The Lincoln Fund is a fundraising initiative to increase the school’s resources for meeting its yearly expenses and for enhancing the current programs and experiences of our students. Tuition covers our students’ basic education; the Lincoln Fund supports the highest current priorities of our school through this annual philanthropic appeal to Trustees, parents, alumni, faculty, administrators, staff, and friends.

LCS relies on tuition and fees to support its existing programs and to maintain its classrooms, grounds, and buildings. Your contributions to the Lincoln Fund provide resources that directly impacts the student and faculty experience at LCS. Donations to the Lincoln Fund support all aspects of LCS operations – for example, purchasing books, innovative classroom materials, and state-of-the-art technology; modernizing facilities; providing outstanding academic and extracurricular programs.

Tuition covers our students’ basic educational costs. We look to the Lincoln Fund to provide additional support for programs that enhance student learning. A successful Lincoln Fund allows us to keep our tuition in line with other schools.

Salaries and benefits make up the largest single item in the operating expenses of international schools like LCS. By nature, high-quality schools are labor-intensive and people-oriented. In order to keep attracting high-quality teachers to LCS, salaries must remain competitive in the field. In addition, many other expenses are non-discretionary fixed costs such as utilities, service contracts, insurance and other operating costs.

High participation rate in the Lincoln Fund among members of our LCS community is a vote of confidence in our school. High participation rates are a sign that our parents and others invest in their children’s welfare and support our school’s vision. This percentage has a direct impact on gifts from outside sources like foundations and, in some cases, high rates of participation are required by these organizations before they will consider grant requests.

Giving is, of course, a personal decision. Some donors will consider their gift an additional investment in their children’s education; for others, giving to LCS expresses their affection for the role the school has played in their lives. That you participate and give to the annual fund is as important as the amount you are able to give.

Giving to the Lincoln Fund can be done at anytime during the academic year. While the annual drive for giving to the Lincoln Fund takes place over the course of two weeks in November, donations may be given directly to the Advancement office at other times during the year. Donations are recorded as soon as a gift is made. (Unless a donor wishes to be anonymous) Donors are included in our LCS annual report.

Many companies offer matching gift programs, which means that your gift may be matched one, two and sometimes three times by your employer. Please check with your Human Resources department or your company website to see if they offer matching gifts. Nestle, Vodafone (Verizon in the US), Schlumberger, Cargill, Microsoft, Shell, Alcatel Lucent, Guiness, KLM, Daewoo, Golder, Sandvikare just a few of the LCS companies that may match employee contributions.