Two Grants that ALL Jewish Day Schools Should Know About

By: Dr. Harry Bloom, Vice President of Recruitment and Retention, Annual Campaign, and Governance at The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE)

In this guest blog post, Dr. Harry Bloom walks us through two of PEJE's National Revenue Programs that are open to all Jewish day schools.

THE CHALLENGE

Jewish day schools are facing unprecedented pressures on their sustainability due to rising expectations by families and students and a widening gap between household income growth and tuition increases, which pressures affordability.

THE NEED

Schools need increased revenue to meet these pressures.

Two key potential drivers of increased revenue are:

  1. Effective recruitment and retention programs that fill empty seats.
  2. Stronger governance and fundraising efforts that increase voluntary donations to schools. 

TWO PROGRAMS THAT ADDRESS THIS NEED:

In response to this situation, PEJE created two National Revenue Programs: Atidenu and Governance & Fundraising Academy (GFA).

These programs are designed to provide cutting edge capacity building support to Jewish day schools in the critical sustainability areas of recruitment and retention of students through Atidenu, and GFA for Large Schools and GFA for Small Schools in Small Communities.  

The following are a few details worth noting about the programs:

  • All programs are 18 months in duration and involve a proven mix of trainings, expert coaching, and rigorous program management in pursuit of concrete enrollment and fundraising goals.
     
  • The programs are co-funded by The AVI CHAI Foundation and other generous donors. Schools pay 50% or less of the cost, depending on the program, and the programs are designed to deliver a high return on each school's investment.  
  • There are nearly 40 schools, with enrollment from 60 to nearly 1400 students, in the initial cohort of National Revenue Programs, and PEJE has just begun recruiting another cohort of schools.

KEY OUTCOMES:

The following are some of the key outcomes of these programs:

  • The development of 3-year plans.
     
  • The acquisition of new methodologies and skills.
     
  • Increased proactivity.
     
  • Schools that participated in Atidenu learned how to creatively and aggressively fill empty seats and retain students.  They also discovered the amazing power of shifting their focus from relying on feeder schools to identifying market segments and communicating their school's benefits rather than their features.
     
  • Schools that participated in the GFA program learned how to increase board engagement and generate major gifts activity. This program has allowed schools to realize the amazing dollar potential of rating and assigning all donors and of developing Moves Management plans that move major donors from mediocre to capacity gifts.  

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE?

In addition to visiting the National Revenue Programs webpage, we encourage you to hear directly from your peers in these short videos about the programs: Atidenu and GFA.

School references are available upon request. Slots are limited, and there is rolling enrollment. Contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harry@peje.org to request information or an application.