Meet our Founders

Vahan & Danielle Gureghian

The belief that all students can succeed if given the right opportunities is a tenet that the Gureghians passionately support. The Gureghian Charitable Foundation was founded on the notion that financially disadvantaged students can have a chance to compete and succeed if the educational divide between the privileged and the underprivileged narrows and educational opportunities for the underprivileged widen. Through the Foundation, the Gureghians provide graduating eighth- grade students with opportunities to attend top-performing high schools in the Greater Philadelphia region.

As the founders of CSMI, LLC, an educational management company, the Gureghians believe that applying basic business management principles to schools and separating the business of operating a school from academics, teachers and administrators are free to focus on what they do best – educate students. That operating philosophy, combined with educational innovations that empower students, is helping to change outcomes for Chester students.

The Gureghian Charitable Foundation is proud of the Chester Community Charter School graduates’ innumerable achievements, and with the Foundation’s assistance, these graduates have attended some of the area’s best high schools. The Gureghians know that these children will grow up to be the future of our great nation, and with a strong educational background, great success will follow them throughout their lives.

The Foundation

The Gureghian Charitable Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit founded and operated by Vahan and Danielle Gureghian. The Foundation provides scholarships for Chester Community
Charter School (CCCS) graduates to attend high schools. CCCS is Pennsylvania’s largest non-profit K- 8 charter school located in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of the Commonwealth’s most economically disadvantaged communities. Scholarship recipients have enrolled in some of the most academically rigorous and prestigious high schools in the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area.

The Gureghians’ commitment to Chester’s children extends beyond the provision of scholarships. As the operators of CSMI, LLC, an educational management organization that develops and supports charter schools, they have focused on improving educational outcomes by freeing educators from non-academic tasks so that the teachers can focus exclusively on teaching. CSMI supports the schools for which it consults by working collaboratively with their governing boards and appointed leaders.

CSMI has provided consulting support to CCCS since the 1990s, during which time the school has become one of Pennsylvania’s great educational success stories. The school opened in 1998 with an enrollment of 97 students, housed in a local Howard Johnson, and it has grown to serve roughly 4,500 students providing state-of-the-art resources and facilities. The school has transformed the lives of thousands of students and their families, who for many years had very few quality educational options available to them – if any, at all.