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Photo courtesy of The Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation.
The Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation’s annual Track Meet event brings together Mountain Brook elementary school students to compete in the fundraising event. The 2025 track meet raised $87,000.
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Photo courtesy of the Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation.
The Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation’s annual Track Meet event brings together Mountain Brook elementary school students to compete in the fundraising event. The 2025 track meet raised $87,000.
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Photo courtesy of the Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation.
MBCSF Board President Kristin Ritter, Kathryn Harbert, Mountain Brook Schools Superintendent Dicky Barlow, Lisa Miller and MBCSF Rachel Weingartner at a fundraising event for the Fund our Future campaign.
The Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation has raised nearly $5.5 million since launching its “Fund Our Future: Endowing Student Success” campaign, moving significantly closer to its long-term goal of granting $1 million annually to Mountain Brook Schools.
Launched in August 2024, the campaign initially aimed to raise $3 million by the end of 2025, increasing the foundation’s endowment to $15 million. But community support exceeded expectations. By December 2024 — during the campaign’s silent phase — the foundation had already reached that $3 million milestone.
Campaign co-chairs Caroline Little and Mary Catherine Pritchett, both Mountain Brook High School graduates from the Class of 1997, helped guide the effort.
After early success, the committee expanded its goal to $5 million to align with the foundation’s strategic vision: building a $20 million endowment capable of generating $1 million in grants each year.
That revised target was reached even faster. By June 2025, the campaign had already neared $5.5 million in total giving.
Still, Foundation leaders stress that fundraising continues.
“I think it's important to note, the sooner we can get the million dollars to the school system, the better,” said MBCSF Board President Kristin Ritter. “That's why we keep raising money.”
The $1 million benchmark is based on a distribution model that allocates 5% of the endowment’s 12-quarter average. With the endowment currently near $15 million, leaders say closing the gap now will accelerate the foundation’s ability to make the full annual grant.
“Public schools just don't have the discretionary spending that private schools do, because every item is line itemed,” Ritter said. “So this helps us be more forward thinking.”
The campaign’s success is largely thanks to grassroots organizing. More than a dozen small-group gatherings were hosted throughout the community, giving families a clearer understanding of the foundation’s mission.
“It has just been so wonderful to see the generosity of the community and people really understanding the importance of what the foundation is doing in ways that I don't think people really grasped before this campaign was launched,” Pritchett said.
Founded in 1992, the Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation has granted more than $11 million to the school system, with funding exclusively directed toward academic programs and enhancements. Its five annual fundraisers — Give 180, the Grandparents Club, Every Dollar Counts (for teacher giving), the Class Gift and the Track Meet — cover operating expenses and help grow the endowment beyond campaign targets.
In 2024, Mountain Brook Schools requested $720,000 in foundation funding. The foundation was able to grant just under $600,000, supporting academic assistance, technology, library improvements and teacher development. Recent projects include virtual reality software and new math and writing labs that support individualized learning — the type of innovation the foundation hopes to fund more consistently with a $1 million annual grant.
“I will shout from the rooftops how grateful I am for the foundation,” said Mountain Brook High School teacher Morgan Chatham. “To know that they listened to my idea, thought it was valuable, and trusted me to run with it — that is just an incredible indication of support.”
Chatham’s vision for an interactive math classroom led to the installation of wall-to-wall whiteboards, now used in every high school math class.
One of the campaign’s most visible community moments came during the elementary school track meet, where students wore shirts bearing the campaign’s slogan: “Fund Our Future.”
Looking ahead, the foundation plans to launch a major gifts campaign every 10 years and continue building a culture of giving across generations.
“We just live in such a generous community, and we've been so blessed by having a public school system where we don't have to pay to go to school,” Pritchett said. “However, we have people in this community that understand the value of having the private school standard in a public school. I’m just so grateful for those people who had the foresight 33 years ago to think about that — and for the next generation to also see that and give. It’s been just extremely powerful. I think it's going to help our school system in ways that we aren't even capable of really understanding right now.”
As the campaign enters its public phase, the foundation is encouraging individual donors to help close the gap. Visit mbgives.org/fundfuture to learn more or make a donation.
