Fundraising Report Card

The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Fundraising Report Card

In fall of 2004, parents were asked to think in a new way about their participation in philanthropy at Lab. Lab benchmarked twelve comparable independent schools across the country, large urban day schools with which we compete for student placement at selective colleges and for recruitment of top faculty and administrators. Here's how we measured up:

In 2003, Lab had:	Lab	Median
The lowest annual fund-raising revenue	$1.6 million	$4.5 million
One of the lowest parent participation rates	49%	80%
The smallest endowment	$8 million	$34 million
The smallest endowment per student	$4,600	$31,300

As a result of this news Lab's parents have come together with the goal of building a new culture of giving at Lab. Parent leaders who serve as Class Captains have organized a parent-to-parent fundraising drive targeted at significant increases in giving and participation. Our goal is to raise $2 million and achieve 75% parent participation in 2005.

Our Progress Report

We'll be updating our report card with calendar-year-end results in January. Please visit again!

The twelve schools in our fundraising benchmarking study were:

Buckingham Brown and Nichols School (MA)
Dalton School (NYC)
Harvard-Westlake School (CA)
Horace Mann (NYC)
Kinkaid School (TX)
Latin (IL)
Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day (MO)
Francis W. Parker School (IL)
The Latin School of Chicago (IL)
Park Tudor School (IN)
The Pembroke Hill School (MO)
St. Paul Academy and Summit School (MN)
The Westminster Schools (GA)