Communications and Marketing

Shhhh…don’t tell any of your advancement and development colleagues about this.

I’ve been prompted recently to think about the role of communications/marketing offices (herein “c/m office”) in our work, and their proper placement in a school’s organizational chart. 

To start, there are two schools of thought (no pun intended!) on where in an organization to place this office.  Historically—and I think still the case at the vast majority of independent schools—the c/m office is seen as a support function to other offices.  In some cases this office stands alone but often it is a branch of the development/advancement office.  In a very limited number of schools, I have seen it elevated to the level of administration, with the director of communications (or some such title) at the big table.  But that’s still uncommon.

For now, I’m not inclined to think outside the box and look at the less conventional model and, instead, am giving thought to the support function model.  But within that model, I’d like to propose the idea of moving the c/m office out from under the development/advancement office and into an independent office of its own or as a branch of the admissions office.  I have two rationales and hopefully they might help facilitate or further some conversations you have had with your head of school.

First, it’s about money, plain and simple.  90% or more of the operating budget at most any independent school comes from tuition revenue.  No doubt the work done by advancement is critical to a school’s long-term survival, especially around the growth of an endowment and ability to raise funds for construction of facilities.  The operating budget will never be able to pay for such things. 

But in the year-by-year operation of a school, all schools are tuition-dependent.  So, if you’re a day school charging about $25K in upper school tuition, how much easier (relatively speaking!) is it for the admissions office to enroll four more students for an additional $100K in revenue than it is for the advancement office to find an additional $100K in donations?  And we shouldn’t forget that the $100K in tuition revenue repeats itself for the next four years, assuming the child stays through graduation.  If advancement can find an additional $100K in donations, what are the chances they can repeat that the next four years?  So, essentially, if a school is looking to increase revenue for the annual operating budget, they are going to turn to admissions, not fundraising.  Accordingly, the c/m office has to at least be equally available to the admissions office, if not part of the admissions office.

Second, the fundraising people are working with those who already know about the school or with organizations/foundations that are interested in education.  They are tapping alumni, parents of alumni, current parents and grandparents, etc. etc. etc.  They are not expecting or hoping that perfect strangers who may know nothing or very little of your school are going donate money.  However, that’s exactly what the admissions office is doing!  We are hoping that through our communications and marketing efforts (and outreach and recruitment and travel and networking) that we will convince total strangers with no affiliation with the school that they should give over both their child and their money to us. 

We are engaging in a very steep, uphill battle.  Accordingly, we need to commandeer and muster as much communications and marketing resources as we possibly can.  “You don’t know much about us but we’d like you to trust us with your child and pay us a lot of money to do so” is a bigger challenge than, “You know us and love us, and we’re asking you to give back and support us.” Our work is disproportionately dependent on communications and marking whereby advancement capitalizes on and depends more on a potential donor's existing ties to the school and personal relationships.

Again, relatively speaking! 

I’m not saying it’s easy to raise money from friends.  I’m just saying that it is a bit easier.  So, let’s make sure the admissions office has at least equal access to and priority within the marketing and communications resources of our schools.

Gay Marriage

 

As the national debate has hit a penultimate moment this week with two cases regarding gay marriage being argued in front of the United States Supreme Court, it seemed an opportune moment for me to write about the LGBT community, my experience, and independent school admissions. 

When I worked in a day school in Philadelphia, we had great success in this market, after a lot of work and a bit of stumbling about.  But, as soon as one LGBT family arrived and was willing to be the pioneer, many more followed.  From these dad/dad and mom/mom families, I learned a number of things, a few of which I’ll share here:

1.     This is a close-knit community.  Initial success will quickly lead to greater success.  If a family is happy at your school, they will tell everyone in their circle about it.  The LGBT community is very steadfast and when they feel valued and safe, they will reward you with their support and business.

