Over the past few weeks, like many in our community, my inbox, WhatsApp, and social media feeds have been completely overtaken by links and messages about crowdfunding campaigns for yeshivas and day schools. It feels like every school is running a campaign, often at the same time, each with heartfelt appeals, emotional videos and urgent calls to action. I want to be clear: I support our institutions. I believe deeply in the mission of Jewish education, and I understand just how vital our schools are for the future of our people. These are not luxuries: they are necessities and they deserve to be funded appropriately.
But something about the way this is all happening doesn’t sit right.
These campaigns often overlap, creating a kind of communal fundraising traffic jam. Everyone is trying to reach the same donors, the same families, the same WhatsApp groups. Students are texting parents’ friends. Alumni are scrambling to reach classmates. It’s chaotic. It’s emotionally draining. And while it may yield short-term wins for individual schools, it creates long-term fatigue across the community.
Here’s the part I find most frustrating: we are capable of coordination when we want to be. Every year, yeshiva high schools work together to ensure that every eighth grader has a spot somewhere. It’s not perfect, but there’s a sense of collaboration for the greater good. Why can’t we do the same when it comes to our communal fundraising calendar? Why is everyone on their own island when it comes to planning major campaigns? Shouldn’t we be able to step back and say, “What’s best for the community as a whole?”
More importantly, this wave of simultaneous fundraising highlights a deeper issue. If so many of our schools need to rely on emergency-style crowdfunding just to fund basic operations, build facilities or provide scholarships, then we have to ask the uncomfortable question: is this model sustainable? The answer, I fear, is no.
I don’t pretend to have a ready-made solution to the tuition crisis or to the broader challenge of how we fund Jewish education. But I do believe that if we keep patching the holes without addressing the structural issues, we are only delaying the inevitable. The current approach relying on the same generous donors over and over, year after year, is not scalable. It’s a symptom of a system under stress.
We need communal conversations about long-term funding models. We need leadership willing to think differently. Maybe that means public-private partnerships. Maybe it means endowment funds, tuition caps, more government advocacy, or new models entirely. I don’t know what the answer is but I know we need to start asking bigger questions.
Because asking every student, parent and alumni to send a donation link to the same people at the same time every year cannot be the future of Jewish education.
