Education Foundation announces largest gift in its 30-year history

25-Sep-2012 Education Foundation announces largest gift  in its 30-year history

"Transformative" $4.8 million bequest will benefit students throughout Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District   

 
At last night's Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education meeting, Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation Executive Director Linda Greenberg Gross announced that the Foundation is the beneficiary of an estate gift of $4.8 million, the largest gift in the organization's 30-year history. The gift, from the estate of the late Peggy Bergmann, will be divided into two parts:

• $2.4 million has been designated to establish an arts endowment for the purpose of providing semi-private music instruction, as well as the purchase and maintenance of musical instruments, for economically disadvantaged students throughout the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The newly-created endowment will be known as the Peggy Bergmann Arts Endowment Fund, in memory of Lenore Bergmann and John Elmer Bergmann.

• $2.4 million has been designated as current-use dollars to address SMMEF's critical needs within the District. During the coming months, Superintendent Sandra Lyon will be working with the newly-formed Superintendent's Advisory Council, made up of District, Foundation, and community leaders, to assess the District's most critical needs in determining the best and most impactful use of these dollars.

This is a truly transformative gift for the Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation and our efforts to support every student at every school in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. This gift will help us continue the great work that is already happening in our schools, and it will ensure that programs throughout our District can continue in these difficult economic times.   

This magnificent gift will have an enormous effect on our schools today and in perpetuity. As state funding for public education continues to decline, it's never been more important that we seek support from our communities to ensure continued excellence in our schools. This gift is a tremendous step in that direction.   

The Bergmann bequest arrives at a time when the District is moving toward a centralized fundraising model in which the Education Foundation broadens its focus from events and annual appeals to major and planned gifts that will create sustainability for important programs at schools throughout the District. Cultivation of long-term relationships, such as the one that resulted in this gift, is now a core focus of the Foundation's centralized fundraising efforts. 

Ms. Bergmann passed away on December 10, 2011.  According to Bruce and Sonya Sultan, attorneys for the Estate of Peggy Bergmann and longtime supporters of the District and of the Education Foundation, Ms. Bergmann had learned of the District's efforts to provide equity to all students through a centralized fundraising model, and she wanted to jump start that effort with this bequest.

Again, according to Ms. Bergmann's attorneys, it was her hope that this gift would encourage others to give large and small gifts to the Education Foundation to make program equity a reality for all children in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The fact that Ms. Bergmann's friend and executor was familiar with the fine reputation of the Education Foundation helped solidify Ms. Bergmann's decision to benefit the organization.