A Driving Force

The second key has been advertising. Taking risks by expanding our advertising — first to radio, then to television — has benefitted MSB both through educating the community [and attracting] significantly more vehicle donations.

FS: What are some challenges that you face in terms of fundraising?
MA: Having the community at large understand who we serve and how we do it. The perception is that we only serve students with visual impairment and that we do it exclusively on our Baltimore campus. In fact, we do serve many students throughout the state in their community who are just visually impaired. However, many of our students on our campus, as well as many that we serve in the community, have many more challenges including deafness, autism, developmental disabilities and cerebral palsy, many of whom use wheelchairs for mobility. The common characteristic of the over 800 students we serve is a visual impairment.