Friends’ Central is getting a $24.7 million gift, the largest in the Quaker school’s history
The Wynnewood school said it believes the gift is one of the largest ever to an independent day school in the Philadelphia region.
Friends’ Central School said Wednesday that it had received a $24.7 million gift, the largest in the Quaker school’s history.
The K-12 private school in Wynnewood said it believes the gift from an anonymous graduate donor is one of the biggest ever given to a Philadelphia-area independent day school.
“This gift is an extraordinary act of generosity and trust that will benefit our students for generations,” Friends’ Central’s head of school, Beth D. Johnson, said in a statement Wednesday announcing the gift. “It gives our community something precious: additional flexibility and the license to dream even bigger as we realize our strategic plan and build the school’s future together.”
Friends’ Central, which was founded in 1845, enrolls about 900 students.
The late donor specified that the funds are to be used for general purposes, at leadership’s discretion, according to the school. Friends’ Central expects to receive the money from two charitable annuity trusts, with $17 million coming in 2032 and $7.7 million in 2041.
The donor was a member of the Blackburn Society, a group of donors who leave the school in their estate plans. The group is named for longtime Friends’ Central faculty member Eliza E. Blackburn. A gift from Blackburn, who graduated in 1922, enabled the school to buy the Old Gulph Road campus where its lower school is located.
James Wright, clerk of the school’s board of trustees, said that “a sense of institutional momentum” and increasing commitment from donors to the school’s core mission had grown under Johnson, a 1977 graduate who was named head of school in 2022.
The gift announced Wednesday is likely one of the largest ever received by an independent day school in the region, according to Friends’ Central.
Earlier this year, St. Joseph’s Prep, a private Catholic school in Philadelphia, announced a $74 million gift from billionaire Nick Howley, in what school officials there believed was the largest gift to a U.S. Catholic high school.
