Each Tuesday throughout the school year, Proctor’s Development team welcomes advisory groups to their office to share information about the Proctor Fund and The Campaign for Proctor. Proctor’s financial model is complex, and while our primary perception of ourself is as a school, we are also a business that has thousands of customers and a $22,000,000 a year budget. Operating on a June 30 fiscal year, the month of June is one of the busiest of the year for our Development Office.

With an unrestricted annual giving goal of $1,490,000 for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the Proctor  Fund represents roughly 7% of the school’s overall operating budget. As students hear this information during their visits to Development, they are blown away that tuition revenue does not cover the operating costs of Proctor. As is the case with most tuition-driven independent schools (like Proctor), tuition only covers a portion of total costs required to deliver the educational model. We rely on the generosity and commitment of donors to bridge this gap between tuition revenue and operating expenses, and as we quickly approach our fiscal year end, we make one final push to engage our alumni, parents, parents of alumni, and faculty and staff to support the Proctor Fund.

While we do not yet have final numbers for this fiscal year, the breakdown of donors by constituency has remained remarkably consistent over the past two decades for Proctor (see last year’s numbers above). Roughly a third of all support comes alumni, a third from parents of alumni, and a third from current parents. Each constituency connects to Proctor in a unique way, and each desires to give back to the programs, people, and sense of place that shaped their connection.

Our alumni base of support has grown tremendously over the past three years and is within reach of our goal of 15% alumni participation. (If you are an alum and have not yet jumped in with a gift to the Proctor Fund this year, please consider doing so!) Every gift matters, and we don’t just say that to boost our numbers. Yes, roughly 80% of the dollars Proctor raises come from 20% of our donor base, but every gift truly does matter. Without a wide base of support (we will have over 1,100 donors to the Proctor Fund this year), the work we seek to accomplish with our students is simply not possible. Whether you are able to give $5 or $5,000, your generosity and commitment to Proctor matters.

A sincere thank you from all of us at Proctor (not just our Development Office, but all of us) to the 1,060 donors who have already contributed to this year’s Proctor Fund. To those who have not yet jumped in, there’s still time!