Endowment Project cofounders Chris Bossola (left) and Michael Bor (third from left), join Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins (second from right) at last month’s event at Armstrong High School. (Courtesy Endowment Project)
As it rolls out its first fundraising programs for local high schools as a proof-of-concept, Richmond startup The Endowment Project’s efforts just got a boost from a new, deep-pocketed source: the developers of the planned Southside casino.
The company, which launched earlier this year to help create endowments for public high schools, has already stood up several initial funds as test runs at Freeman High School, Midlothian High and Petersburg High.
On Oct. 18 it announced its first such effort in the city of Richmond, with the establishment of the RPS Teacher Excellence Fund. That fund is seeded by $100,000 from the developers of the Richmond Grand Resort & Casino.
As announced at an event at Armstrong High School, the casino group, made up of media conglomerate Urban One and racing and gaming giant Churchill Downs Inc., pledged to continue to fill the fund’s coffers with a total of $1 million over 10 years.
But that pledge comes with a caveat. It’s contingent on the $562 million casino project becoming a reality.
“Richmond Grand needs to exist in order to resource these projects,” said Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins. “The balances of the commitment happen once our project is up and running…at the opening of the casino.”
The pledge is the latest attempt to tie the casino to education funding in the city, as the developer group hopes to sway Richmond residents to vote in favor of next week’s referendum, which is needed for the project to move forward. It’s Urban One’s second attempt at a casino in South Richmond, after voters rejected a previous iteration by a narrow margin in a referendum two years ago.
“We’ve done a lot of research since the last referendum that tells us people care about teacher resources and teacher pay,” Liggins said of the group’s decision to get involved with the Endowment Project.
“We came across the Endowment Project and liked their business model, their focus. It’s really unique in how they’re approaching it,” Liggins said.
For the Endowment Project, the $100,000 from Liggins’ group was an unexpected source of seed money to help the startup continue to test its concept.
The RPS fund and the three others that have launched since mid-year are serving as a trial toward Endowment Project’s goal of becoming an alumni development company for public high schools and helping them form and manage nonprofit endowments.
The company estimates that 200 million people in the United States went to public high schools and that the country has 25,000 such high schools. Its thesis is that beyond PTAs and booster clubs, few of those schools have a way to raise funds of a substantial amount.
Co-founder Michael Bor, who started the company with fellow Richmond entrepreneur Chris Bossola, said its initial pilot got started in May with a fund at Freeman High in Henrico.
Endowment Project cofounders Michael Bor (left) and Chris Bossola.
Bor said the Fund for Freeman has since raised around $100,000 to be put to use immediately on various projects as chosen by the school. That fund and the others at Midlothian, Petersburg and Armstrong are run through the Endowment Project Foundation, a nonprofit offshoot of the for-profit company.
The pilot funds are not yet in the form of proper endowments. Bor said that will come later.
“An endowment fund comes after we build some runway,” Bor said. “An endowment will come 12-24 months after we launch with each school and after a couple hundred thousand dollars has been raised.”
These initial funds are simply to help show alumni how their money can be put to work in their schools.
“Donors want to see their dollars go to work immediately,” Bor said. “Once people feel like they can trust that if they give a dollar here and great things are going to come from it, they’d be more likely to give to an endowment.”
The initial money raised at Freeman, for example, is being put toward five projects. They include one fund for teacher professional development and refurbishing the concession stand.
Each school fund has its own website, as part of the services provided to the Endowment Project Foundation by the for-profit Endowment Project.
The foundation is an independent entity with its own board and its own executive director. The for-profit side of the Endowment Project serves as a vendor to the foundation in an exchange for a fee.
The for-profit side of the business would make its money from taking a percentage fee of the funds raised and a percentage of the endowment funds managed over time.
Bor said neither the company nor the foundation will have a say in how individual schools spend the money raised.
“We’re not telling the school how to spend its money. It’s important that all we are is the infrastructure to make it happen,” he said.
