A consortium of Jewish groups is launching a national fund to allow American taxpayers to take full advantage of a $1,700 tax rebate that will reduce private school tuition costs, the organizations announced on Wednesday. 

As part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law last July, Americans will be eligible for the income tax break if they donate an equal amount to scholarships for K-12 students beginning next year.

However, the donations must be made through a scholarship-granting organization, a nonprofit that can, in turn, provide a scholarship worth the same amount. 

To make this easier, Jewish Federations of North America, Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools and  the Orthodox Union and its day school-focused Teach Coalition, announced the creation of The Opportunity Fund for Jewish Education, a national SGO that will allow Americans to donate to a single SGO that will dispense funds locally to Jewish day schools across the U.S.

“We realized we are much more likely to be successful if we work together across the entire community,” Paul Bernstein, Prizmah’s CEO, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “This really does have the potential to have a huge impact, but it depends on us mobilizing the Jewish community to really participate in the tax credit and support our schools.”

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the tax-break program will lead to $500 million donated to SGOs. Bernstein hopes that the initiative will even motivate families who don’t send their children to day schools to help out, as they too will receive a full tax credit for their donations.

For a school to be eligible for the funding, its state has to opt into the initiative. So far, 31 states have opted into the tax credit, including Virginia, which was the first to join in. Originally, there were concerns that SGOs would not be able to operate across state lines, requiring each state to have its own SGO, but Bernstein said there is no indication that the IRS would require that.

Many Jewish communities have already created their own SGOs to support schools. Bernstein still expects that some schools will tap into multiple SGOs to maximize the funding to support students. This initiative will ensure local communities aren’t forced to create an SGO if they don’t want to, as the process can be expensive and arduous.  

The Opportunity Fund for Jewish Education’s board is made up of leaders in the Jewish world, including Mark Charendoff, the president of Maimonides Fund, and Eric Goldstein, the outgoing CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.

“We are proud to be working together on behalf of the Jewish community around our shared goal of making Jewish day school affordable and accessible to more families,” Eric Fingerhut, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America and the interim CEO of The Opportunity Fund for Jewish Education, told eJP. “We look forward to launching a strong, fully operational scholarship-granting organization on Jan. 1, 2027.”

In recent years, JFNA has deepened its focus on Jewish day schools. Speaking to eJP in June, after the Israeli government pledged $33.4 million for American Jewish day schools, JFNA Board Chair Gary Torgow said formal Jewish education was critical.

“Jewish identity and Jewish education are key to the future of the Jewish people and combating antisemitism,” Torgow said.

The SGO is now raising money for its operating costs, with the understanding that 100% of every scholarship donation will go towards local schools. Taxpayers who donate to scholarships through the SGO can allocate their funds to a specific school or community if they wish.

“This is an amazing opportunity for the Jewish community to come together and make sure we maximize the benefit of this new federal program for Jewish families,” Sydney Altfield, national director of Teach Coalition, told eJP. “With more than 900 Jewish day schools and yeshivas across the country, we need the infrastructure to make it easy for schools to participate, for donors to contribute and for those dollars to reach families. By working together nationally, we can turn this into meaningful tuition relief at a scale that could have a real impact on Jewish education.”

The next step for the new SGO is working with schools to preregister to participate in the program and getting the word out to taxpayers. The initiative has been endorsed by Torah Umesorah and Agudath Israel of America, which represent Orthodox communities, as well as the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, and it is expected that other denominations and organizations will endorse it in the months to come. 

The partner groups are working with governors to ensure states opt into the tax-break initiative. The IRS is expected to announce full rules at the end of this month, and The Opportunity Fund for Jewish Education will work to ensure its infrastructure is in order to launch in the new year, organizers said.