The Aspen School board is considering allowing naming rights to honor donors in a public way. If it chooses to do so, it would mean reversing a decades-old policy. Carolyn Sackariason reports.
The concept was presented to the board recently by the school district’s nonprofit fundraising arm, Aspen Education Foundation. Naming rights has been a contentious issue in the past and has not very gone far.
But now that state funding continues to dry up — Colorado is 44th in the country in student funding — the board is more receptive to some buildings or assets having a name attached if it helps pay for important educational needs.
Raifie Bass is president of the education foundation board. [He thinks this is no different than other places in the community that have donors’ names attached … like the Aspen Institute or the Lewis ice area. I like this but if needs to be shorter it could go for time-- just the part after “board.”]
"Certainly the football field is a great opportunity and that is need of three quarter of a million dollars in astroturf in the next couple years," he said. "Rather than that be a line item on the school budget that seems like that would be a great opportunity if there is someone that might be willing to do that.”
The Aspen Education foundation would solicit potential donors and bring a proposal to the board for consideration on a case by case basis.