Beyond the initial four school funds that are up and running, Bor said others are in the works at Manchester High, Highland Springs High, Thomas Dale High, Godwin High, Tucker High and Meadowbrook High.
Prior to launching the Endowment Project, Bor was a founder and CEO of the now-defunct used vehicle consignment concept CarLotz. His co-founder, Bossola, was founder of Need Supply, a high-end local retail brand that went out of business during the pandemic.
The Endowment Project is now up to nine employees, funded by $4.5 million in investor capital it raised earlier this year. The company is based in Stsrtup Virginia in Shockoe Bottom, after previously launching out of a smaller office in Scott’s Addition.
Bor said the company continues to ramp up a development team tasked with what will be its most formidable task: building a database of alumni from high schools across the country.
“We knew it would be one of the hardest things we’re doing and that’s why it doesn’t exist already,” Bor said. “That’s never going to be a thing that’s finished because every year there are more alumni created through graduation.”
Bor said the company estimates there are 25,000-35,000 living alumni just for the initial test-run schools.
“If we can get to up 15-30 percent of those (to donate to a fund) that’s a meaningful portion,” Bor said.
Endowment Project cofounders Chris Bossola (left) and Michael Bor (third from left), join Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins (second from right) at last month’s event at Armstrong High School. (Courtesy Endowment Project)
As it rolls out its first fundraising programs for local high schools as a proof-of-concept, Richmond startup The Endowment Project’s efforts just got a boost from a new, deep-pocketed source: the developers of the planned Southside casino.
The company, which launched earlier this year to help create endowments for public high schools, has already stood up several initial funds as test runs at Freeman High School, Midlothian High and Petersburg High.
On Oct. 18 it announced its first such effort in the city of Richmond, with the establishment of the RPS Teacher Excellence Fund. That fund is seeded by $100,000 from the developers of the Richmond Grand Resort & Casino.
As announced at an event at Armstrong High School, the casino group, made up of media conglomerate Urban One and racing and gaming giant Churchill Downs Inc., pledged to continue to fill the fund’s coffers with a total of $1 million over 10 years.
But that pledge comes with a caveat. It’s contingent on the $562 million casino project becoming a reality.
“Richmond Grand needs to exist in order to resource these projects,” said Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins. “The balances of the commitment happen once our project is up and running…at the opening of the casino.”
The pledge is the latest attempt to tie the casino to education funding in the city, as the developer group hopes to sway Richmond residents to vote in favor of next week’s referendum, which is needed for the project to move forward. It’s Urban One’s second attempt at a casino in South Richmond, after voters rejected a previous iteration by a narrow margin in a referendum two years ago.
“We’ve done a lot of research since the last referendum that tells us people care about teacher resources and teacher pay,” Liggins said of the group’s decision to get involved with the Endowment Project.
“We came across the Endowment Project and liked their business model, their focus. It’s really unique in how they’re approaching it,” Liggins said.
For the Endowment Project, the $100,000 from Liggins’ group was an unexpected source of seed money to help the startup continue to test its concept.
The RPS fund and the three others that have launched since mid-year are serving as a trial toward Endowment Project’s goal of becoming an alumni development company for public high schools and helping them form and manage nonprofit endowments.
The company estimates that 200 million people in the United States went to public high schools and that the country has 25,000 such high schools. Its thesis is that beyond PTAs and booster clubs, few of those schools have a way to raise funds of a substantial amount.
Co-founder Michael Bor, who started the company with fellow Richmond entrepreneur Chris Bossola, said its initial pilot got started in May with a fund at Freeman High in Henrico.
Endowment Project cofounders Michael Bor (left) and Chris Bossola.
Bor said the Fund for Freeman has since raised around $100,000 to be put to use immediately on various projects as chosen by the school. That fund and the others at Midlothian, Petersburg and Armstrong are run through the Endowment Project Foundation, a nonprofit offshoot of the for-profit company.
