position: Coordinator of Curriculum

and Instruction

$35,000

Named Fund: Curriculum and Teacher Training Fund

$15,000

Named Collection in the Library:

Professional Development for Environmental Education

The American Farm School takes an historic step forward by introducing primary education on its campus. The School’s goal is to instill in all its students a lifelong respect and appreciation for the natural world, while fostering responsible engagement with the environment for an ecologically sustainable future. To achieve this, the School believes it must reach children at the youngest possible age.

The American Farm School’s primary division will be housed in two renovated facilities on campus. Because students learn what they live, the preschool and primary schools will be green facilities, renovated in a way that keeps the children connected with the natural world while also helping them actively learn about natural resource conservation.

The School intends that its primary division will become a prototype of environmental education through experiential learning, and that it will become a leading resource — through its professional staff, its Dimitris & Aliki Perrotis Library, and network of educational partners in the U.S. — for other teachers and organizations in Greece and the region seeking to replicate this model.

Teaching Science To meet the challenges of education in agriculture, the environment and other life sciences in today’s rapidly changing world, teaching and applied research are intertwined and should interact synergistically for the most effective student learning. Students must understand how new knowledge is created and know they can make a contribution. The teacher-scientists of the American Farm School and Perrotis College place the student at the center of the learning experience through hands-on experimentation and discovery.

Information technology today is integral to creating an advanced learning environment. It will continue to transform teaching and research methodologies, enable greater collaboration, and support different learning styles. In short, technology will offer unimaginable learning opportunities for tomorrow’s students.

The institution is committed to providing the tools and technology to support its faculty and students as they reach for excellence in the sciences, and has pledged to enhance, upgrade and equip the key teaching laboratories below. The Technology Fund will be a source of flexible support that will allow the institution to strategically plan and integrate its campus technology for contemporary teaching and learning across all its educational divisions, as well as respond to rapidly changing opportunities as technology develops.

Teaching Science Naming Opportunities $200,000

Food Science and Technology Laboratory

in Perrotis College

$80,000

Innovative Dairy Products Laboratory

in Educational Dairy

$50,000

Named Fund: Science Faculty Training Fund

Information Technology Naming Opportunity $200,000

Technology Fund

Any size gifts are welcome to renew laboratory equipment and meet rapidly developing information technology needs across the curriculum, campus and educational farm.

Renewing American Identity of Institution The distinctive Learn by Doing approach to education is one of the many American values that make the American Farm School unique in Greece.

The School is committed to furthering the exchange of ideas, know-how, and perspectives between the U.S. and Greece, and to preparing students for global citizenship.

Toward this end, the School recently began a number of programs to expand and deepen the English program in the secondary school; to encourage continued studies in the U.S. by graduates of the secondary school and Perrotis College; to create a robust Study Abroad program at Perrotis College; to promote summer program participation in both directions; and to develop the Dimitris & Aliki Perrotis Library as the campus center of American culture. The duties of the U.S. Fellows (recent graduates of American universities who live in the campus dormitories and undertake a year’s service to the institution) have been expanded to assist more dynamically in English language acquisition, student life activities, coaching, U.S. college counseling, and more.

The amounts below are minimums required to establish a named program through an expendable gift restricted towards these efforts.

Renewing the American Identity of AFS Naming Opportunities $150,000

English Language Program

$100,000

U.S. College Counseling Program

$75,000

Perrotis College Study Abroad Program

$50,000

American Culture Program in Library

$20,000

U.S. Teaching Fellow or U.S. Student Life Fellow (annual)

$10,000

Scholarship for student participation in summer program abroad (annual)

(AFS & Perrotis College participation in U.S. summer programs & U.S. students’ participation in Greek Summer or Perrotis College Study Abroad programs)

Any size gift is welcome to support these programs through the School’s Annual Fund.

Sustainability Fund The American Farm School and Perrotis College have endorsed sustainability and resource conservation as top priorities on the campus and intend to expand their educational offerings in sustainability to their students.

The Sustainability Fund will provide flexible support for new initiatives in conserving resources as well as in curriculum development for new course offerings and applied research in resource management, xeriscaping, green technologies and more. The School aims to be a model of sustainability on its residential campus and educational farm.

Naming Opportunities $200,000 Sustainability Fund

Campus Master Plan The American Farm School has arrived at an exciting juncture in its history. As it improves and expands its educational programs for the 21st century, it is also envisioning how its historic campus can better support the type of innovative teaching and applied research that will attract talented students and faculty.

Creating a campus master plan is the critical next step. A professionally prepared campus master plan will provide a strategic framework for developing the School’s physical environment for the next twenty years.

Naming Opportunity $150,000

Campus Master Plan

Annual Fund Every gift to the Annual Fund is also a gift to the Campaign. The American Farm School’s Annual Fund supports the institution’s ongoing operating costs. Approximately 10% of the annual budget comes from gifts to the Annual Fund, a standard percentage among educational institutions. Each year, alumni and friends are asked to make a gift to support the academic and cocurricular programs on campus.

Gifts to the Annual Fund support everything the School does. They provide students with seeds, tools and animal feed for the practical training on the campus farm; test tubes, beakers and chemicals for the laboratories; library books and electronic subscriptions; contemporary technology; utilities for the campus classrooms, dormitories and farm; and, perhaps most importantly, tuition scholarships. The School’s Scholarship Program, partially funded through the Annual Fund, provides a unique top-quality education that would be out of reach to the majority of our students without it.

Every gift of every size to the Annual Fund is welcome and will truly make a difference. For more information on making a gift to the Annual Fund, please visit www.afs.edu.gr/giving; contact the Office of Institutional Advancement at campaign@afs.edu.gr; or telephone the U.S. Office at +212-463-8434.

Office of Institutional Advancement American Farm School 12 Marinou Antipa Street, P.O. Box 23 Thessaloniki, Greece 55102 T: +30-2310-492-890, F: +30-2310-492-727 campaign@afs.edu.gr www.afs.edu.gr U.S. Office 1133 Broadway, Suite 1226 New York, NY 10010 T: 212-463-8434, F: 212-463-8208