|
|
If a parochial school is going to be sustainably, it must be unique, provide real value, and be economically sound.
Those three attributes create several benefits:
Uniqueness – Uniqueness provides your stakeholders (students, families, donors, referral sources, advocates, staff members, and others) with the information they need to explain why they support your parochial school. Uniqueness makes it easy for everyone to have a compelling reason to support your school besides low tuition, good location, or achievement scores.
Value – Value is what the students, families, donors, and community see as the benefit you offer. Value justifies the tuition, provides a return on the investment to the donors, and motivates the community to provide support in the form of referrals, advocacy, and other support activities.
Strength – Financial strength (tuition income and donor support) provides your stakeholders with the confidence that your Christian school will continue its good work for many years to come.
When all three are present, it is easy to maximize the relationship you have with each of your stakeholders. Donors will be generous because they know that your school is the only one (unique) their interested in supporting. The donors will be confident that their gift provides a substantial return in lives changed (value). The donors will have confidence that their entire gift will serve the children and families (none of the funds will be needed to handle a financial crisis) and that good stewardship is a hallmark of the school’s leadership. Families make their enrollment and re-enrollment (retention) decisions the same way that donors decide who to support and how generously. The same is true for volunteers, advocates, and referral sources.
Sustainability requires constant vigilance and evolution. The attributes of sustainability are always being copied. When another school notices your uniqueness, they will attempt to copy it in hopes of capturing some of your families. When another school notices your value, they will try to offer the same value. Everyone is already trying to create financial strength for their organization.
Next Step:
Determine the relative strength of your school in each of the preceding areas (Uniqueness, Value, and Strength)
Determine the best strategy for increasing the sustainability of your school
Determine which stakeholder group is most likely to provide support for strengthening your school
Develop a plan for engaging support from the selected stakeholder group
Sample strategies for increasing sustainability:
Increase financial strength with the goal of having the funds needed to add value to the programming and raise the level of uniqueness
Increase the value of your programming (enhance existing programming or add new programming) to increase enrollment and retention which will increase financial strength (tuition income and donor support) and provide the resources to create a higher level of uniqueness
Raise the level of uniqueness to increase visibility and interest, which increases enrollment and financial strength (tuition income and donor support) and provides the resources necessary to add value to the programming
The area that is easiest, quickest, and least expensive to change is usually uniqueness. However, when you succeed at attracting attention you must have compelling value or the added attention will result in a damaged reputation. Without compelling value, the prospects (donors, clients, advocate, volunteers, and referral sources) will feel like it is a lot of sizzle for very little steak.
Therefore, only choose one strategy.
Keeping the carts and horses in the right order is critical to having a sustainable parochial school.
The keys to success are:
Mission first
Serve clients (students and families) second
Cultivate donors third
Manage resources wisely fourth
Most meetings and discussions focus exclusively on managing resources (technology, money, staff time, equipment, etc.). A recent client project status meeting focused on whether the project was on time, within budget, and the way around some of the problems affecting progress.
The discussion ended without anyone asking:
Will the mission be stronger because of our decisions?
Are our decisions going to make it easier for the clients?
How will our decisions affect the donors’ willingness to give?
After being reminded of the three preceding questions, the group became aware that their decisions would adversely affect the mission, clients, and donors. However, the decision would optimize the project completion, save money, and make it easier for the staff. Optimizing things sometimes has short-term benefits but lowers long-term sustainability by lowering support, weakening the mission, and decreasing retention and enrollment.
Why does this happen?
Mission – It is easy to assume everyone can recite the mission statement (which is probably true). However, memorizing it is different than making it the foundation for every decision. Rarely does anyone advocate on behalf of the mission (For instance, when is the last time someone said, “If we do this how will it make the mission stronger?”.).
Clients & Donors – We all know our organizations exist to serve the clients. However, the clients and the donors are rarely in the room. In addition, the meeting agenda is developed around the catalyst for the meeting. Besides, similar to the mission, everyone assumes everyone else is thinking about the clients.