The pilot funds are not yet in the form of proper endowments. Bor said that will come later.
“An endowment fund comes after we build some runway,” Bor said. “An endowment will come 12-24 months after we launch with each school and after a couple hundred thousand dollars has been raised.”
These initial funds are simply to help show alumni how their money can be put to work in their schools.
“Donors want to see their dollars go to work immediately,” Bor said. “Once people feel like they can trust that if they give a dollar here and great things are going to come from it, they’d be more likely to give to an endowment.”
The initial money raised at Freeman, for example, is being put toward five projects. They include one fund for teacher professional development and refurbishing the concession stand.
Each school fund has its own website, as part of the services provided to the Endowment Project Foundation by the for-profit Endowment Project.
The foundation is an independent entity with its own board and its own executive director. The for-profit side of the Endowment Project serves as a vendor to the foundation in an exchange for a fee.
The for-profit side of the business would make its money from taking a percentage fee of the funds raised and a percentage of the endowment funds managed over time.
Bor said neither the company nor the foundation will have a say in how individual schools spend the money raised.
“We’re not telling the school how to spend its money. It’s important that all we are is the infrastructure to make it happen,” he said.
Beyond the initial four school funds that are up and running, Bor said others are in the works at Manchester High, Highland Springs High, Thomas Dale High, Godwin High, Tucker High and Meadowbrook High.
Prior to launching the Endowment Project, Bor was a founder and CEO of the now-defunct used vehicle consignment concept CarLotz. His co-founder, Bossola, was founder of Need Supply, a high-end local retail brand that went out of business during the pandemic.
The Endowment Project is now up to nine employees, funded by $4.5 million in investor capital it raised earlier this year. The company is based in Stsrtup Virginia in Shockoe Bottom, after previously launching out of a smaller office in Scott’s Addition.
Bor said the company continues to ramp up a development team tasked with what will be its most formidable task: building a database of alumni from high schools across the country.
“We knew it would be one of the hardest things we’re doing and that’s why it doesn’t exist already,” Bor said. “That’s never going to be a thing that’s finished because every year there are more alumni created through graduation.”
Bor said the company estimates there are 25,000-35,000 living alumni just for the initial test-run schools.
“If we can get to up 15-30 percent of those (to donate to a fund) that’s a meaningful portion,” Bor said.
Here’s hoping the RPS teachers can get that money from someone else.
Sorry, not sorry.
STILL NO to that low-bid casino!
Take that ridiculous project elsewhere.
Smart people: go vote (again)!
Agreed!! The “NO” voters need to come out in droves on election day!!
The casino would be great for Richmond,,do you have an idea on how to get 1,300 people a decent job,do you have an idea on how to fix these terrible roads,if you don’t want to go down there than don’t go,I’m sure it no where near your neighborhood.
You’re right Lonzo but sadly I think this is gonna fail again. Even though there’s casinos in Columbia and National Harbor that are thriving we don’t have the vision here in Richmond. It’s just business as usual here and it will land somewhere else and help the community and schools. Richmond voters should do it for the schools alone. But no let’s just keep up an old cigarette plant that’s doing nothing for the community.
Oh look two people who never post on here coming in to boost the casino, not fishy at all. Also would anyone like to talk about the companies the two “ entrepreneurs “ were at before the “charity”?
Scroll down to comments from Urban One Chairman made on the radio
Thank you for sharing this! Hopefully it is viewed by many prior to Tuesday.
Here is the full piece also. To hear it from beginning to end is pretty disturbing.
https://rvamag.com/politics/local-politics/lets-listen-to-urban-one-founder-discuss-the-casino-referendum.html
WOW!!! This is an example of so many things — stirring upclass hatred and race hatred, along with what middle class African Americans call “crabs in a barrel” behavior …. and I have seen to be true of people no matter the color of their skin — “don’t forget where you came from” — yeah, I know a lot of “white” people who know where they came from and are glad they are free of the dragging and pathological influence of the people where they came from. This includes me to a certain extent. If I didn’t get away from… Read more »
Glad someone pointed this out about these “philanthropists”
There is plenty of data that shows Casinos are terrible for communities. Y’all have no vision if you can’t think of at least 5 other ways to create 1,300 jobs that doesn’t siphon money OUT of our community and into the grubby hands of developers, politicians and casino executives. Take your on-brand gaslighting elsewhere.