2.     These parents are happy to educate and help, especially the early arrivers, and are not there to judge.  When we asked them to let us know how they can be made more comfortable or to tell us where we were being ignorant in a practice, they welcomed the request to provide feedback and offered it kindly and without criticism.  (Does your application still ask for mother and father or does it ask for Parent 1 and Parent 2?)

3.     Parents are seeking a safe, welcoming community not only for their child but for themselves.  It’s important their child feel safe and not be the subject of bullying but the parents are also seeking a place where they feel safe and where they can comfortably be themselves and take part in all aspects of what it means to be an independent school parent.  Together.

4.     LGBT parents are proudly LGBT and welcome marketing and communication targeted to their particular profile.  They want to see their community and causes supported and they want to find you where they are, not have to migrate over to where you can usually be found with your marketing.  While the rest of us are exhausted over being targeted and identified in some way, this community welcomes it.  (Must Google slam with me travel ads because I visited Kayak.com?)

So, why am I telling you this?  Why should this be a target market worth your effort and consideration?  I’ll give you some information I have learned over time although a quick search on Google and you will find more quantifiable statistics for yourself.

1.     This community is wealthy.  The vast majority (more than 75%) earn above the national average.

2.     Similarly, this community has above the national average for college graduates.

3.     This community has a higher percentage of homeowners.

4.     This community is highly employed, and well employed (see #1).

5.     This community is very philanthropic and supportive, and give willingly of their time, talent and treasure.

Finally, this community is fiercely loyal.  They are loyal to each other and they are loyal to institutions that support them and where they feel not just welcomed in but feel they are on the inside.  In referring to my school, one set of moms exclaimed to me, “We found it!”  And then they told everyone and they became champions on our parent volunteer admission committee.

Who wouldn’t want more parents who fit this profile?

Larry vs. Piers

I’m catching up on the news and on my thinking: forgive me.  But before the holidays Larry King finally spoke up on his thoughts regarding what Piers Morgan has done with his former time slot and show on CNN.  Larry had two criticisms; I’ll tell you both but focus on one

First (and not my focus) is that Piers has opinions and he shares them.  If you care about such things and follow them (and sadly, I do, on both accounts), CNN leans to the left and can be (and has been) accused of being bias towards politicians of the Democratic party.  Not shocking news, to be sure.  But they are certainly more subtle than the likes of MSNBC or Fox News, who beat you over the head with their excessively and exceedingly political biases.  So, Larry faults Piers for being too transparent in his beliefs.  It’s probably an old school journalism versus a new school journalism thing.  Personally, it’d be nice to think that all journalists are neutral but I suppose that’s against human nature.  And if it is, I rather they be upfront and transparent.

Where my thoughts have focused on this topic is regarding preparation for the interview.  Larry did no preparation and did not have a research staff.  Apparently he approached every interview truly clueless about the subject and used his questions for the purpose of revealing for himself—and his audience—the story behind the subject.  He wanted no bias going onto the set and truly approached each guest with a sincere wonderment and curiosity.  He was known for sometimes even asking the most basic of questions, leaving his audience wondering if he was the only person left on earth that didn’t know something.  But what you saw was genuine and real and for those in the audience who didn’t know much of the guest, Larry was asking the questions they would ask if they had just such an opportunity.

Piers, on the other hand, has a full research team.  He goes in fully armed and prepared with his questions.  He tries to find out things that everyone else doesn’t already know and attempts to pick up where other interviews or questions left off. 

This all got me thinking what might make an appropriate approach for interviewing applicants.  I always review whatever we have on a student before I meet them.  If we don’t have much, I request we try to gather some basics when the appointment is scheduled or at least have a full inquiry form completed upon their arrival.  Doing this allows me to pick up on a theme in an essay they wrote or to inquire about the community service projects they have listed.  It is as though I’m entering the conversation already half begun.  And, of course, I expect the same of them.  Don’t waste my time asking if we offer soccer.  If that’s important to you, you should have figured out long before your visit to campus.