Money – While it is rarely on the agenda, it always has a few advocates in the room (Treasurer, chair of the board finance committee, principal, CFO, or a manager with budget responsibility). Besides, every decision must be tested against the budget impact and whether the decision can be cost justified or if a variance is needed.
The Goals – The goals for the project or discussion usually center on money, time, efficiency, or solving a problem. Without a direct connection to the mission, clients, and donors, it is easy to leave the mission, clients, and donors out of the discussion.
The solution is:
Mission Minute – Open the meeting with a reading of the mission statement or tell a quick story about how the mission recently changed the life of a client. This brings the mission and the clients into the room (virtually).
Assign Advocates – Ensure that the mission, clients, and donors have advocates. This is true whether the meeting is being held by a small group of staff members or by the board. At the board meetings assign the head of the development or advancement committee to represent the donors and the head of programming to represent the clients. The chair of any meeting is the natural choice for the mission advocate.
Goals – Establish mission goals, client goals, and donor goals before the project begins and make reaching those goals as important as the other project goals.
Next Step:
Establish mission goals, client goals, and donor goals for every endeavor
Ensure that every project team has individuals who are the assigned advocates for the mission, clients, and donors
Make the review of the three questions at the top of this article the last agenda item for every meeting or the discussion item before every board vote
“How do we increase staff productivity?” is an important question. “How do we increase staff productivity and enhance the mission, better serve the clients, and more fully engage the donors?” is a tough question. Finding the answer to the tough question will drive your Christian school to excellence and significantly improve sustainability. It will also inspire your staff since the primary reason they work at your school is their love of your mission and clients.
When enrollment declines, you know something must change. What change should you make?
Declining enrollment tells you that what differentiated your parochial school from all others (uniqueness) is less compelling than it was. You will still have some families who find your school compelling. If you want to have more students enroll, it is time to increase your differentiation.
One way that some Christian schools try to differentiate themselves is by lowering tuition. There are two reasons this is unlikely to work. The first is lowering the tuition only makes the school less expensive than the other nonpublic schools. The public schools already are differentiated by price (free). The other reason it is unlikely to work is that cutting the price reduces the amount of money available to spend on the mission and students. Fewer funds means that programming or facilities must suffer at some point.
Another way some Christian schools compete is to try to improve their achievement test scores. However, having the leading achievement test scores is unlikely to be a significant differentiator for most families. Everyone expects excellence in education and expects every school to have improving test scores. Even a school with a record of having the best test scores in the area for the past 10 years has a hard time convincing families that achievement test scores alone justifies the tuition. Put another way, test scores can be the tiebreaker with another nonpublic school, but it is unlikely to be a differentiator.
The best differentiator is one that meets the following criterion:
The differentiator solves a problem your prospective families face.
Some examples:
If your school is located in the inner city and many of the school families live below the poverty line, can you break the cycle of poverty? You may be unable to break the cycle for the parents but can you teach the students the skills necessary to step out of poverty? Of course, this means recruiting donors who are willing to collaborate with you in ministry, in addition, to the donors who are already willing to support the tuition needs of some of your current families.
If your school is located in a suburban area where families can afford tuition, can you offer something valuable to the student’s future that the public schools are unable or unwilling to offer? You may be able to offer leadership development. The prospect of the students graduating with the attributes of a leader might be appealing for families regardless of the career choices their children make (arts, science, business, health care, politics, etc.).
If your school is located in a rural area prone to tornados, hurricanes, floods, or droughts, would the families appreciate having their children develop resilience?
Just like it is impossible to achieve 100% on achievement test scores for the entire school, it is unlikely that you will achieve 100% success in any area of specialization. All that is needed is a measureable improvement in the area of differentiation to establish your school’s uniqueness and increase student enrollment and student retention.
