Golden Cat 2 Golden Cat

Meet Sylvia, a Cameroonian woman with three children who serves in a vital role in the Bible translation process. Sylvia and Philemon, her husband, would love to send their kids to RFIS and their kids are just the type of motivated and hard-working students the school is seeking. Tragically, Sylvia’s sister died suddenly, and Sylvia and Philemon have taken in her 3 children, as well as a young woman who came to live with them after fleeing civil unrest. RFIS is now unattainable for this hard-working, loving family.

Kelly is a prospective teacher wanting to teach overseas. Many schools need teachers in Kelly’s subject area including RFIS. One of the schools offers to pay Kelly’s housing on the field. Another school offers a small stipend and airfare to the location. RFIS currently offers no incentives for prospective teachers. RFIS slips to the bottom of Kelly’s list.

Challenges:

• Many of our target students cannot afford the full cost of an RFIS education and the school has limited funds for tuition discounts.

• The tuition discounts the school does offer, currently result in less income per student with no way to make up the difference at this time.

• RFIS is one of a very few international mission schools that does not offer staff stipends, thus adding to the difficulties that we’ve experienced in recruiting new teachers.

To rebuild our reserve fund and create an endowment called the Golden Cat Fund for need based student scholarships and staff stipends, strengthening the school’s financial and educational resiliency.

Investment: $800,000

Specifications:

1. Raise $100,000 to cover current financial short falls and rebuild the Reserve Fund

2. Raise $150,000 for scholarships over the next 5 years ($30,000/yr.)

3. Raise $550,000 to establish the Golden Cat Fund

   1. 1. • We would expect that such a fund would typically see 6-8% annual growth.

         • Each year RFIS would use 5% of the fund’s value (on a three-year rolling average).

4. In year six, the value of the fund should result in $30,000 being available for scholarships and stipends. That amount would grow over time.

Benefits of the Golden Cat Fund:

1. Helping keep RFIS affordable for our current students.

2. Making RFIS attenable for our new target populations of Cameroonian students especially those whose parents are involved in Christian ministries.

3. Enabling RFIS to provide stipends for staff, facilitating teacher recruitment/retention and thus increasing resiliency in educational offerings.

4. Enabling RFIS to continue supporting the work of Bible Translators, Literacy specialists, Church Planters and others by meeting the educational needs of their children.