But what if I went the route of Larry King?  What if I read nothing in advance and approached each applicant interview genuinely curious and sincerely in need of starting at square one?  Would it seem I didn’t care enough to prepare or would I appear truly interested?  Interviews would certainly be longer as I tried to gather the basics but maybe they’d be more engaging, the two of us truly learning about each other, from the beginning. 

As always, I don’t know.

Parents

A number of years ago at NAIS, I paid to attend one of those pre-conference workshops.  Actually, my school paid.  Michael Thompson was the presenter and I think he is simply amazing.  I have heard him numerous times; you may have, too.  You probably know the name: he’s a guru in the independent school world and a god in the boys’ school world for his expertise as a school psychologist. 

His workshop was aimed at teachers about how best to understand and work with independent school parents, particularly around the all-important parent/teacher conference.  I assumed there was something I could extrapolate to our world and to the all-important parent/admissions meeting and relationship.  It was excellent!  23 years in education and it remains one of the best things I have ever attended.

For all of you who haven’t heard Thompson speak about this, he has now co-authored with Alison Mazzola a small book on this very topic: Understanding Independent School Parents.  It’s less than 100 pages with big font and I read it cover-to-cover in less time than it took to fly from London to Moscow.  I highly recommend it and now the entire administrative team at my school is reading it.

The book is in roughly three sections.  1. Understanding independent school parents.  2.  Working with the 95% who are sane and rational.  3.  Tips for working with the insane and irrational!  I think it behooves all of us and our offices to understand in particular who are our parents and what is their perspective.  Less helpful but still worth the read is the strategies for working with them.  Teachers simply have different relationships than we do with parents. 

So, some highlights:

Thompson reminds us that our parents make up the smallest, wealthiest, most successful people in America.  They are highly educated and one, if not both, is highly successful.  They exercise a great deal of control, are often the smartest person in the room, and others typically report to them or defer to them. 

And then they show up at our schools.  And on the topic of children, education, developmental readiness, and curriculum, they are no longer the smartest person in the room, we are in control, and they must defer to us to help them understand their child in the context of education.  This is unfamiliar territory for them, they can easily become uncomfortable, and they may struggle with news or decisions they don’t like (e.g. denied admission, doing poorly in school).

What can we do?

Thompson recommends three steps for the 95%.  1. Engage them about their child.  Ask them about their hopes and fears and then be a good listener.  If you invite them and successfully get them to speak intimately with you about their child, you will create a bond and forever alter the dynamic of your relationship with them.  2. “Claim the child.”  As we all know from the research of NAIS, a good deal of the value added independent schools provide is that each child is “known”.  Demonstrate that you have read the application and supporting documents and that to you their child is a person and you “know them” (as best you can at this point), not just another applicant or a number in your database.  3.  Be professional.  These parents are professionals and so are you so don’t let them forget it.  Just because they may make exponentially more money, doesn’t make you less a professional.  Start and end on time, be prepared, and follow up as needed.  For Lower School admissions folks or teachers, Thompson goes so far as to suggest you be sure to dress the part of a professional and not like someone who spends their day sitting on the floor leading reading circles or playing with dragons.  (Again, that was Thompson, not me!, saying that, dear Lower School admissions colleagues.)

At the end of the day, Thompson reminds us that these are parents we want: they have chosen to allocate their resources for their child’s education.  We have all worked with wealthy parents who could afford our schools but who won’t give up the shore house or the boat or the annual family ski trip to Switzerland and their kids remain in public school. 

Our parents made a different choice, a better choice.

Diversity

Diversity.  I hate the word.  Don’t get me wrong: I’m not anti-diversity.  Just the opposite.  I proudly helped bring the Steppingstone Foundation to Philadelphia when I worked there and I think boarding schools are the best opportunity for diversity and it’s why I work in one.  I believe in the broadest sense of the word and feel it is our moral obligation to be sure it’s a cornerstone of any proper, thoughtful education.