Next Step:
Talk to non-school families and make a list of their concerns about the future of their children
Compare the list with the core competencies of your staff
Compare the items on the intersection list (item that represent the intersection of your core competencies and family needs)
Compare the intersection list with your mission and determine which item is the best fit
Build a plan to implement and promote the best fit
When you recruit the planning team, select representatives from non-school families, school families, board members, donors, volunteers, and staff. The diversity of the planning team will create a robust plan, ensure it fits your core competencies, and remains mission centric. It will also generate broad support.
The long-term sustainability of your school depends on ensuring that each dip in enrollment is a catalyst for increased differentiation.
Innovation is often important to sustainability. How do you innovate on a tight budget?
Helping others is why our organizations exist. Our love of others and concern about our clients are why we go to work each day and feel lucky to have the jobs we have. The desire to help others is why donors and volunteers provide support.
Each day there are thousands of conversations about how to help the clients, the special needs of a particular client, and the future needs of the clients. Each day you look for new and better ways because you care about the families you serve. You want your students to receive the best possible service.
Many discussions are about minor changes. They involve polishing some part of the process. Each one of those minor changes is an innovation in itself. Because they are small changes, we think of them as incremental rather than innovative.
Small incremental changes are a great way to train a team to be innovative and create the confidence that they have the ability to be innovative on a large scale. The incremental changes also demonstrate how inexpensive innovation can be.
Innovation on a larger scale means taking on a larger problem. However, a larger budget is optional and usually unnecessary. How many technology companies started in someone’s ‘garage’? The Wright brothers flew using the modest profits of a bicycle shop and the help of many friends (volunteers).
Each of those examples eventually needed a large infusion of money. However, the innovation was inexpensive. Making the innovation available to many people may require serious money.
The Wright brothers did what they did because they wanted to change the world. You do what you do because you want to change the world.
The Wright brothers were able to find many volunteers to help them with ideas, skills, and material. Generous volunteers surround your parochial school. They want to help you, your school, and your students and families. You have a donor base, something the Wright brothers lacked, who are ready to help you, your school, and your students and families.
The Wright brothers defined their problem in a way that inspired others to participate and they invited others to join in the quest for a solution. Are you inspiring and inviting others to participate?
Next Step:
Gather a group of parents, community representatives, donors, volunteers, and staff members
Ask the group to define a problem
Let the group help you envision a solution to the problem and develop a plan that demonstrates that the solution works on a small scale (a small select group of parents)
Use the group to help you gather the resources necessary for full scale implementation but only after you have demonstrated the solution’s success on a small scale
Use the group to work on large, important, and vexing problems. Your team is already very good at creating innovative solutions for smaller things. Working on a large and important problem will provide the team with motivation and pride. It will provide your Christian school with a significant competitive advantage. It will also provide a compelling reason for donors to increase their support.
Sustainability depends on solving problems that are important to the community that surrounds your organization. Like the Wright brothers, you can find the support you need if you are willing to take on a significant problem in your community.
What is the important problem that your families and community want and need to have solved?
Rarely do you find someone who wants to be micromanaged. However, sometimes our actions encourage others to micromanage us.
Imagine a principal who has a great new idea. He lays it out in front of the parochial school board fully thought out and carefully structured. Now the board has two choices, accept it whole or consider it a la carte. The first, accepting it whole, means simply giving permission to go forward. Of course, if the board does, it will be abdicating its role as oversight. The board is also relieved of any ownership since it is giving permission rather than joining the decision-making process.
The second, a la carte, option means digging through the proposal and ask questions. Because of the careful and thorough planning by the principal, the examination must be at the minute level. This encourages the board to engage in a detailed examination of decisions (micromanagement).
The principal can avoid being micromanaged by presenting the idea in broad strokes and with limited detail. This will encourage the board to explore the idea from a high level and may open new opportunities or uncover ways to reduce risk. It also encourages the board to help shape the project. Shaping the project creates a sense of ownership within the board, which increases board engagement. It also leaves the details open for the principal to handle any way the principal wants (opposite of micromanagement).
