Simple Fundraising Actions Your School Can Implement Today

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By Melanie Horton, Director of Marketing

Originally published October 24, 2017; last updated November 28, 2022

All charter schools can use a few extra dollars to fund projects and programs that support the success of their students. Wherever your school is with its fundraising strategy, there’s always room for evaluation and improvement. We’ve put together a list of five simple actions schools can take to increase donations, as well as a few quick tips to help strengthen the connection to potential and existing donors.  

Five Fundraising Actions Your School Can Take Today

1. Participate in #GivingTuesday: Celebrated the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, GivingTuesday was started in 2012 as a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world” (www.givingtuesday.org). The movement provides an opportunity for charitable organizations to rally their communities and encourage donations to their causes through the use of the #GivingTuesday hashtag on social media. For GivingTuesday 2021, online and offline donations in the United States totaled $2.7 billion, an increase of 9% from 2020 and 38% from pre-pandemic levels! You can find several resources to help plan for #GivingTuesday 2022, which falls on November 29 this year, at www.givingtuesday.org, including a toolkit for nonprofits with links to logo files and social media templates, suggested messaging, and best practices for engaging your community. Don’t worry about implementing all the recommendations the first time you participate; you can start by incorporating #GivingTuesday into your existing social media plan, and set aside time well in advance next year to develop a more comprehensive strategy. 

2. Register on Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organization of your choice. There is a simple registration process, so you will need access to the school’s EIN and bank account information. Once you are registered, remind parents, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders to bookmark smile.amazon.com, where they can select your school as their charitable organization of choice; they only need to do this once, and all future eligible purchases made at smile.amazon.com will result in a 0.5% donation to your school.  Once an individual makes a purchase that results in a donation, they’ll be able to view and keep track of the total amount donated to the school across time; this is a fun, useful feature that allows donors to see the collective impact of several small donations made by members of the school community across time.  

3. Remember to ask donors if their employer participates in a matching gift program. Some individuals may not be aware their employer offers a matching gift program, leaving potential fundraising dollars on the table! Make sure to include this reminder on your website’s donation page, as well as in any direct mail fundraising campaigns. While there is technology available for purchase that can be linked to your school’s website, which allows donors to check their employer’s matching gift policy and guidelines on the spot, this is also easy to do without the help of extra tools. Just include a simple, noticeable message that prompts donors to ask if their employer, or their spouse’s employer, participates in a matching gift program. You can also prompt donors to check a box if they already know they have access to a matching gift program and remind them to proceed with the necessary paperwork. Asking donors to check a box makes it easy for you to follow-up about matching gifts.  

What happens next? The donor will then need to request the proper paperwork from their employer (as well as verify that the school is eligible for a matching donation) and submit a matching gift form to your school. Upon receipt of the form, a school employee will need to confirm donation from the individual and submit the form to the employer.  

You may want to check this list of top matching gift companies and share it with your community so those who donate have a quick way to verify if their company has a matching gift policy. This list is not comprehensive as it only covers larger companies with strong matching gifts programs, but it’s still a helpful reference to have. 

4. Register with local supermarkets and other retail stores. Several retailers offer programs that allow customers to donate a percentage of their purchases to the charitable organization of their choice. For example, the Kroger Family of Companies, which operates over 2,700 grocery retail stores across the country, has a Community Contribution Program that allows rewards card users to select a community organization to donate to. If Kroger doesn’t have a presence in your community, you may want to pay a visit to your local retailers to ask if they have similar programs.  

5. Don’t leave grant money on the table! There are hundreds of grant opportunities available to charter schools, some of which require no more than a simple application form.  It can be difficult to make time to focus on grant writing when there are so many other things to get done, which is why EdTec offers grant research and writing services for busy school leaders.  If you wish to speak with someone about how we can customize our services to meet your school’s needs, please send us email to learn more. For more information about upcoming grant opportunities for charter schools, you can sign up to receive our monthly grants email. 

Three Ways to Strengthen Your School’s Fundraising Program

1. Make your case. The stronger your story, the more compelled your stakeholders will feel to give. Is your per-student funding rate less than the state average? Less than the neighborhood school district? Share these facts with your audience and include numbers when you have them. You’ll also want to include a list of things you aim to accomplish through fundraising, be it reducing class size, purchasing new musical instruments, enhancing facilities, or starting an after-school STEM program, as well as a tally of funds raised to date (if any) and what you’ve been able to accomplish as a result. Give your potential donors proof that their money will be put to good use!

2. Be thankful! Always send timely thank you notes, preferably within two weeks of receiving a donation (and sooner if you can). While it is a nice gesture to send hand-written notes, this is not always feasible, especially for larger schools. Have a template thank you note ready to go, personalize the letter with the donor’s name and donation details, and ask the school’s principal or executive director to sign it.  You might also consider putting together an annual publication that recognizes donors for their contributions and includes information about the projects and improvements that were made possible by their generosity. Donors will enjoy being recognized and be more compelled to give in the future.

