Our Giving Culture
Without philanthropy our school wouldn't exist. As a non-profit organization The Siskiyou School relies on fundraising to meet our annual budgetary goals as well as raising money for capital campaigns. It’s the giving culture that started our school and we ask everybody to contribute to pay it forward as the visionary founders of the school did.
Our Culture around Giving
When the Siskiyou School was started in 2006, the Board made a decision that tuition would be kept comparatively low to make this education accessible to as many as possible. To this day, what we charge parents in tuition is considerably less than what it costs us to provide their child with a Siskiyou School Waldorf education.
This founding premise means that each year we rely on fundraising and parent generosity to make up the difference between total tuition revenue and the total cost of running the school –teacher salaries, tuition assistance, programming, overhead, utilities, maintenance, etc.
The fundraising events raise about 4% and Annual Giving about 8% of the budget.
The tuition payments cover about 88% of our yearly budget. The equivalent of a gap of $1200 per student that we need to raise every year. We do this through 2 main avenues:
(1) Direct parent contributions into the yearly annual giving campaign, and
(2) Revenue from three big community fundraising events: WinterFaire, the Auction, and the May Day Raffle.
Part of the culture of our school is that every parent every year contributes to help the school reach our fundraising goal. This is the biggest contribution parents can make to support the school. Bridging the gap directly impacts what the school can offer its students. They are the inspiration behind those efforts.
Amazingly, this system, this vision has worked for the last 14 years. Each year we have managed to make up the difference, balance the budget, and keep tuition comparatively low. Over the last 14 years we have observed that though it takes more effort from the school to combine tuition with a fundraising requirement rather than just charging more in tuition, balancing tuition with fundraising ultimately is still the best way to serve parents and the school.
Our annual report gives a wonderful picture of our school community and includes a financial overview - we encourage you to read it. Contact the office for more information at 541-482-8223.
Donations made to The Siskiyou School a 501(c)3 are tax deductible. To make a contribution, please mail your check to: The Siskiyou School, 631 Clay Street, Ashland, OR 97520. Or use the donate bottom to give to our School. For more information on the tax benefits of giving please look here.