Albuquerque Academy

Community Builders

Community Builders is a unique, tuition-free program that gives high school juniors and seniors from Albuquerque Academy and other area schools the opportunity to learn the nuts and bolts of community philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. The five-week summer program includes a mix of site visits and meetings with community leaders to discuss a variety of topics, including:

• Nonprofit models
• Legal and ethical issues in the nonprofit sector
• Grant writing and the role of umbrella nonprofit organizations (e.g., United Way)
• Community leadership
• Board governance

At the end of the program, students come together as a mock foundation to make decisions about how to support some of the nonprofits they studied, both financially and through volunteer work. Through generous gifts from the Bonafair Fund for Community Leadership and Drs. Nancy Croker and Joseph Gorvetzian, participants are given $10,000 to allocate among the non-profits they studied.