NEW YORK (JTA) — The Avi Chai Foundation has given a $1.6 million grant to Yeshiva University to help Jewish day schools improve their financial situations.
The grant will go to the YU Institute for University-School Partnership to support its efforts in helping 30 day schools in five Jewish communities figure out their long-term financial goals and strategies. The program also will provide extensive consulting support for the schools.
Along with these initiatives, the program will go toward bringing in more students by offering three-year matches for funds that each school brings in from local donors, foundations and Jewish federations.
If the project, which was piloted in Bergen County, N.J., is successful in the five communities, Avi Chai and YU plan on expanding it to as many as 200 schools in 30 communities.
The initial five communities have not yet been identified.
“It will provide great transparency into day school finances, from costs to revenue, so that they may achieve significant improvements based on hard facts, while preserving educational quality,” Dr. Harry Bloom, the YU Institute’s director of planning and performance improvement, said in a news release. “Ultimately, our goal is to help these 30 schools achieve a 10 percent improvement in their finances, with a collective target value of $30 million in benefit to them.”