But I hate the word diversity.  I’d like to rid it from the vernacular and require everyone to articulate exactly what they mean instead of hide behind this catchall word.  I’ve seen far too many charts and reports and accountings under the umbrella of diversity that are either insufficient or superficial.  Or both.

And what does that look like?  Well, first of all, it doesn’t look like anything.  If you think you can look through the window of a classroom door and count the number of diverse students, then you need to get your head out of the early 1990’s.  Students who appear different can be very similar and students who look similar can be very different.  It is only in opening that door and spending time in that classroom that you can truly appreciate the kaleidoscope of experience made rich by the students found therein.

You can check off the easy categories that jump to mind: race, religion, economic means, sexual orientation, and geography (by zipcode for day schools or by countries and states for boarding schools).  But what about sexual orientation of parents?  But why do we assume parents to be plural?  A student from a mother/father home brings a different perspective than a student from a father/father home or a student who was raised by only one parent or no parent at all and has been raised by another relative.  How about students whose family emigrated from another country?  Maybe their parents don’t speak English at home.  How about the white, urban kid who wakes at 6am in order to take two busses and a subway to get to school who sits next to the white, rural kid who wakes at 6am to work on the family farm before coming to school?  And there are differences in learning styles, personalities, abilities, interests, passions, etc.

The list goes on and I’m sure as you read this a category jumps to your own mind that did not cross mine.  But isn’t that the point?  Isn’t the diversity of diversity the challenge?  It requires a school and an admissions dean to determine exactly what they desire and what they value, and then what they will measure.

Students and education and all of us are made better, made stronger by finding our voice and vocabulary to share our unique perspective, and our values and faith and beliefs are made stronger when we must explain if not defend them to others.  We are made further better and stronger by an openness to “other” and not simply to hear or even appreciate but to be willing to be shaped and changed by other, such that other is now part of us.  The exchange must be two way.  In a strong school setting, each student will find their own voice so that they may share and help others learn as well as develop their capacity to change so that they my learn from and be developed by others.

As ones who have the opportunity to orchestrate the social engineering of our schools, we are obligated to do more than fill charts and check off boxes of diversity.  We are obligated to generate and perpetuate the discussion of what a 21^st century school and education should reflect and to be sure we are doing so from within the classroom and not simply through the looking glass of the classroom door.

Awesome

Welcome to the new year!

The start of school is always so exciting.  For families and for the whole community but I would suggest especially for those of us staffing the admissions office at our schools.  Our work from the last 12 months is literally walking through the front door.  These new students are beaming with pride, proudly sporting our uniforms or maybe a school hoodie they grabbed in our bookstore.  They are anxious and nervous and hopeful and excited.  And so are their parents!

They walk through those doors for the first time with grand plans of what they will accomplish, excited by dreams and goals they will chase.  You scan their faces in the opening assembly, remembering when you interviewed them in your office, or maybe half way around the world.  You remember the endless questions and emails from their parents.  You remember the discussions and debates of the Admissions Committee.  But that’s all behind you now.  They are here and you are here and it is the start of school.  Welcome to the new year.

And then you do what you rarely allow yourself the time to do: you remind yourself—just quietly and just to yourself—that you have changed the trajectory of every kid’s life anxiously sitting in that room listening to new student orientation.  Because of you, they now have immeasurable opportunities found in your school’s programs, offerings, facilities and campus.  They have teachers and administrators who will put them at the center of their lives and challenge, encourage, support and mentor them.  They have peers and classmates who share their academic drive, their commitment to success and accomplishment, and their seriousness of purpose.

In the truest sense of the overused word, what you have done is awesome.

And it doesn’t stop there.  Any school—actually, every school—is shaped by the students who attend it.  The culture, the tenor, the ethos, the character of the place comes from the kids.  You may have an amazing campus and a dedicated faculty and a strategic thinking administration but all of that is for naught if you don’t have the right kids.  You’re the one who recruits and admits and enrolls those kids.  And the school moves in the direction of those students and with their boundless momentum.  Your kids.  The ones who are there because of you.  Before you reset the admissions cycle and your spreadsheets back to zero and launch a new season, stop and take a look around.  Take pride in your work, in your kids.  It will affect the school for generations to come.

