Our Mission

JEFG’s mission is to ensure maximum access to high quality Jewish day school education, with its proven impact on Jewish continuity, by alleviating the economic burden. To accomplish this mission, JEFG has a three-pronged approach:

Revise the existing day school funding model by engaging the broader community

We must move beyond having current parents and school scholarship funds bear the burden of financing our schools. Our goal is to engage the broader community in generating significant communal funds, tapping resources that do not encroach upon or duplicate the individual schools’ development efforts. Current initiatives include: the NNJKIDS community fund, which asks ALL members of the Northern New Jersey Jewish community to donate to a communal scholarship fund; solicitation from specific individual donors for large matching grants; and the identification and securing of all available sources of private and public funding on behalf of our schools.

Partner with schools to identify cost savings

Our schools can achieve greater quality and efficiency by implementing creative solutions and sharing best practices. JEFG has collaborated with Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership to benchmark the cost base and revenue drivers of our schools, which has resulted in the identification of cost savings and revenue generation across the network. Benchmarking is used widely in the private sector, but this is the first time it has been applied across an entire network of day schools. To date, we have achieved over $2.5 million in cost savings using this model. Moving forward, the JEFG member schools have adopted a goal of 10% further cost cutting improvements over the next three years.

Collaborate to find and implement educational innovations that can benefit all the schools

By investing in shared quality and innovation in education, especially as it involves technology programs, we can reduce costs while improving our children’s learning experiences.