Working together to help inspire the potential of every child
With exponential growth since it opened in 2005, Bridgeway Academy needed to strategize and plan to secure a larger school building and campus.
Bridgeway Academy, formerly known as Helping Hands Center for Special Needs, was founded by its co-directors, speech-language pathologist Abigail David and music therapist Erin Nealy, to provide visionary education and therapy services for children with autism.
The school started with just 12 students. Today it serves 300 families from 28 school districts and nine counties. Families have moved to Central Ohio from West Virginia, Texas, and other states so their children can thrive in this exceptional program.
The school’s growth has taxed its physical space. Bridgeway Academy uses two older Columbus City School buildings that are crowded and outdated. Its staff, students, and families are divided between two locations as a result, with dozens of families on Bridgeway’s waiting list.
Bridgeway Academy has a strong financial model, but it sought Mollard Consulting’s expert guidance on how to proceed on a potential capital campaign. The school wanted its board of trustees enthusiastically engaged in this fundraising decision making.
In our pre-campaign work with Bridgeway Academy, we facilitated a board retreat to help craft new mission and vision statements and discuss and clarify the board’s role in fundraising.
We provided our skilled approach to determine clarity on campaign feasibility — how much can an organization reasonably expect to raise? And campaign readiness — is the infrastructure in place to launch a campaign? The next phase of our partnership will include campaign strategy, planning, and coaching.
Specifically, we are offering these services to Bridgeway Academy:
- Board retreat facilitation, including the board’s roles and responsibilities
- New mission and vision statements, which were widely celebrated
- A clarity report with recommendations on how to proceed with fundraising
- Creation of a capital campaign strategy and plan to support expansion
- Leadership coaching through the campaign stages