Next Step:
Invite the board to discuss ideas at the highest level
Use the details you developed to guide the board’s discussion
Use the key discussion points to guide how you will report progress to the board as implementation proceeds
Reporting only on the key points from the board’s discussion prevents the board from engaging in micromanagement later on.
Sustainability of your Christian school is increased by having the best possible input on every idea and the most engaged board possible. Sustainability is also increased by having the board feel a sense of ownership with every decision made.
You have a great board, which can be a great asset if you challenge them to think broadly rather than think about the details of each proposal.
When your parochial school promises what others value and keeps it promises, enrollment increases, student retention increase, and donor generosity and loyalty increase.
Here are four questions you, your staff, and your board can discuss:
What does your Christian school promise its students, parents, donors, and the community?
Is there agreement between the staff and board on what is being promised?
Before making any decision does the board, the staff, or the individual consider how it will enhance the promises your school has made?
Do the parents, community, and donors understand and value the promises?
Every faith-based school is sincere about keeping its promises. The answers to the first three questions determine how well your school is able to demonstrate your sincerity.
The last question is critical to having full enrollment and generous donors. When student retention is low, it indicates that the parents want what your schools promises but in greater abundance than they found. When donor generosity and other forms of support (volunteerism, advocacy, and referrals) are low, it indicates that the alumni, donors, and others want more value before they provide more support. When enrollment is below your desired level, it says that the community wants more value or needs to have a better understanding of the value your school provides.
Every community wants to have good schools. Regardless of how well the public schools live up to the expectation of being ‘good’, the community expects more from the nonpublic schools. ‘Good’ is free. Tuition pays for something more.
It is possible your school is providing the desired value but the community is listening for a different message. Let us assume your school says, “We instill character and values in our graduates.” However, the community is listening for a message that says, “We lower teen pregnancy.” Of course, instilling character and values does lower teen pregnancy but very few people are taking the time to think about what is being said, therefore the message ignored and the value is underappreciated. It is important to remember that the donors may be listening for a message like, “We create strong Christian citizens.” The way to express your promises will differ with each audience.
Next Step:
Determine if your promises are supportive of your mission
Determine if your promises are clear, understood equally by the board and staff, and enhanced by every decision
Determine if the value of your promises aligns with what your community wants
Determine if you are expressing your school’s value in words that align with your community’s priorities
When you make the right promises, express them in the right way, and keep them, sustainability is almost guaranteed. The best way to express your promises will be different for each audience.
As soon as someone says, “I have a great idea!”, someone else says, “We shouldn’t do it because …” You can change resistance into support.
All of us like to think we are innovation friendly. We expect every organization we deal with to be constantly evolving. We worry that if it evolves too slowly it will close. We admire the companies that are innovation leaders. We are a nation that realizes that innovation is the only way we will retain our position as a world leader.
At first glance, it seems like everyone should embrace the person who says, “I have a great idea!” However, there are good reasons to reject the idea before you hear it.
“I have a great idea!” is the weak way to approach innovation. A more collaborative approach is, “We need to talk about a problem our students or families are having.” It is a better approach because:
The only reason any organization exists is to solve the problems of its clients
Rephrasing it creates a collaborative environment where everyone has some ownership in the solution because everyone contributed to it
You will have an opportunity to present your idea when people are ready to listen to it
It creates a better solution (even if it is the same solution you would have proposed) because the solution receives an objective review
It reduces the fear of a change because more people understand it from the beginning
The solution is easier to fund because it started with a need and especially a client need
It is very important that whatever problem a staff member was working on when they had the great idea is solved. Presenting the problem in the unappetizing way (“I have a great idea!”) and having it rejected leaves the clients without a solution. Besides:
The children are very important and need the best environment for learning
We all want our clients to receive the best possible services
Innovation and change are an important part of maintaining a parochial school’s sustainability
We all want to work for an up-to-date organization that is a leader in its field
Next Step:
Teach your staff and board to focus on solving the client’s problems rather than promoting solutions
Remind your staff that your clients want change and innovation from your school
Include your donors when discussing major changes
Your donors provide funding because they care deeply about your students and the families your Christian school serves. Including them in major discussions about meeting client needs helps bring additional perspectives to the discussion.
