Our Wildwood, Summer 2017, Volume 41

MAKING AN IMPACT

“We have been in a robust change process for the last several years. We’ve learned a lot along the way, from schools around the world and particularly from Wildwood … an important inspiration in our work in reimagining education. While we are an established, traditional school changing to an innovative institution, yours was built as an innovative school from the beginning.”

Annual Giving 2007-2016 (in $MM)

2.5

2.1

2

1.9

2

1.8

1.6

1.5

1.3

1.2

1.2

1.2

1.1

1

0.5

0

2009-10 2008-09 2007-08

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

2016-17

Current and former trustees familiar with Wildwood School’s financials have been particularly heartened to see the school move over time to a place of financial strength, as they recognize that financial sustainability is critical to our healthy, long-term . future. A commitment to multiyear budgeting and building reserves; the acquisition of property to house one of our future campuses; strong, increased enrollment; and dramatically improved fundraising—including the doubling of annual giving and significant increases in the number and size of major gifts the school has received over the last decade—have all contributed to making Wildwood a school with markedly improved financials and an increased commitment to socioeconomic diversity through our Flexible Tuition program.

CHIP KIMBALL, SUPERINTENDENT SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

flexible tuition dollars 2008-2017 (in $MM)

3.5

3.2

3

2.7

2.6

2.4

2.5

2.3

2.3

2.2

2.2

2

1.8

1.7

1.5

1

0.5

0

2009-10 2008-09 2007-08

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

2016-17

At the center of it all, of course, is the program that scaffolds student work. The increasing financial support we enjoy derives from an expanding, deep understanding that Wildwood is preparing its students to pursue lives of purpose and fulfillment. Objective “friends” of the institution, like John Gulla, the executive director of the Edward E. Ford Foundation, from which we received a grant last year, wrote: “In ‘unschooling’ school and in charging ‘students with becoming architects of their own learning,’ you have unleashed something in your community that is as exciting as it is powerful.”