After a near-death experience following the loss of two major donors, the Menachem Mendel Seattle Cheder has raised enough funds to stay afloat.
“We raised around $330,000 this year, which is more than we raised last year or the year before,” said the school’s development chair Tziviah Goldberg. “I feel like it was challenging, but we came through even better than we thought we would.”
Last year MMSC, which houses the state’s only early childhood Jewish Montessori program, an elementary school, and a girls’ high school, defaulted on its loans and faced the loss of its Maple Leaf building, which had renovations in progress. An emergency campaign reached out to community members, especially new donors.
According to Goldberg, about $62,500 came from new contributors. The strategy moving forward, she said, is to continue reaching out to new donors, particularly those without children in the day school system, to utilize a new-donor fund-matching opportunity.
Goldberg said MMSC is on track with its loan payments, and is negotiating with its mortgage holder and an architect to figure out how to move forward to complete renovations on the former hospital MMSC purchased from Campfire Girls in 2009.