Looking out
Creating an awardwinning fundraising campaign Laura Firth describes a proud tradition of wide-ranging access
Found between Manchester and the Lancashire Moors, Bolton School, Tes Independent School of the Year 2019, is one of the largest independent day schools in the country with almost 2,400 pupils on roll. One in five pupils are supported by bursary funding, and promoting social mobility through bursary provision and a sharp focus on fee levels sees the School leading the way in this important work. So how does a school take the steps to make wide ranging access to a fee-paying school a top priority? Context and history are important. The Bolton School Foundation came into existence in its modern form in 1915, with the foresight and generosity of industrialist Lord Leverhulme, founder of what we know today as Unilever, bringing together two much older schools ‘to make it possible, for every child of ability, no matter what their social or financial background, to come to the School’. The combination of philanthropy and equality of access has remained crucial to the School’s success in the century since. So too has clear direction and vision from the Governing Body. For its first 89 years, the Foundation received direct financial support from the Government. During the heyday of the Direct Grant era, one in three pupils at the School received financial support for their education, reducing to one in four in the days of the Assisted Places scheme. Governors anticipated
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the end of this scheme as early as 1992 and launched a Bursary Appeal which has continued to galvanise Alumni and other supporters ever since. Established for over 20 years, the School’s Development Office now raises, on average, £1 million annually. Since those early days, the School has spent over £27 million on bursarial assistance, enabling over 1,800 children to attend the School who would otherwise have been denied the opportunity to do so. In the 2017-18 academic year alone, the School spent £2.8 million on means-tested bursaries: one in five pupils across the two senior schools receives some level of financial support for their education, with the aim of returning to one in three. Any successful development activity inevitably has a slow start and needs investment, of both time and money, from Governors and from Heads. Open, honest collaboration between Bolton School’s Head of Development and its Heads has been crucial to its sustained fundraising success. The Head is the lynchpin of a School community: without their visible advocacy for a fundraising campaign - be that for bursaries or a capital project - there is no viable case for support. When a Head is able (and willing) to successfully articulate the school’s vision to a donor and explain how their financial support will contribute to the successful delivery of that vision, then gifts almost inevitably follow. At Bolton School, Development is high on both Heads’ agendas and they play an active part in shaping the School’s