3. Stay in touch. Add all donors who are new to your community to your contact list and include them in relevant communications such as newsletters and invitations to upcoming events as a way to remind them of all the great things happening at your school and why they should continue to give! It’s always more difficult to reconnect with donors when they haven’t heard from you since their last donation. Donors are important stakeholders, and we want them to feel like they are a true part of the school community. The more we nurture donors, the stronger these relationships will grow over time.   

    

Five Minutes of Updated Practical Fundraising Advice for Charter Schools

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By Melanie Horton, Director of Marketing

Originally published October 24, 2017; last updated November 23, 2021

All charter schools can use a few extra dollars to fund projects and programs that support the success of their students. Wherever your school is with its fundraising strategy, there’s always room for evaluation and improvement. We’ve put together a list of five simple actions schools can take to increase donations, as well as a few quick tips to help strengthen the connection to potential and existing donors.  

Five Fundraising Actions Your School Can Take Today

1. Participate in #GivingTuesday: Celebrated the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, GivingTuesday was started in 2012 as a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world” (www.givingtuesday.org). The movement provides an opportunity for charitable organizations to rally their communities and encourage donations to their causes through the use of the #GivingTuesday hashtag on social media. For GivingTuesday 2019, online contributions reached $511 million, an increase of nearly 28 percent from the previous year, and the organization estimates that total online and offline donations totaled nearly $2 billion. That same year, the hashtag earned more than 20 billion social media impressions!  You can find several resources to help plan for #GivingTuesday 2021, which falls on November 30 this year, at www.givingtuesday.org, including a toolkit for nonprofits with links to logo files and social media templates, suggested messaging, and best practices for engaging your community. Don’t worry about implementing all the recommendations the first time you participate; you can start by incorporating #GivingTuesday into your existing social media plan, and set aside time well in advance next year to develop a more comprehensive strategy. 

2. Register on Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organization of your choice. There is a simple registration process, so you will need access to the school’s EIN and bank account information. Once you are registered, remind parents, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders to bookmark smile.amazon.com, where they can select your school as their charitable organization of choice; they only need to do this once, and all future eligible purchases made at smile.amazon.com will result in a 0.5% donation to your school.  Once an individual makes a purchase that results in a donation, they’ll be able to view and keep track of the total amount donated to the school across time; this is a fun, useful feature that allows donors to see the collective impact of several small donations made by members of the school community across time.  

3. Remember to ask donors if their employer participates in a matching gift program. Some individuals may not be aware their employer offers a matching gift program, leaving potential fundraising dollars on the table! Make sure to include this reminder on your website’s donation page, as well as in any direct mail fundraising campaigns. While there is technology available for purchase that can be linked to your school’s website, which allows donors to check their employer’s matching gift policy and guidelines on the spot, this is also easy to do without the help of extra tools. Just include a simple, noticeable message that prompts donors to ask if their employer, or their spouse’s employer, participates in a matching gift program. You can also prompt donors to check a box if they already know they have access to a matching gift program and remind them to proceed with the necessary paperwork. Asking donors to check a box makes it easy for you to follow-up about matching gifts.  

What happens next? The donor will then need to request the proper paperwork from their employer (as well as verify that the school is eligible for a matching donation) and submit a matching gift form to your school. Upon receipt of the form, a school employee will need to confirm donation from the individual and submit the form to the employer.  

You may want to check this list of top matching gift companies and share it with your community so those who donate have a quick way to verify if their company has a matching gift policy. This list is not comprehensive as it only covers larger companies with strong matching gifts programs, but it’s still a helpful reference to have. 

4. Register with local supermarkets and other retail stores. Several retailers offer programs that allow customers to donate a percentage of their purchase to the charitable organization of their choice. For example, the Kroger Family of Companies, which operates over 2,700 grocery retail stores across the country, has a Community Contribution Program that allows rewards card users to select a community organization to donate to. If Kroger doesn’t have a presence in your community, you may want to pay a visit to your local retailers to ask if they have similar programs.  

5. Don’t leave grant money on the table! There are hundreds of grant opportunities available to charter schools, some of which require no more than a simple application form.  It can be difficult to make time to focus on grant writing when there are so many other things to get done, which is why EdTec offers grant research and writing services for busy school leaders.  If you wish to speak with someone about how we can customize our services to meet your school’s needs, please send us email to learn more. For more information about upcoming grant opportunities for charter schools, you can sign up to receive our monthly grants email. 

Three Ways to Strengthen Your School’s Fundraising Program

1. Make your case. The stronger your story, the more compelled your stakeholders will feel to give. Is your per-student funding rate less than the state average? Less than the neighborhood school district? Share these facts with your audience and include numbers when you have them. You’ll also want to include a list of things you aim to accomplish through fundraising, be it reducing class size, purchasing new musical instruments, enhancing facilities, or starting an after-school STEM program, as well as a tally of funds raised to date (if any) and what you’ve been able to accomplish as a result. Give your potential donors proof that their money will be put to good use!

