Philanthropy Explained
It’s the generosity of families, corporate matches, and grants - all above and beyond the tuition - that allows ISA to truly shine.
The good news is that there are multiple ways of enriching a child’s school experience. The trick is that with so many options on the table, things can get confusing. Here’s the best and most concise effort to help bring some clarity to ISA’s approach.
Tuition
ISA is a non-profit entity, which means that every year, we aim to run a balanced budget - in contrast to other entities that are looking to turn a profit on their business model and report only to investors. It also means that in exchange for not having to abide by state and federal guidelines on education, we do not receive any state or federal funds. Because of that, we charge our families tuition, which covers the vast majority of our annual expenses here at school - from faculty salaries to the air conditioning bill.
Annual Fund
The reality is that tuition covers what we need to do to educate our kids, but it doesn’t cover everything we want to do.
We can hire enough teachers and make sure we have enough desks, and we can take good care of the existing facilities with the tuition dollars we collect. But we cannot offer unique co-curricular programs (like athletics, robotics, and more!) and we cannot hire an extra teacher who will take your child’s experience from an A to an A+ without extra funding. That’s where the Annual Fund comes in.
We ask that every member of our community give to the Annual Fund every year.
First off, it’s tax-deductible. More importantly, it enables ISA to continue to set the standard in the area, and to distinguish itself as one of the most unique and respected schools in Arizona.
Typically, 100% of our faculty and staff give each year to the Annual Fund, as do 100% of our Trustees, and approximately 70% of our current parents. We’d like to see that last number - parent participation - go higher still.
A gift to the Annual Fund is a vote of confidence for what we’re doing here.
We appreciate you for your family’s support of the Annual Fund. Thank you in advance for your generosity, and again, we cannot stress enough, it’s about participation! No amount is too little!
ISA Securities Gifting Program
The International School of Arizona is proud to open and offer our Securities Gifting Program. This program will allow our school to reach more donors and allow our supporters to continue to support the great work we are doing and plan to do in the future. This program is designed to allow people, including families, individuals, relatives, corporations to donate securities to a brokerage account in the name of the International School. In our continued mission to open doors for our students and community we are pleased to open this new door for our supporters and advocates. Contact the Development Office for more information.
Private School Tax Credit
There’s another way we ask each of you to give back to ISA, and this one doesn’t actually “cost” you anything! Yes, it involves taxes - but stay tuned, because it can be a little confusing but so worthwhile!
Every year, those of us that live and work in the state of Arizona owe income taxes to the state. But, there is a program that is unique to Arizona that allows for a "dollar-for-dollar" tax credit and benefits the International School of Arizona. Arizona offers you, the taxpayer, the opportunity to decide where you would like your tax dollars to be spent. For example, if you owe $1,000 to the state of Arizona for income taxes in 2023, you can instead make a donation in the amount of $1,000 that ends up with the International School of Arizona and you won’t owe another penny out of pocket in taxes!
In order to participate, Arizona taxpayers can make donations to organizations called Student Tuition Organizations (STOs) and recommend that the International School of Arizona receives that donation. Maximum contributions for the 2024 tax year are $1,307 for filing single, or $2,609 for married filing jointly. Contributions made directly to ISA (and not to an individual student) directly impacts our ability to provide financial aid to students who would otherwise be unable to attend ISA. ISA uses every tax credit donation that is received through this program exclusively for financial aid. In other words, a donation that costs you nothing out of pocket goes to support our mission of “opening doors” to students that might not otherwise be able to receive the excellent and special education that ISA offers.
Please know that we are very appreciative of all contributions you make to ISA. Everything we do at ISA is focused on making the children at ISA have an experience that will serve them now and for the rest of their lives.
Thank you for your support. You may message our Development Office at development@isaz.org as they are willing to answer any questions you might have.
We welcome individual conversations about philanthropy and giving to ISA.
