Four fundraising pillars, one goal: keep Stone accessible to all students — now and forever.

To continue the development of this remarkable community, we work across four key fundraising pillars — pillars which ensure our students have the best possible faculty and facilities to learn and to grow. We welcome gifts of all sizes and all conversations about strategic opportunities to support Stone, but because Annual Giving is our most urgent philanthropic need, we recommend that all Stone Supporters begin there.

Annual Giving. Four Annual Giving programs ensure both our Need Blind program and our annual operations.
Capital Giving. This kind of giving — to our spaces and to our programs — helps sustain and develop our physical plant and includes naming opportunities for those who are interested;
Endowed Giving. Gifts to our unrestricted endowment secures our future, gifts to form new endowed funds secures program;
Planned Giving. Provides our supporters with a number of different ways to support Stone now and the future.

Gifts of all sizes are honored by our Advancement Team, gifts of all size to all initiatives make a difference. We invite you to explore, to ask questions, to pitch wild ideas, to consider how you might advance our Mission and purpose. Please do reach out — and please do know how much we look forward to working with you!

Mike Simpson | Head of School

simpsonm@stoneindependent.org

Annual Giving Campaigns

The Annual Fund has the most immediate impact on our students and our faculty. Each year, we receive gifts ranging in size from supporters who understand that the cost to educate a student at Stone significantly outpaces the revenue we generate in tuition — in fact, the difference between what we receive in tuition and what it costs to educate a student at Stone is about $5,000/student.
Any gift of any size supports our students and support our faculty. Gifts can be made in a variety of ways, including online right here.
To read more about our Annual Giving programs, be sure to visit our Annual Giving page right here.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has created a transformative mechanism (EITC) which enables both businesses and individuals to make large contributions to our Need Blind/scholarship program and receive a 90% tax credit in return.
More than 25 corporate and individual supporters of Stone participate in this program, and we believe it is the most important philanthropic focus of our Annual Giving campaigns – we believe that if we can partner with 100 such supporters, we can ensure the long-term health of our Need Blind program.
If you are ready to learn more about EITC, read our introduction to the EITC program right here, or email our development team today development@stoneindependent.org.
Each year, The Lancaster Community Foundation unites the Lancaster Philanthropic Community with the ExtraGive — an all-community fundraising marathon.
We like to participate in the ExtraGive in a very…Stone way — The ExtraRace.
During the ExtraGive, Stone “racers” are sent out into the city (and the County) to complete increasingly complex (and funny!) tasks, while supporters are able to offer our racers “power-ups” (which speed them up) and “power-downs” (which slow them down).

It’s a big, funny, joyful day — one which allows everyone to participate; one which (most importantly) directly funds our Need Blind program.
For more information about The ExtraRace
(or, if you have a great challenge to add to the race!)
email the development office at development@stoneindependent.org.
The Chili Cook-Off is our our “Annual Gala” — it takes place in late April, and is an opportunity for our entire community to come together, to celebrate the year together, to bid on…*very* Stone Auction items, and to enjoy the remarkable emcee stylings of Horst Rosenberg.
Last year, the Chili Cook-Off raised an incredible $117,000 in support of both our Need Blind Program as well as our burgeoning endowment — if you are interested in sponsoring the Chili Cook-Off click here; if you are excited to participate in any way at all please email us at development@stoneindependent.org.