Champions For Kids Steps up Giving

Adelaide Schaeffer has gone to Harvard, and she’s invited some of the top corporate leaders in Northwest Arkansas to join her.

Schaeffer, the founder of Champions For Kids, a nonprofit dedicated to raising funds and awareness for other charitable organizations, is spending the 2008-09 academic year in Boston at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

CFK, whose signature event each year is the EAS Razorfest in conjunction with the University of Arkansas spring football game, has increased its giving to local charities dramatically in the last two years.

After collecting nearly $1.2 million while paying out just $43,850 in grants during its first three years from 2004-06, CFK has paid $250,000 to its partner nonprofits in 2007 and 2008. The nonprofit partners of CFK have exceeded those grants by raising around $630,000 themselves.

Thanks to four area families — two of which are paying about 90 percent of the cost — Schaeffer is pursuing a master’s degree while subletting an apartment and studying ways to mobilize public/private partnerships to address social problems.

On Oct. 22-23, Schaeffer will host a task force of about 20 leaders from Northwest Arkansas — including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. chief operating officer Bill Simon — at Harvard to discuss ways to improve CFK’s performance and expand its reach.

“To have Wal-Mart as a partner in anything, that will give you a great chance at being successful,” said CFK board member Tommy Karr, of Arvest Asset Management in Fayetteville. “We want to continue to grow and make a difference with community.”

Schaeffer, who is one of just 200 students admitted to the most internationally diverse program at the Kennedy School, is learning alongside representatives of other nonprofits, corporations and governments.

She’s made ties with David Gergen, a CNN news analyst and a veteran of five presidential administrations. Gergen is deeply involved with New Profit Inc., an organization Schaeffer calls “the Wal-Mart to what we are.”

New Profit will lend a hand as Simon and other corporate team leaders from the Wal-Mart vendor community descend on Boston next month.

“We’ll do the kick off here and resume it back in Northwest Arkansas,” Schaeffer said. “Bill Simon has really shown a heart and attentiveness. He’s here for the right reasons. All the people at the table are here for the right reasons.

“I have kind of a radar for that.”

Schaeffer is juggling her course work and CFK duties with barely any time left to run the two hours per day she would like.

Her first semester includes 20 hours of classes, with each class having a minimum of four hours of homework for the next session.

Schaeffer figures between school and work, she’s putting in at least 80 hours a week and doesn’t have much left for any kind of social life.

“There’s going to be a payoff on this,” she said. “I can’t afford to waste time.”

Balancing Books

Overhead expenses to produce Razorfest, which accounted for more than $210,000 of CFK’s $526,330 budget in 2006, were down to around $93,000 in 2008 according to Schaeffer’s husband and “Drive Time Sports” host Rick Schaeffer. He said some nonprofits quit their involvement after eight organizations split just $9,000 in grants in 2006.

“We wanted to do the higher payouts when we first started,” Rick Schaeffer said. “We said [to the partners], ‘Here’s where we are. Here’s where we thought we’d be. If you want to keep going, we want you to come on with us.’

“We did have three organizations who said, ‘Thanks,’ but decided not to participate.”

Adelaide Schaeffer, who founded CFK with the purpose of providing training for nonprofits to increase their profile and become sustainable, said in the early years their “heart got ahead of our head.”

“We came out of the chute overambitious,” Adelaide Schaeffer said. “We wanted to hit the mark right off the bat. We did some funding that was kind of silly. When you look back, there are things we could do better.”

Adelaide Schaeffer said a big part of her spring course work will involve measurement and program evaluation. There is evidence of more measurement in CFK’s latest flyer, which said 870 low-income kids received eyeglasses through the Brandon Burlsworth Foundation and 75 developmentally disabled children were able to attend Camp Barnabas in Missouri.

A generally accepted ratio for charitable organizations is that overhead costs should not be more than 30 percent of an organization’s budget.

By this standard, CFK has some improvement to make.

In 2006, the last year for which IRS data is available, CFK’s payroll expenses for Adelaide Schaeffer and her staff accounted for 30 percent without taking any of the event production costs of Razorfest into consideration.

The $9,000 in grants paid in 2006 represented just 1.7 percent of its total revenue.

Estimates of revenue for the 2007 and 2008 years are around $538,000 and $700,000, roughly and respectively, and the total donations now account for just more than 20 percent of revenue.

Adelaide Schaeffer’s original salary with CFK was $53,600 during the 2005 fiscal year and Rick Schaeffer’s was $26,000.

In 2006, when Rick Schaeffer became the public information officer for the Springdale School District, his compensation decreased to $2,000 while hers increased to $74,033, accounting for 14.1 percent of the total budget in 2006 and around 10 percent in 2008.

“We looked at how her salary compared to others in the nonprofit community,” said Karr, who is the CFK treasurer.

“We thought she was putting in more hours than she was getting paid for, which happens in the nonprofit business. We thought it was a reasonable salary.”

The Schaeffers said COO Cathy Cooper has been instrumental in finding the best deals to help CFK save money. Rick Schaeffer estimated Cooper saved the organization about $20,000 last year.

The UA increased its fee for renting the stadium for the 7-on-7 football game from $15,000 to $40,000 in 2008, but also provided an assist on marketing by sending out e-mail blasts to ticket-holders and picking up the tab for ushers and clean-up crews.

“They did a fantastic job,” Rick Schaeffer said of the UA, where he worked for 25 years as sports information director. “We eliminated some costs, and hopefully next year we’ll eliminate some more.”

Continuing to trim costs and increase grants are high priorities for the Schaeffers and CFK as it shifts its mission from merely providing exposure and training for nonprofits to providing good old-fashioned cash money.

“Every leader has to look at their organization,” she said, “and say, ‘Where are we strong? Where can we get better?’”

Feeling Like a Million

The kickoff event for the 2009 Razorfest will be Nov. 7 at the Clarion Inn and Convention Center in Bentonville to award the grants to CFK’s partner organizations.

The 2008 beneficiaries include the Brandon Burlsworth Foundation, Camp Barnabas, The Elizabeth Richardson Center, Arkansas Baptist Children’s Homes, Community Clinic at St. Francis, LifeSource, Arkansas Support Network and the Yvonne Richardson Center.

Each will receive a $15,000 grant. “We’re young, we’re not perfect and we’re still learning,” she said. “But the opportunity is now and it is fun to be doing this work.”

Adelaide Schaeffer said the Kennedy School program includes representatives from the Homeland Security Department, naval commanders, ambassadors, UNICEF and the Children’s Defense Fund.

“When you come into this course, it just blows your mind,” she said. “The contacts are everything and it just expands my conversation as it affects Champions For Kids. You find out about global issues and how they are being addressed through the world.”

Her trip to Boston began last fall at the 2007 CFK kickoff. She spoke to about 350 people and made a statement about what it would be like to spread their mission beyond Northwest Arkansas.

“It wasn’t a plan, I just went there,” she said. “I said, ‘Someday we’d like to do that.’”

By that afternoon, her e-mail inbox was filling up and her phone was ringing with the likes of Simon and companies like Coca-Cola and Disney offering help.

“I was blown away,” she said. “These are people with multi-million budgets, leading teams with contacts and an alignment of social values.

“I thought, ‘Oh my goodness. This goes way beyond someone offering me a million dollars.’ I met with everyone, one by one, and asked if they would help us begin to shape the blueprint.

“What an opportunity to bring worlds together.”