Annual Giving is the primary and most critical fundraising priority at Harvard-Westlake School. If you make one gift to the school each year, please make it to Annual Giving. Comprising roughly 11% of the school’s operating budget, Annual Giving dollars are purely unrestricted and therefore impact every corner of Harvard-Westlake’s campuses, from financial aid to faculty professional development, academics to athletics, technology to the arts. Annual Giving is also representative of Harvard-Westlake’s diverse and inclusive community in that thousands of families across varied backgrounds make gifts of all sizes to Annual Giving each year. Each of them makes a significant impact on our school.
Annual Giving empowers Harvard-Westlake School to reach beyond the ordinary. More than filling an essential budgetary necessity, Annual Giving truly bridges the gap between adequacy and excellence.
FINANCIAL AID
1 in 5
students on aid
Aid packages extend beyond tuition to every student need
ACADEMICS
Instructional costs represent 80% of operating expenses
ATHLETICS
27
sports
95
teams
775
athletes
ARTS
30
exhibits
105
performances
1,310
artists
TECHNOLOGY
1:1 computer policy ensures every student has a device
FACULTY
More than $600K/year awarded in faculty professional development
7% Endowment
12% Annual Giving
81% Tuition
Harvard-Westlake's $9+ Million Annual Fund is the largest in the country among independent day schools
Current parents account for 75% of Annual Giving dollars
93%
Parent Participation
100%
Faculty & Staff Participation
Last year gifts of $100 or less amounted to more than $100K to Annual Giving. That's enough to fund:
Four typical financial aid tuition grants
Laptops and software for more than 50 teachers
TAX DEDUCTIBLE
Your contribution is100% tax deductible
GIVING CIRCLES
| Heritage Circle |
$100K or more |
| Centennial Circle |
$50K to $99K |
| Leadership Circle |
$25K to $49.9K |
| Founders' Circle |
$10K to $24.9K |
| President's Circle* |
$7.5K to $9.9K |
| Deans' Circle |
$3.5K to $7.49K |
| Scholars' Circle |
$1.5K to $3.49K |
| Community Circle |
up to $1.49K |
*President's Circle and above invited to the fall President's Reception
GIVING DEADLINE: JUNE 30
For additional information, please contact Director of Advancement Eli Goldsmith at egoldsmith@hw.com.
With the development of Harvard-Westlake River Park we will be able to provide facilities to match the breadth and quality of an athletic program that currently offers 95 teams across 28 different sports, instilling in nearly 1,000 students every year lessons of personal discipline, sportsmanship, and teamwork. The need for additional facilities derives partly from our commitment to excellence, and partly from our commitment to promoting healthy balance in students’ lives. The additional space will mean that workouts, practices, and games no longer need to be “stacked” in consecutive afternoon and evening time slots (or scheduled before school at dawn), which will allow students to come home in the evening in time for family dinner, homework, and a good night’s sleep before school the next day.
The River Park facility will be a gift not only to generations of Harvard-Westlake students; it will be a gift also to the broader community and to the natural environment in which we live. The project will demonstrate our significant commitment to protecting and improving the fragile natural ecosystem of Southern California by employing solar energy, replacing non-native trees with native species at a positive ratio of 2:1, and constructing a million-gallon water reclamation facility to collect rainwater from the surrounding area and reuse it for onsite irrigation and wildlife habitats. These meaningful and visible community and environmental contributions will reflect Harvard-Westlake’s readiness to use our resources to serve purposes beyond ourselves, and they will teach our students critical lessons of citizenship—in greater Los Angeles and in the natural world.
For further details on the project, please visit https://www.hwriverpark.com
River Park Donor Recognition
It is our wish to create a public and enduring record of Harvard-Westlake River Park’s leadership supporters. Accordingly, select areas of the future facility have been earmarked for donor recognition to be installed, in addition to a donor wall in the Center (gymnasium) lobby to recognize donors of $250,000 and above.
For more information about supporting Harvard-Westlake River Park, please contact Director of Major and Planned Giving Kate Villasenor at kvillasenor@hw.com.
To sustain Harvard-Westlake’s excellence, the school must provide the resources necessary to attract and educate the most talented students across Los Angeles, regardless of their families’ ability to afford tuition. With an annual financial aid budget of more than $13.7 million, 20% of Harvard-Westlake students (about 363 students) receive financial aid annually. Harvard-Westlake’s financial aid package is comprehensive, accounting for all of the extra costs beyond tuition—such as transportation costs, books and course materials, athletic uniforms, and study grants—to make sure all students have access to the same educational experiences at Harvard-Westlake. President Rick Commons’s goal is to increase the percentage of students receiving aid to 25% in the next decade, which makes new investments in financial aid essential to building for the future.
You can make an impact on Harvard-Westlake’s financial aid program by creating a restricted fund for student financial assistance:
- Named Scholar Endowment: $750,000
This fund endows the equivalent of a full tuition for one student in perpetuity.
- Named Immediate Impact Fund: $300,000
This fund fully supports current-use tuition and fees for a student during the six-year period they are enrolled.
- Named Student Assistance Fund: $100,000
This fund endows all the extra costs beyond tuition to educate a Harvard-Westlake student receiving financial aid in perpetuity.
For more information about establishing a fund in support of financial aid, please contact Director of Major and Planned Giving Kate Villasenor at kvillasenor@hw.com.
At the heart of Harvard-Westlake, talented faculty and staff who are experts in their fields inspire curiosity and are committed to helping every student grow academically, socially, and personally. For Harvard-Westlake to recruit, retain, and support such extraordinarily talented educators, significant financial investment is a necessity. Donors who wish to support great teaching and coaching at Harvard-Westlake with a gift to the school may do so by supporting faculty salaries or professional development.
Faculty Salary Endowments
You can help the school to maintain its compensation and benefits package so it can strengthen its allure and aggressively recruit superior faculty and staff candidates via one of the following funds:
- Named Endowed Faculty Chair: $2,000,000
- Named Endowed Senior Faculty Laureate: $750,000
- Named Endowed Junior Faculty Laureate: $250,000
Faculty Development Endowments
These funds encourage lifelong learning by enabling faculty and staff to attend seminars and conferences, pursue advanced degrees, and seize travel-study opportunities during the summer. Named Faculty Development Endowments can be established with a gift of $100,000.
For more information about establishing a faculty & staff support endowment, please contact Director of Major and Planned Giving Kate Villasenor at kvillasenor@hw.com.
We also offer opportunities to establish an endowed fund to support specific student programs at Harvard-Westlake. Examples of such funds include the Brown Family Distinguished Speakers Fund, which provides an honorarium for notable lecturers and performers to visit Harvard-Westlake, or the Film Festival Endowed Fund, which provides annual funding for the WestFlix Film Festival, a premiere showcase for student filmmakers across California organized by Harvard-Westlake students. Named opportunities also exist to endow academic departments such as Visual Arts, Performing Arts, or Athletics, each of which is valued at $1,000,000 or more.
For more information about establishing endowed funds for program support, please contact Director of Major and Planned Giving Kate Villasenor at kvillasenor@hw.com.