Accelerating Together We Shine’s Final Phase

In October 2025, Sidwell Friends School launched the culminating phase of its Together We Shine campaign with a new overall goal of $220 million. Thanks to an anonymous alum who generously pledged a $10 million matching gift challenge—and to the many donors who rose to meet it—the campaign’s final phase moved one giant step closer to a successful conclusion in June 2027. 

Reflecting on the decision to establish the challenge, the alum shared, “Sidwell Friends has been a deeply transformative institution for me. Because of that, I had already given substantially to the campaign. But this project needed to be a community effort. I created this challenge to help inspire that broader support.” 

And inspire it did. Through the challenge, we welcomed new members to the William Penn Society, which honors community members whose lifetime giving to Sidwell Friends exceeds $1 million. And overall, nearly 30,000 individual gifts have now been made to this campaign. Proving that together, we really do shine. 

With a groundswell of support from the Sidwell Friends community, more than $196 million—89 percent—of the cumulative campaign goal has already been raised. These gifts fuel financial aid, the endowment, faculty salaries and professional development, and make the decade-long dream of reunification of the School’s two campuses a reality.

“Reunification has been something we have heard and talked about since our early days in the Lower School,” says David Levine P ʼ30, who along with his wife Akemi Kawano-Levine P ʼ30, contributed to the challenge. “To see everything come to fruition is very exciting. We are eager to see how the campus and campus life evolves with the move forward to bring the Lower School to the DC campus.”

The campaign’s final phase will make possible the renovation of the Earl J. Harrison Jr. building—the current Upper School—into an extraordinary and engaging new Lower School. The School plans to break ground on the project this summer and open the new building in September 2028. 

Bringing Sidwell Friends together again will create opportunities for students and teachers from all divisions, strengthening our programs and community. On a practical level, operating one campus will be more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective, saving approximately $1.3 million each year. Unification will also ease the lives of our many families with students on both campuses.

As Belinda Nixon P ’17, ’23, co-clerk of the campaign’s culminating phase says, “This final phase matters so much because all of our investments in financial aid, new faculty positions, and facilities only reach their full impact when our whole community can work together as one.”

The first step in that transformation is already underway. The new Upper School has been under construction since June 2024 on contiguous property purchased in 2016. It will welcome students at the start of the 2026-27 school year.

“In purchasing the adjacent property, we embarked on this project with a clear sense of purpose and a beautiful goal,” says the anonymous alum who established the challenge. “But we were without a detailed budget or timeline. As the true scale of the undertaking came into focus, it became clear just how much we would need to ask of our community. Many were uncertain it could be done at all, yet here we are having basically done it. Having watched the project through its full life cycle, it is a huge relief to have the finish line in sight after such a marathon.”

Originally launched in 2015, the School is now in the culminating phase of Together We Shine. The overall goal is comprehensive and cumulative and all gifts throughout all phases count towards its success.

The alum adds, reflecting on the campaign’s momentum, “I have always known how impactful Sidwell Friends had been for me, but to see the community embrace this campaign as they have really validates for me that my experience was not unique: it is clear that our entire community profoundly appreciates the transformative impact Sidwell has on its students and ultimately the entire world.”

Board of Trustees members Josh Miller P ’27, ’30 and Belinda Nixon P ’17, ’23 are serving as campaign co-clerks for the culminating phase. Honorary Leaders of the campaign include Jason Carroll ‘96, Helen Austern Colson ’53, P ’82, ’84, ’87, Arlene Kogod and Robert Kogod P ’76, ’79, ’80, Charis Menschel* P ’25, ’27, ’29, David Milner ’86, and David P. Pearson ’52. 

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To learn more about Together We Shine and how you can support the campaign, contact Tara Arras, assistant head of school for advancement, at arrast@sidwell.edu.