“I have never had a more in-depth conversation with a foundation representative,” says Executive Director Frank Graffeo, referring to a fruitful meeting in his office with Tiffany Kerns, Director of Community Outreach for the Country Music Association (CMA) Foundation last fall. “They don’t simply write checks. They direct their funding, time, and energy into specific areas of the School and focus on how, and how much, their support helps.”

The grant we got from the CMA Foundation—a generous $20,000—is designed to help us do a handful of important things, like getting better at measuring the positive effects of our program on the lives of the kids we serve. These include the relationship between kids’ study here and their attendance rates in Knox County Schools. The Foundation money is also helping us get a program for our alumni off the ground. It’s clear the CMA Foundation wants to help us set goals, meet them, and provide the extra resources required to achieve them. That’s a foundation providing foundational support.

 

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