The Milken Community School received a $15 million donation from the Rodan Family Foundation, pushing it past the halfway point in its $135 million capital campaign, as the school expands its facilities amid growing enrollment. 

The fundraising campaign, which has so far raised $79.8 million, has recently seen 17 individual donors and families each contribute $1 million or more, a representative of the school said. 

Last year, Milken Community School purchased the American Jewish University’s 22-acre Familian campus in Bel Air, Calif., for approximately $60 million. The new campus will dramatically increase the size of the school, which spans grades six to 12, and enable it to admit additional students. 

“The generous gift to Milken community school will impact thousands of current and future Milken students and the broader Los Angeles Jewish community,” said the school, which was established in 1995 with funding from the Milken Family Foundation.

Head of School Sarah Shulkind told eJP that the school was introduced to the foundation’s leaders and, following the first meeting, they asked to bring other family members to visit the school.

“We talked about where the school is, where it wants to go, how we see this project as transformative for Milken and the Jewish community in L.A. I think the vision really resonated with them,” said Shulkind. “They saw how our school is going to change the Jewish community overall and how we can be a model for the rest of the country. They were looking for something that will be their legacy, and it spoke to them.”

The Rodan foundation was established in 2018 by Katie and Amnon Rodan, co-founders of the skincare firms Proactiv Solution and Rodan + Fields, with the goal of creating “lasting change,” as they write on their website. It was inspired by Katie’s father, Judge Harry Pregerson, and led by their daughter Elana, who had relocated to Los Angeles in 2023, along with her husband, Eli, and their children.

One of the foundation’s main causes is Jewish education, as seen in its support for the Jewish early childhood education initiative EarlyJ, which started in the Bay area and expanded last month to Los Angeles following a $3 million grant from the Rodans.

“The Rodan family exemplifies what it means to give back, and their dedication to strengthening Jewish education is truly inspiring,” said Shulkind. “We look forward to celebrating their extraordinary commitment with our Milken community.”

Shulkind believes that this gift will encourage others to donate as well. “It has given visibility to this project in ways that we couldn’t have imagined, partially because of who they are as a family and how respected they are in the world of philanthropy and leadership overall, but also because it’s an investment of a family that had no prior contact with Milken,” she said. “Giving inspires giving. They see what the Rodan family is doing and say, ‘OK, if they are investing, maybe we should as well.’”

The day the gift announcement went out, the school received dozens of emails and phone calls congratulating it and inquiring about the project. In the first hour after the announcement, one parent-alumni even gave an unsolicited donation for the project, Shulkind noted.

In recognition of the Rodan family’s generosity, Milken Community School will rename the Milken East Academic Building for upper school students as the “Rodan Family Academic Center.”

“The most exciting thing for me about this gift is the message it sends to our own students, about what leadership looks like and how you make a difference in your community,” said Shulkind. “We will be able to tell them the story of this family which is an incredible multi-generational story and offer our own kids a model of leadership.”

Enrollment to the school has increased since it added 6th grades in the 2021-2022 school year. Some students from public schools seeking Jewish education then joined. Shulkind said there are a few reasons for the increase in enrollment; one factor is the rise in antisemitism following the Oct. 7 terror attacks, Shulkind said.