Endowment

WSL's Endowment History & Future

Role of the Endowment
An endowment exists to support the Board of Trustees in carrying out one of its principal responsibilities: ensuring the school’s viability for the next generation of children—the children of today’s students. A gift to WSL’s endowment provides tremendous impact and benefit. Over the long term, it contributes yearly revenues to maintain buildings and facilities, provide tuition assistance, and ensure a stronger foundation for the school’s yearly operating budget.

Endowment History
Over the years, the school has received generous financial support from families and friends. Unrestricted gifts have enabled WSL to meet the operating budget, grow academic offerings, expand early childhood programs, and maintain our buildings and grounds. Restricted gifts have supported academic programs, middle school sports, campus maintenance, and the endowment. We are grateful for the largess that has built the sturdy foundation on which we stand today.

Visionary parents and grandparents established the Endowment Fund in 1991 with a gift from the Blanchard Foundation. After several gifts throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the Board of Trustees recognized the need to grow the endowment. In 2005, the Board spearheaded the Endowment Challenge, calling on the WSL community to raise $100,000 for the annual giving campaign in order to receive a match of equal amount for the endowment. The school community responded, and the endowment principal grew to $132,000. With this new gift, WSL's endowment reached nearly half a million dollars.

Although WSL is 53 years old, it is relatively young in its fund development program. In the early life of a private school, gifts are operational, for the purpose of building and sustaining the school. For a school of WSL’s size an industry benchmark is that the endowment fund should be equal to one year of operating expenses, which for WSL is approximately four million dollars.

Looking Forward
The Waldorf School of Lexington has become a leader in Waldorf education, with a strong network of alumni who have benefited from the school’s unique Waldorf program and school culture. We are now in a position to strengthen the school’s financial foundation by expanding the endowment.

We are grateful for the opportunity to celebrate the vision of the school’s founding parents and reaffirm our commitment to providing an outstanding education to a new generation of children.