Including the donors in the discussion has other benefits:
It gives the donors a sense of ownership
It makes the donors feel appreciated for more than their money
It helps the donors develop a better understanding of the needs of the clients and the challenges your school faces
It helps you to understand how to appeal to the donors who missed the meeting
All of the preceding points increase donor generosity
What is the most important problem facing your mission, students, and families?
If you know everything you need to know, it is possible to predict the future, in fact you know more than you think you do.
All you need to know is the answer to the following questions:
What are your competitors going to do?
What are your cost trends?
What are your client trends?
What are the funding trends?
Answers to the preceding questions are:
Competitors – The public schools are going to become much stronger and more effective. The source of their funding is the public. The public is demanding changes. Therefore, the public schools will change. The changes will minimally include better achievement test scores, safer schools, and higher graduation rates.
Nonpublic schools will keep pace with the public schools or go out of business. When every school has achievement test scores averaging above 90% what will differentiate one school from another? If price is the only differentiator, how will you compete with the free public schools?
Costs – The cost of public education increases between 5 – 7% annually. Many parochial schools find it a challenge to increase their budgets sufficiently to match inflation (about 3% per year). How will your school maintain competitive facilities, technology, teaching methods, staff credentials, etc.?
Client Trends – The neighborhoods surrounding many Christian schools are becoming more ethnically diverse. The diversity in faith traditions reduces the attractiveness of a Christian education. How will you make your school attractive to the diverse demographics surrounding your school without compromising your core principles?
If tuition fees must increase faster than inflation, the increases will exceed the wage increases the average worker will receive. Families that enroll their children will find your school unaffordable in a few years. How will your prevent your school from becoming the domain of the financially gifted?
Funding Trends – In an effort to deal with tight budgets, governments are asking nonprofits to pay for services. This is raising the costs for a nonprofit at a rate faster than inflation. Donors are finding it hard to increase their giving at a rate comparable to inflation. Foundations have fewer dollars due to investment losses and increasing demand for their support. Tuition fees must rise faster than most families can afford to support. What is your solution?
The good news is:
Every school is dealing with the same issues
Every school has an equal opportunity to succeed
The moment of crisis for most schools is at least 3 years into the future
Next Step:
Hold a board retreat to discuss the opening four questions of this article
Ask the board to develop a plan to respond to the trends, as they understand them for your neighborhood
Begin the implementation of the plan before the end of the school year
Developing plans and taking steps to protect your organization from adverse trends is one way to maintain sustainability. Being behind the trends is likely to cause some schools to close. Many schools have been weakened by the recent economic downturn, slow recovery, and leading edge of the preceding trends. Struggling schools have less than 5 years to make significant changes in their business models.
How soon can you hold your board retreat?
What type of assessment should you perform before the retreat to ensure the participants have the information they need (click here for a list)?
Do you need an outside facilitator to help keep the retreat objective?
If you want to increase parochial school enrollment, stop promoting education.
“People don’t buy a ¼ inch drill. People buy a ¼ inch hole.”
Ted Levitt
If we apply that thinking to parochial schools, we discover:
Parents don’t buy an education for their children. They buy a lifetime of happiness and success for their children.
Parents know that education is important. They also know that unlike 30 years ago when an education was all or most of what one needed for success, today an education is one of several elements of success.
The definition of success has changed. Today success requires us to be adaptable, continuous learners, problem solvers, good team players, and proactive. Some of the unemployed are unable to adapted to the new demands, stopped learning when they graduated from school, have below average problem solving skills, focused on personal gain, are reacting to the world around them rather than proactively responding, or a combination of things.