You change the lives of children and you shape the future of schools.  You are awesome.  You are an admissions professional.  Welcome to the new year.

St. Thomas Church

If you like flawless liturgy and heavenly music, then you should visit St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City.  It is “the” Episcopal church in Manhattan.  It was founded—and funded—by Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Astors, Morgans and the rest of the American aristocracy.  You know, all those people with places in Newport!  It also has a small, 5^th-8^th boarding school for boy choristers, with around a dozen graduates each year.

I have recently finished reading “Priest in New York,” by Father Austin, who is the Theologian-in-Residence at St. Thomas.  It is a collection of short essays.  It’s good pick-up/put-down airplane reading. 

Being in NYC, St. Thomas must deal with it’s share of homeless, uncertain, dangerous, and, frankly, questionable people who show up off the street, not seeking God but seeking money or food or shelter.  How do you decide whether to serve or turn them away but still fulfill the mission of the Church on earth?  Sometimes their behavior impacts others, threatens others.  Father Austin writes in his book, Nonetheless, our welcome cannot mean indifference to behavior that undermines the gift it is our mission to offer.  I think it is the hardest thing of all to say to someone, “If you do X, you cannot come here.” And yet, discipline is necessary and is the heavy responsibility of those who care for institutions.  There is no identity without boundaries.

Sound familiar?  It should.  Our role requires discipline.  Our role is a heavy responsibility.  Our role is to ensure identity by providing boundaries.  Our role is to say, “If you do X, you cannot come here.”  I know I’ve written on this before but it is because I think it is the most important work that we do.  The shape, future, tone, and culture of our schools are completely reflective of the students we enroll. 

I had two telephone calls yesterday asking about space for next month.  One was for a day student.  We can always squeeze in another day student if we want them.  This was a student who has been looking at us for 9^th grade in 2013 but now suddenly wants to join 8^th grade next year.  He’s a great kid.  I’m sure we can work it out.  The other kid I don’t know and haven’t met but he’s looking for a boarding space and it would be hard to make it work.  My initial radar has also pinged some possible red flags.  It is, after all, mid-August and they don’t know where he’s going to school in three weeks.

Both want to be here, in part, because of our identity; or, put another way, our reputation.  Not sure how it will play out for each student but I do know I’ll be thinking about the importance of “…no identity without boundaries.”  In the land of my school, I’m the border guard.

So what evidence do we have to support this thesis of the importance of identity and boundaries?  There is subjective perception and there is fact.  Subjective perception: I travel a great deal for work and after two decades in admissions, I have seen the inside of a lot of Episcopal churches on Sunday morning across the U.S. and around the world.  My subjective perception is that the Church is in decline.  It’s nothing like my childhood.  Fact: the membership of the Episcopal Church has gone below 2 million for the first time, from a one-time high of 3.6 million.  Subjective perception: St. Thomas seems packed, no matter when I go: Easter, of course, but then all the other Sundays as well.  Fact: the St. Thomas annual fund for 2012 hit an all time high of over $1.3 million in pledges for the year.

The dots I’m connecting and the conclusion I’m drawing is that despite national trends to the contrary, St. Thomas is thriving.  People are drawn to its identity.  No doubt, St. Thomas has some controversial positions that they don’t hide but that seems to have only helped sharpen and brought clarity to their identity and has not impacted attendance or finances.  On the contrary, St. Thomas, with it’s clear sense of self, is ahead of it peers.

It’s not the first and it won’t be the last time I write about the importance of clarity of mission, knowing who we are, and being the gatekeepers who set boundaries for our schools.  St. Thomas is a good exemplum of the success that can be enjoyed.