Charter School Nonprofit Aspire Gets $93M in Bond Funding (CA)

May 7, 2010

Aspire Public Schools in Oakland got $93 million in bond funding with the help of $8 million in unfunded guarantees from the Gates Foundation and another $8 million from the Schwab Foundation.

Oakland-based Aspire runs 25 charter schools all over the state — locally it has six in Oakland, one in Berkeley, and two in East Palo Alto. It also runs schools in the Central Valley and Los Angeles areas.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation made these guarantees to help Aspire secure the tax-exempt bond issue. Because of their support, Aspire could take out bonds with a better credit rating: BBB in this case.

NCB Capital Impact, a nonprofit lender to charter schools, got a $959,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to help run this bond program for Aspire. NCB put in a $1 million guarantee.

Sequoia Union High School District contributed $4 million to this financing, too.

The change in credit rating will save Aspire as much as $11.8 million over the 35-year life of these bonds.

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