Giving Back: A Q&A with the Ogilvie Family

What made your family decide to support Friends Select with a multi-generational gift?

We started the Ogilvie Family Foundation recently, and Friends Select was the first significant gift that we all wanted to make happen. Three of our children attend Friends Select, and whether they entered in pre-K or fifth grade, the FSS education has had a profound impact on them. The educational strength of the program is a given; it is the social aspects and the thoughtful way FSS helps young people build and find their voice that is so powerful. Whether starting your own podcast or sharing concerns about specific policies or classes, the FSS faculty and staff find ways to listen and support while allowing students to lead. 

Why is supporting the endowment meaningful to your family?

Education is an important focus for us—all of us have attended and/or taught at a Friends school. We have all had our own experiences with wonderful teachers and mentors who have shaped our lives. We wanted to figure out how to increase our support of FSS by providing funding that would help grow beyond our initial investment and thus have a larger impact.

What does your family hope to accomplish through your generosity?

We hope our multi-year gift will support financial aid for students who may need tuition assistance. We have accessed tuition assistance at various points throughout our children’s time at FSS, and it allowed us to keep them at the school. We have each also benefited from financial assistance at other stages in our own educational journeys. We, in short, want to pay it forward.  

How has Friends Select made a difference in the lives of your family?

Friends Select is not just an incredible educational institution; it has also made itself an integral part of Philadelphia. Students and their families cannot help but, almost by osmosis, understand the importance of personal involvement in one’s community—city, state, and federal!

What message would you like to share with Friends Select alumni, parents, guardians, grandparents, and community members about the significance of giving back to Friends Select?

Friends Select’s approach to education—while instilling in each student a wide world view—instills the importance of stewardship within our communities. The next generation, and the generations after that, must follow Friends Select’s mission of working to create a more equitable, peaceful, and just society. This will not happen without a commitment to the importance of educating our children. FSS is the best agent, as an organization, we know.

Back row (from left): Kathleen Ogilvie Greene P’25, and Jay Ogilvie; front row (from left): Marjorie Ogilvie Parker GP’22, ’25, ’25, and Christine Ogilvie Piven P’22, ’25.

For information on how to support the school’s endowment, contact Christine Jefferson, chief development officer, at chrisj@friends-select.org or 215-561-5900 x3141.