On Friday night, the Lycée Français holds its annual gala at Cipriani Wall Street, a glamorous affair and a serious money raiser for the private Upper East Side school with 1,300 students in pre-kindergarten through the 12th grade.

This event’s success is one indicator of the fund-raising boom at private schools in the city. Annual Fund results are on a steady climb, and schools are embarking on ambitious capital and endowment fund-raising: Dalton raised $35 million, Spence raised $50 million, and Chapin is in the early phases of a $100 million campaign.

The activity is a sign of the willingness and ability of New York parents to invest in their children’s educations, even as tuition climbs past $30,000. The money is being invested in facility upgrades, increases in faculty salaries (a necessity if schools are to retain top talent in a city as expensive as New York), and endowment.

The Lycée appeared on the fundraising scene when it undertook a major real estate transaction. In 2003, it opened a new campus designed by James Polshek, financed by $95 million in tax-exempt bonds. It took proceeds from the sale of six townhouses and put them toward starting its first endowment.

Then a new head of school arrived: Yves Thézé, who filled the sleek new buildings with vision and energy.

The next step was securing the school’s future by building the endowment. In 2005, the Lycée Français launched a $12 million endowment campaign. It expects to raise $6 million by the end of this year.

The ongoing annual fund-raising has also increased. It has doubled to $800,000 from $400,000 in the past two years, with 48 parents giving gifts for the first time, and 57 parents increasing the level of their previous year’s gift. This year the school also solicited grandparents for the first time, so far resulting in 29 gifts.

All this has been achieved in a school community in which a third of the families are French, a third American, and a third from other countries. That means many families are new to the American and New York culture of philanthropy. The Lycée’s annual fund participation is at 40%. Most of the prestigious private schools in Manhattan have 80% to 90% participation.

“The trends are extremely positive,” the Lycée’s director of development, Arthur Moore, said. “What that shows is our education process is working very well.”

The Lycée’s first gala was eight years ago and raised $210,000. Last year the gala brought in $1.1 million. With more than 30 parents working on the event — securing auction items, planning décor, and sellling tickets — it has proved an effective vehicle for educating parents about fund-raising and promoting the sense of school community that facilitates donations.

“Fund-raising is something totally new to me. It doesn’t exist in France like it does here, so now I am learning” a chairwoman of the gala and school parent, Freddy Chesnais, said. Ms. Chesnais has two co-chairwomen, Angela Serpa of Colombia and Miriam Suárez of Mexico. They set a chic, exotic, and French tone for the event.

“It is something that Europeans understand. They understand a beautiful party, and so it’s a very amenable, comfortable way for them to give,” Mr. Moore said.

The theme of this year’s gala is “The Night of the Dragon,” in honor of the Mandarin Chinese program that is new to the school’s curriculum. The chairman of L’Oreal, Lindsay Owen-Jones, will present the Charles de Ferry de Fontnouvelle award for distinguished service to the Franco-American community to the former chairman of Lazard Frères, Michel David-Weill, an alumnus of the class of 1950 whose grandson, Henri Stern, is class of 2009. The David-Weills are French with a high philanthropic profile on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. David-Weill is a trustee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. David-Weill’s wife, Hélène, led the private fund-raising for the 10-year restoration of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

The support of the Franco-American corporate community is crucial to the event’s success. “The Lycée is viewed as an important institution of the French American community. This is more than just a school gala,” Mr. Moore said.

One of the highlights of the event is class parent Simon de Pury’s energetic live auction, which this year will include class parent and restaurateur Daniel Boulud’sdonation of a “A Dinner Fit for an Emperor at Daniel.” Last year, after the travel, dining, and wine packages sold, he auctioned off scholarships, raising an additional $160,000.

This was a significant boost to the school’s financial aid budget of $600,000. Next year that budget is increasing to $800,000.

Since fund-raising pressure is likely to increase, Mr. Moore was glad to attend the Independent Schools Conference in Philadelphia last weekend — as were several of his peers. New Yorkers registered included director of development at Trinity School, Myles Amend; the director of Institutional Advancement at Riverdale Country School, Duncan Marshall; the director of development at Spence, Carolyn Chaliff; the director of the endowment campaign at Dalton, Kristin Sweeney, and the assistant director of development at Chapin, Mary Murphy.

The four-day program included seminars on “The Trustee’s Role in Development” and “The Changing Face of Independent School Families.” At the seminar “Building a Giving Program that Facilitates the Natural Generosity of Others,” the director of annual giving for the prestigious Los Angeles private school Harvard-Westlake, Alan Ball, talked about a stewardship program that invites high-level prospects to dinner at the private Regency Club. The exclusivity of the invitation draws the attention of parents, who call asking to be invited.

That’s another part of the private school fund-raising story — much of it is conducted quietly. The schools are generally content to let museums, concert halls, and hospitals garner public attention for their campaigns. But with the numbers reaching such high levels, parents, like the ones at the Lycée, may now put pressure on schools to change their close-to-thevest policies.

agordon@nysun.com