Giving Priorities

Founders Club members provide key financial support to some of the school’s highest priorities and most expensive needs. There are various giving levels within the Founders Club, whose donation levels all make great impact:

• $15,000 – With support from Herb Kaatz Founders Club donors, for example, Lake Ridge can remain committed to retaining talented teachers to keep our class sizes small and our student-to-teacher ratio at just 8:1.

• $10,000 – Scrib Fauver Founders Club donors offer gifts at levels that fund visiting speakers, authors, artists in residence, and visiting theater programs that enrich our academic curriculum and expose students to professionals outside of the school’s community.

• $5,000 – Charlie Small Founders Club donors offer gifts at levels that allow the school to preserve our beautiful 93-acre campus.

• $3,500 – Founders Club members sustain the school’s commitment to support some of the costlier aspects of delivering a unique educational experience at Lake Ridge Academy.

By providing a gift of $1,963 or more, 1963 Society members honor the school’s founding year and support the school in ways that make Lake Ridge Academy distinctive. 1963 Society members support areas of the school that give students extraordinary learning opportunities such as our three Centers of Excellence and ensure that Lake Ridge remains on track to meet its long-term Vision Beyond 50 goals to best support our students.

Every Annual Fund gift is important.

Donors who offered just $5 per month collectively gave $4,000 by the end of the year and helped to bring robotics and engineering programs to the Middle School. Annual Fund gifts range in size from $1 to $30,000. The most common Annual Fund gift is $100, and the average gift is $687. 50% of Annual Fund donors each gave less than $500.

Participate** at a level that is right for you.

Pledges of $1,500 or more may be fulfilled over 1-3 years through December 31, 2021.
Please offer a pledge or direct questions and gift details to Brock Dunn in the Advancement office at Lake Ridge Academy (440-387-5408 or [email protected]).

We get it! If you are a Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD), you are still in college, starting your career, starting a family, or just trying to pay rent! But, you and your fellow GOLD alumni represent 30% of the entire alumni body, and your endorsement of the school is so very important.

Your gift of just $1 per month for every year that has passed since you graduated from Lake Ridge can be given automatically with your credit card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. If you have been out five years, for example, your gift of $5 per month will be enough to buy several books for our youngest students’ classrooms and will earn you special recognition in the annual honor roll of donors as a GOLD Donor.

If you make a GOLD pledge, you will never get Annual Fund requests in the mail because your gift will automatically renew each year on July 1 at $1 more per month. At your 10th reunion, your giving to the school would total almost $1,000!

Consider this! For the price of just one Starbucks visit each month, you can make a difference for an entire classroom of students!

Alumni who are celebrating a milestone five-year reunion are invited to make a special gift that will mark the occasion and celebrate the school that gave them a start in life. Your gift to the Annual Fund will be pooled with your classmates’ gifts to have a significant impact on the school.

The children of public servants learn in very real ways what it means to respect and serve others. Their mothers and fathers face significant risk every day, and these children know, accept and learn to support the notion that it is important and worthwhile to help others even when that aid can come with great personal sacrifice.

Lake Ridge Academy welcomes students from 35 communities in Northeast Ohio in a geographic range that spans from Sandusky to Willoughby Hills to Brunswick. In each city, police officers, firefighters, and paramedics go to work each day prepared to give their own lives for the millions of people who live in their communities. Military personnel in those cities serve people around the world while working to protect the freedoms that we citizens enjoy every day.

Lake Ridge is proud to offer Public Service Scholarships to the children of these brave men and women in an effort to expand the college and life opportunities available to these young globally-minded citizens. New student applicants who are entering grades 9-11 who have a strong academic track record and at least one parent who serves as a police officer, firefighter, paramedic, or military personnel are eligible to apply for a scholarship.

Public Service Scholarship recipients pay just a fraction of tuition for a Lake Ridge Academy education, yet have full access to our academic program, extracurricular activities, and alumni career network. Depending on enrollment and funding availability, Lake Ridge will offer as many as fifteen Public Service Scholarships each year.

Funding Levels

• $10,000 per year for three or four years - Donors can change the life of a single scholarship applicant with a gift at this level during a student’s full high school experience.
• $12,500 per year for four years – Donors who make gifts at this level will help to sustain the program for future applicants. $2,500 each year ($10,000 total) will be placed in an endowment fund to support Public Service Scholarship applicants in perpetuity.
• $25,000 per year for four years – Donors can support a scholarship recipient while simultaneously honoring a public servant (e.g. the John Smith Public Service Scholarship could honor a fire chief or veteran who died in the line of duty). Up to $40,000 will provide immediate support for a student’s full high school experience, and the balance will be placed into an endowed fund and given to future applicants in perpetuity.

You can make a difference for any student who hopes to experience a Lake Ridge education by designating your Annual Fund gift to scholarships. Your gift will be directed to students in the year that your gift is made and may support one or more students depending on their level of financial need.

Gifts of $50,000 or more may be directed to the general endowed scholarship fund to benefit students every year in perpetuity. The scholarship will be funded by the interest that is generated from the invested endowment fund.

Gifts of $100,000 or more can be used to name an endowed scholarship in someone’s honor, and the scholarship will be awarded to one or more students each year in perpetuity. The scholarship recipients will be made aware of the scholarships that have helped to provide their education.