Growing our Endowment Together

Philanthropy is at the heart of JCC Greater Boston, and this year a challenge has been issued to our community that raises the stakes AND the opportunity to create a generational impact.

Every day the JCC relies on donor contributions to fill crucial gaps in our annual operating budget, and create opportunities to update and expand our physical spaces and capacity to deliver the programs and services our community depends on. Our generous annual gifts answer the current year’s needs, but what truly ensures the stability and continuity of the JCC for generations to come is a strong and growing endowment.

Through the incredible generosity of the Philip & Bernice Krupp Foundation for Jewish Life, we have been awarded a $2.5M challenge grant in support of JCC Greater Boston’s Endowment for Camping Scholarships. To receive this pledge, we as a JCC Greater Boston community must raise $5M to be utilized for the same targeted scholarship as the Philip & Bernice Krupp Foundation for Jewish Life commitment. George Krupp, Trustee of the Philip & Bernice Krupp Foundation for Jewish Life, shared: "Endowments are an important tool for long-term investment for organizations. I am proud we are able to build a future for more accessible and affordable day camps at JCC Boston in our parents' name."

This transformative pledge - the largest singular endowment pledge in our organization’s history - will allow us to sustain and increase camp scholarships to hundreds of campers each summer, an organizational goal and communal responsibility.

New England's largest Jewish Day Camp and the fifth largest day camp in the country, Camp Grossman has spent 45 years building joy, belonging, and community for Greater Boston's Jewish families. As children today navigate a more fragmented world where connection can feel harder to come by, Camp Grossman offers something rare: a place where they truly belong.

“Camp is such a critical part of building Jewish identity,” said Douglas Krupp, Trustee of the Philip & Bernice Krupp Foundation for Jewish Life. “The camps at JCC Greater Boston create an important opportunity for local families to tap into that when sleepaway camps are not an option.”

In 2025, 350 campers received a scholarship to one of our summer camps. Each year the amount of aid given is increased, yet we still aren’t able to fully meet the need that exists for scholarship support. A strong endowment will help change that by giving the JCC the resilience to weather economic uncertainty and confidently make long-term decisions free from any single year's budget pressure. As Liana Krupp, Managing Director of the Philip & Bernice Krupp Foundation for Jewish Life, puts it: "Everyone is welcome at camp at the JCC. Building this scholarship endowment is not just for Jewish futures, but the futures of all of our friends and neighbors."

Now it’s on us to meet the moment. Every dollar brings us closer to our shared goal of ensuring the JCC can continue to grow and thrive as a vibrant and welcoming community hub at the center of Jewish life in Greater Boston. It is both our privilege and obligation to come together to grow our endowment for scholarship, recognizing that summer camp is not only a lifelong formative experience, but a much-needed childcare solution for so many parents who are also finding rising costs to be increasingly difficult to navigate. We are grateful to the Krupp Family for believing strongly enough in our community to structure their gift as a challenge. We are motivated, eager, and excited to meet it, and know our community will forever be stronger for it.

To learn more about supporting camp programs at JCC Greater Boston, please contact development@jccgb.org.