Sponsor

Sponsor

Only one sponsor is needed

Every leading corporation and federal agency is invited to conduct due diligence and consider sponsoring the HSe4Metrics platform—a free-access societal innovation designed to produce significant nationwide gains in K–12 student performance.

The innovation has the potential to generate national excitement as gains in K–12 student performance are progressively verified by hard-number metrics—perhaps even leaving the nation holding its collective breath in anticipation of each new set of results.

There is also the potential to significantly improve the sponsor’s own performance metrics, whether corporate or governmental.

Arrange for a professional presentation team. See the section below titled “The best presenter of this explainer site is a professional presentation team.”

A major corporation as the sponsor

Differentiation

Perhaps think of a sponsorship of the HSe4Metrics platform as a path to brand differentiation to an extent not possible any other way.

Every major corporation has compelling reasons to remain relevant—and equally compelling reasons to sponsor the nationwide HSe4Metrics platform. (As an aside, “HSe4Metrics” is merely a temporary placeholder. A name selected by the sponsor could carry significant strategic branding value.)

Too expensive to do this alone? Share the cost. 

If the cost of sponsorship seems prohibitive, it should not become an obstacle to a creative workaround. Contact HSe4Metrics about forming a corporation–federal agency public-private partnership to share the funding.

Moreover, with or without such a partnership, the corporate sponsorship cost may be insignificant relative to the potential for landmark gains in key corporate metrics, including free cash flow, brand-equity strength, and sustained shareholder-value creation.

Value to shareholders may be unmatched

Together, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations, high-profile sponsorship visibility, the transformation of tens of millions upon tens of millions of students’ lives, expanded market share, and improved margins for the sponsoring corporation offer potential value to shareholders that may be unmatched.

In a letter to JPMorgan shareholders, CEO Jamie Dimon highlighted a $30 billion commitment to a JPMorgan initiative aimed at advancing societal good—a figure that likely stunned many of his CEO peers, who are more comfortable operating at levels an order of magnitude lower. Dimon urged major corporations to follow his societal innovation lead, while also cautioning that the outcome of true innovation is inherently uncertain.

Dimon did not mention Xerox, but the cautionary tale is worth recalling (see the Jamie Dimon link). On the desk of Xerox’s CEO once sat an industry-changing innovation—complete with patents and a working prototype. Yet rather than take the leadership risk to implement it, Xerox passed. The company fell from market dominance into decline and ultimately into bankruptcy.

Click Procter & Gamble (P&G) to explore how a corporate sponsorship scenario might unfold. 

It is the presentation team’s obligation to ensure that every potential sponsor receives a brilliant presentation. A decision to decline sponsorship should never result from a failure of the presentation itself.

A federal agency as the sponsor 

K-12 student performance and high-risk, high-impact innovation

The federal government routinely funds high-risk, high-impact innovation—through programs and agencies associated with DARPA, NIH, NASA, semiconductor research, and others.

Broadly speaking, the leadership of every federal agency has a responsibility to advance the nation’s interests. Arguably, improving nationwide K–12 student performance should be an urgent national priority, particularly given the implications of weak reading and mathematics performance for the nation’s future workforce.

A textbook example is the Department of Labor (DOL). The DOL has a direct interest in unleashing nationwide K–12 student potential and tapping into the vast reservoir of underdeveloped human capital represented by students whose academic performance falls in the lower ranges of NAEP assessments.

Logically, substantially improving the performance of that cohort—a vast pool of untapped talent—could dramatically expand the number of students graduating prepared for workforce training, higher education, and other opportunities.

A proactive agency such as the DOL might recognize the potential value of making the free-access HSe4Metrics platform—a proposed societal innovation—available as early as possible in a young person’s life, ideally 15 to 18 years before high school graduation, beginning well before prekindergarten.

Any federal agency could also encourage Congress to conduct due diligence and consider a comprehensive rewrite of the DOE’s founding legislation, potentially making measurable nationwide K–12 student performance improvement the department’s central—if not singular—mission.

  • Other DOE functions and oversight responsibilities could be reassigned to appropriate entities outside the Department.
  • The Secretary of Education’s service could be subject to rigorously defined performance expectations tied to hard-number K–12 student-performance metrics. (See U.S. Department of Education.)
  • Any appropriately authorized federal agency could potentially sponsor the HSe4Metrics platform innovation.

The possibility of seeking federal funding has existed since HSe4Metrics was formally founded. Although a re-legislated DOE might seem the logical agency to sponsor the platform, another federal agency could serve as sponsor, while funding could potentially come from a different agency, subject to congressional authorization, appropriations, and applicable interagency funding requirements.

For example, NASA might serve as the sponsoring agency while the Department of Labor provides authorized funding support.

Click Federal Agencies to explore the possibilities.

Alternatively, a publicly traded, socially conscious corporation could serve as the platform’s strategic funding sponsor.

The best presenter of this explainer site is a professional presentation team.

Given the high stakes for nationwide K–12 student performance, every presenter of this explainer site must be trained by HSe4Metrics. HSe4Metrics itself is not a professional presenter.

A presentation team could be funded by a federal agency, corporation, HSe4Metrics, or socially responsible individual or organization—or it could agree to work pro bono.

HSe4Metrics could train a potential sponsor’s staff or designee to present the opportunity within that organization; fund a professional team directly to make presentations to potential sponsors; seek a socially conscious team willing to work pro bono in support of K–12 student performance; or launch a fundraising campaign to fund the team’s training and presentations.

A $5-per-person fundraising campaign—if needed

HSe4Metrics could launch a temporary $5-per-person fundraising campaign to cover the cost of retaining a professional presentation team.

One potential delay is that HSe4Metrics would prefer to conduct the campaign only after transitioning to a private foundation, potentially with support from a Google incentive program.

That transition process is already underway but has been paused because a federal entity could ultimately become the sponsor, potentially making the transition unnecessary.

Once the presentation team has completed its work and a sponsor has been secured, the temporary fundraising campaign would end.

Decide whether to help transform nationwide K–12 student performance by supporting the HSe4Metrics platform innovation.

And if the decision is yes, engage.

A corporation’s sponsorship decision may ultimately come down to cost, benefit, and risk.

In evaluating whether to sponsor the HSe4Metrics innovation platform, potential sponsors may consider the cost of sponsorship and the potential return on investment. Other considerations include the platform’s K–12 mission, its contribution to the public good, the corporation’s responsibilities to its shareholders—and the potential benefits sponsorship may deliver to those shareholders.

The risk of innovation. Every leading publicly traded corporation—including those among the nation’s 1,000 largest with the appetite for innovation and the financial capacity to participate—should step forward, conduct its due diligence, and consider funding the free-access K–12 student performance platform.

For a mega-cap corporation valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, even a modest increase in national goodwill and demonstrated societal responsibility could potentially more than offset the costs of sponsorship. Moreover, successful sponsorship could generate extraordinary public awareness, respect, and customer loyalty, with the potential to benefit shareholders through increased market share, improved margins, and stronger long-term corporate performance.

Tax status. The conversion of HSe4Metrics into a 501(c)(3) private foundation—currently receiving pro bono legal assistance from one of the nation’s top 100 law firms—has not yet been finalized. While this designation may be less relevant to a government sponsor, a corporate sponsor may have a preference.

To protect the interests of the eventual sponsor—and those of K–12 students—HSe4Metrics maintains a strict nondisclosure policy covering the platform’s proprietary innovations, including its design and operation.

In this context, protecting the sponsor’s interests also helps safeguard the interests of the nation and its K–12 population.

Have an idea for a sponsor? Let’s talk 
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