Over the last twenty years, I have had the opportunity to work with many professional associations for teachers, both in Canada and the U.S. and one thing that has always amazed me is how hard these organizations must work to survive, and how many of them manage to do so.
Interesting research from Australia indicates that professional associations for teachers exist in a perpetual state of needs exceeded by resources. In an effort to provide as many benefits and services as possible to their members, they stretch themselves to the fiscal, intellectual, and emotional breaking point. While large associaitons may have the benefit of a greater pool of membership revenues, the reality is that very few have enough membership revenue to cover their expenses. They depend on their volunteers and they depend on external sources of funding.
External funding can take many forms: government grants, foundation grants, corporate support, or contracts for service to some external body. In all of these cases there is a bargain to be made, something that the funding organization wants in return, something that will require association resources (staff, volunteers, equipment) to produce. The best possible projects involve getting funding to do something that the association wants to do for its members anyway. These projects are high mission. Some, however, require doing something that is not much value to the membership, but brings in considerable money. These projects are high revenue. There are also moral questions to be considered. Just because someone will pay your association money to do something, does not mean that you should do it. It may not be in the best interest of your members or their students. Associations are in a constant struggle to balance these considerations.
Because CSTA has been in existence for less than a year and we provide members with free membership for their first year, we have no membership revenue yet to speak of. Instead, we have relied on the generous support of our parent organization (ACM) and many of its members who became charter donors to CSTA (honored on our website). The Special Interests Groups of ACM (under the auspices of the SIG Governing Board) have also made a significant financial commitment to helping CSTA address critical issues in K-12 computer science education. In these ways, ACM has provided the support we needed to get us going and to help us begin building the kinds of funding relationships associations need for long-term viability.
So far, with the help of our fabulous volunteers and mentors, we have done a pretty good job of beginning to build these relationships. IBM and Microsoft have become Gold Level Sponsors and have provided funding for new resources and for professional development events. We are also now in discussions with Sun Microsystems and CISCO. The Sloan Foundation provided funding to pilot six JETT (Java Engagement for Teacher Education) workshops and helped us to get this highly successful nation-wide project off the ground. The College Board has supported us in more ways than we can count. And two separate branches of the National Science Foundation have provided funding for multiple projects that we believe will have a profoundly positive impact on K-12 computer science education. All of these organizations have helped us significantly in our first year.
It is important for our members to know that ensuring CSTA’s long term economic viability is a balancing act and we try to be very careful. We work hard to identify potential sources of funding and to design worthwhile projects. Our Board of Directors makes sure we stay on track. They keep our mission before us and the best interests of our members always in the forefront of our considerations.
Chris