SAAS Rising: A Campaign for Campus Transformation

The SAAS Rising Campaign was a $35 million capital campaign to transform the Seattle Academy campus. The campaign vision: build a STREAM Building (Science, Technology, Robotics, Engineering, Arts, Math) featuring purpose-built science facilities and a community-strengthening Learning Commons for the Upper School, and build a dynamic new home for the Middle School program. The SAAS Rising Campaign’s $35 million fundraising effort was completed successfully in May 2018. This milestone was achieved thanks to over 900 donors.

The Seattle Academy STREAM Building opened for student use in fall 2015. STREAM is a sustainably designed building that features six purpose-built science labs and a Robotics and Innovation lab classroom. Flexible common areas and meeting spaces throughout the building create opportunities for formal and informal collaboration between both students and faculty. The two-story Learning Commons is the new cultural “hub” for the school’s upper school; this space serves as a classroom, meeting and study space, as well as a gathering location for students during free time and lunch.

The second new building began construction in March 2017 and was completed in the summer of 2018. The new building is the permanent home for our Middle School program; it includes a second gym, an outdoor playfield, a Middle School lunchroom, makerspace, and an instrumental music classroom. The new building also includes space for grade-level learning commons for 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

Prep for Life & Sustaining SAAS

The Prep for Life Campaign was launched in 2006 to strive for a school community that is reflective of the real world. Between 2006 - 2009, Seattle Academy raised $1.1 million of expendable Financial Aid dollars to target three areas of diversity:

• Learning Diversity
• Ethnic and Cultural Diversity 
• Economic Diversity 

After completing the Prep for Life Campaign in 2009, the successful Sustaining SAAS Campaign was launched to establish the school’s endowment Today, the school’s endowment continues to grow - funds are invested to create revenue that supports financial aid, teachers, and designated SAAS programs.

The Seattle Academy Campaign for Performance was launched in 1999 to extend Seattle Academy’s Culture of Performance into the new millennium by addressing two of the school’s critical needs:

• An Arts Center - for Seattle Academy’s visual and performing arts programs. 
• A Gym - to support physical education and a fully participatory athletics program, and to serve as a gathering place for the Seattle Academy community. 

Seattle Academy exceeded its campaign fundraising goal and built a connected Arts Center and Gym on the 12th Avenue block.  After the success of The Campaign for Performance, the Arts Center opened in 2001 and the Gym in 2002. The new facilities created exponential opportunities for program expansion in both Arts and Athletics – growth we continue to see today.