Many with a GED are finding it hard to get a job because employers assume the candidate lacks ambition, tenacity, or perseverance. Today every employer (nonprofit, government agency, for-profit, and Christian school) is finding it harder to compete. The employers need employees who show ambition, tenacity, and a competitive spirit. It is easy to imagine that in few years our rapidly changing world will treat high school diplomas with the same respect a GED receives today.
Today, most parents want their children to graduate from college. As a result, they expect schools to do more than help their students gain admission to college. They expect the school to instill in the students a thirst for knowledge, joy of learning, competitive spirit, ambition, and many other attributes.
The good news is that most public schools are years away from thinking about what is next. Being smaller and less burdened by bureaucracy, you have the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage over public schools by offering the extras parents seek.
Much of what parents want are also side benefits of what you are doing as part of your religious education program. However, in our evidence-based society, you need to measure the change, have goals for the change, and be able to document how the changes ensure the parent’s aspiration for their child will be fulfilled.
Next Step:
Ask your parents and non-school parents to articulate their aspirations for their children (How do they define a lifetime of happiness and success?)
Review how well your current programming prepares the students to fulfill their parent’s aspirations for them
Add intentionality, quantitative measures, and goals to your programming in areas the parents said were important
Creating sustainable graduates provides four benefits:
Creates a sustainable school because your school offers more than the public schools are offering
Increases enrollment
Increases student retention
Increases donor and alumni support (generosity, advocacy, and volunteerism)
Parents pay tuition expecting the fulfillment of their aspirations for their children. Fulfilling their aspirations for their children is the way your school can provide your students with a lifetime of happiness and success.
It is impossible to dodge turbulence. What is the secret to improving performance during turbulent times?
Turbulence can be caused by a variety of external and internal factors. To truly quality as turbulence, it probably needs more than one cause. Often it is the result of an external change followed by a less than effective internal response.
When the leadership is slow to recognize that the parochial school is in turbulence, the result is a serious problem that needs to be solved, a lack of resources to respond to the challenge, and very little time to respond. Without more time, a plan, and resources, often the response is to make do.
Successfully making do requires good morale, a highly motivated staff, and peak performance from the staff. In short, the great people who are working at your Christian school need to be greater. It is your job to raise morale, motivation, and performance.
Morale – It depends on hope, optimism, being part of a team, believing success is possible, and a believing the goal is worth attaining.
Motivation – It depends on understanding the adverse consequence (What does failure mean?), immediate results (If I do what you ask, what will be the immediate benefit?), logical sequence (there is a structured way to achieve success.), positive emotional engagement (Whatever needs to be done will result in positive emotional feedback like joy, happiness satisfaction, pride, etc.), and it serves a higher purpose (something beyond the individual, group, organization, and clients).
Performance – It depends on increased quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and consistency.
It is important to remember that after every turbulent period there must be a period of quiet. Leaping from one crisis to another exhausts the team. During exhausted times it is nearly impossible to motivate the team. Morale is difficult to manage because the last big push feels like it failed since the next crisis occurred immediately. Put another way, the third consecutive crisis usually crushes hope, optimism, and belief that success is possible. Performance usually peaks during the first crisis. How do you climb higher than the peak?
Next Step:
Define the crisis as larger than it is so that there is room for a second crisis if the first attempt is insufficient
Make sure all five motivators are present when you introduce the crisis (any order will do)
Make sure every team member receives a personal morale boost each day
Let the team members define how performance will be improved
Turbulent times often feel like everything is out of control. Giving the staff the freedom to define the performance improvements and objectives provides them with a sense of control.
Turbulent times are also times when sustainability is low. Moving from turbulence to calm quickly restores sustainability. In fact, organizations which quickly recover from a period of turbulence often find their sustainability is higher immediate after the crisis than it was before the crisis.
A time of turbulence is an opportunity to demonstrate your greatness as a leader. Show that you care, keep morale high, motivate the team, encourage performance improvements, and avoid false or overly optimistic communication and you will be seen as a great leader after the crisis passes.
Use even the smallest challenge as an opportunity to practice your crisis management skills.
|
|