It’s really funny that there are people so sophist or just stupid to think that casino development is “visionary” in this day and age — it’s a seedy old idea!! Buy some cheap riverboats and at least it would be “interestingly-retro”
The cigarette plant brings in TONS of money from everywhere and creates tons of jobs.
Unfortunately, the product it sells is as bad as what a casino sells.
Often the same buyers, I have noticed. Nicotine and gambling go together I have observed.
A lot of money to throw around for an organization that cannot even file proper financial documents on time.
Lonzo: Casinos were going to be the savior of Atlantic City and they weren’t. Just take a trip away from the boardwalk and look at the poverty that still exists. Furthermore, the location is South Richmond is awful for attracting tourists, unlike the Atlantic Ocean in Atlantic City.
Yeah, these people who use these racist code words like “the community” should travel to Atlantic city to see what the casinos did for that community — they likely already know, just are very good at lying — money is a huge incentive for people to lie. Casinos often help an area in one of two ways — either it is a high roller casino that attract very rich people and few riff-raff and addicts, or if they are are put in a very poor area that desperately needs funds for infrastructure and can’t get much worse by social measures… Read more »
Quick question. How was Church Hill Downs or Colonial Downs able to get on the Richmond ballot, get approved by the voters and get a Rosie’s built over on the Southside. I am assuming the same issues exist with Rosie’s as it would with the Richmond Casino. This is from someone born and raised in Southside and spent a lot of time in both areas where the casinos are/would exist.
Could be a good question if it didn’t seem so leading. Colonial Downs is a different animal entirely. Horseracing has a certain sportiness about it though it is at its base, yes, gambling, but it is less predatory than casino gambling. Instructive are places with horseracing locales and associated “Off Track Betting” locales in urban areas — is rosies one of them?— the horseracing sites are a huge asset to the locale and attract a lot of wealthy people, while the OTBs attract chainsmoking guys who are often spending child-support money and welfare checks. Another example is BINGO halls —… Read more »
Seems like just yesterday, actually 50-55yrs ago, when W. Broad St. near TV channel 6 was a happening spot. There were steak houses like Tony’s and House of Beef alongside Byrams. In the area were bowling alleys(duckpin) at Tinytown and The Palladium. A poolhall with bingo pinball machines(gambling) a good snack bar and a bookie to take bets Fine dining at The Joy Garden Chinese. The Broadway Lounge offered topless dancers and there was a massage parlor on nearly every corner. Broad St. used to have a head shop called the Nickel Bag. Looking for a wino? Look no further… Read more »
Thanks for the history! I upvoted your comment even though I am not sure if you are educating me, agreeing or disagreeing. I am not old enough to remember that even if I was originally from Virginia, but certainly the downtowns near where I am from had a pretty seedy side even during the decades they were hopping. Albany, NY had a lot of blue laws after Prohibition got repealed like a bar could only have one pool table per floor (no pool halls) and you couldn’t buy beer in supermarkets on Sunday (and they couldn’t sell wine, ever) “The… Read more »
There were of course numbers rackets aplenty in the Northeast and I even knew a couple of tough italian brothers in my little city whose father ran books on I think sports. Malcolm X was perhaps the most famous guy who did numbers, but Cubans ran numbers in latin neighborhoods for the Italians, who of course ran them personally in their own neighborhoods and mostly controlled the African-American numbers too. Lots of threats and violence if you tried to open your own shop. because you were basically selling something worse than air for a way too high price — government… Read more »