Partnerships/foundations as school board platform?

I sift through a lot of news reports on partnerships and foundations, and over the past few years I've noticed something new: accounts of school board candidates talking about partnerships and school foundations as part of their platform.

The most recent example is found here, which highlights a candidate in California proposing a community-based mentoring program and leaning more heavily on the education foundation as a fundraising tool for the district.

It's encouraging to see community engagement brought up at this level - again, it's not something I saw prior to the 2008 economic crisis. However, while I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I wish they were talking about more than tapping into the community as a new source of revenue; ultimately that's not going to pay off the way they think it will. It would be far more productive to bring the community to the table as real partners (not just benefactors) to identify desired outcomes and share in the hard work of determining how to reach their shared objectives.