2. Be thankful! Always send timely thank you notes, preferably within two weeks of receiving a donation (and sooner if you can). While it is a nice gesture to send hand-written notes, this is not always feasible, especially for larger schools. Have a template thank you note ready to go, personalize the letter with the donor’s name and donation details, and ask the school’s principal or executive director to sign it.  You might also consider putting together an annual publication that recognizes donors for their contributions and includes information about the projects and improvements that were made possible by their generosity. Donors will enjoy being recognized and be more compelled to give in the future.

3. Stay in touch. Add all donors who are new to your community to your contact list and include them in relevant communications such as newsletters and invitations to upcoming invitations as a way to remind them of all the great things happening at your school and why they should continue to give! It’s always more difficult to reconnect with donors when they haven’t heard from you since their last donation. Donors are important stakeholders, and we want them to feel like they are a true part of the school community. The more we nurture donors, the stronger these relationships will grow over time.   

    

Five Minutes of (Updated) Fundraising Advice for Charter Schools

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By Melanie Horton, Senior Marketing Manager

Originally published October 24, 2017; last updated November 16, 2020

All charter schools can use a few extra dollars to fund projects and programs that support the success of their students. Wherever your school is with its fundraising strategy, there’s always room for evaluation and improvement. We’ve put together a list of five simple actions schools can take to increase donations, as well as a few quick tips to help strengthen the connection to potential and existing donors.  

Five Fundraising Actions Your School Can Take Today

1. Participate in #GivingTuesday: Celebrated the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, GivingTuesday was started in 2012 as a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world” (www.givingtuesday.org). The movement provides an opportunity for charitable organizations to rally their communities and encourage donations to their causes through the use of the #GivingTuesday hashtag on social media. For GivingTuesday 2019, online contributions reached $511 million, an increase of nearly 28 percent from the previous year, and the organization estimates that total online and offline donations totaled nearly $2 billion. That same year, the hashtag earned more than 20 billion social media impressions!  You can find several resources to help plan for #GivingTuesday 2020, which falls on December 1 this year, at www.givingtuesday.org, including a toolkit for nonprofits with links to social media templates and messaging along with other ideas for engaging your community. Don’t worry about implementing all the recommendations the first time you participate; you can start by incorporating #GivingTuesday into your existing social media plan, and set aside time well in advance next year to develop a more comprehensive strategy. 

2. Register on Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organization of your choice. There is a simple registration process, so you will need access to the school’s EIN and bank account information. Once you are registered, remind parents, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders to bookmark smile.amazon.com, where they can select your school as their charitable organization of choice; they only need to do this once, and all future eligible purchases made at smile.amazon.com will result in a 0.5% donation to your school.  Once an individual makes a purchase that results in a donation, they’ll be able to view and keep track of the total amount donated to the school across time; this is a fun, useful feature that allows donors to see the collective impact of several small donations made by members of the school community across time.  

3. Remember to ask donors if their employer participates in a matching gift program. Some individuals may not be aware their employer offers a matching gift program, leaving potential fundraising dollars on the table! Make sure to include this reminder on your website’s donation page, as well as in any direct mail fundraising campaigns. While there is technology available for purchase that can be linked to your school’s website, which allows donors to check their employer’s matching gift policy and guidelines on the spot, this is also easy to do without the help of extra tools. Just include a simple, noticeable message that prompts donors to ask if their employer, or their spouse’s employer, participates in a matching gift program. You can also prompt donors to check a box if they already know they have access to a matching gift program and remind them to proceed with the necessary paperwork. Asking donors to check a box makes it easy for you to follow-up about matching gifts.  

What happens next? The donor will then need to request the proper paperwork from their employer (as well as verify that the school is eligible for a matching donation) and submit a matching gift form to your school. Upon receipt of the form, a school employee will need to confirm donation from the individual and submit the form to the employer.  

You may want to check this list of top matching gift companies and share it with your community so those who donate have a quick way to verify if their company has a matching gift policy. This list is not comprehensive as it only covers larger companies with strong matching gifts programs, but it’s still a helpful reference to have. 

4. Register with local supermarkets and other retail stores. Several retailers offer programs that allow customers to donate a percentage of their purchase to the charitable organization of their choice. For example, the Kroger Family of Companies, which operates over 2,700 grocery retail stores across the country, has a Community Contribution Program that allows rewards card users to select a community organization to donate to. If Kroger doesn’t have a presence in your community, you may want to pay a visit to your local retailers to ask if they have similar programs.  

5. Don’t leave grant money on the table! There are hundreds of grant opportunities available to charter schools, some of which require no more than a simple application form.  It can be difficult to make time to focus on grant writing when there are so many other things to get done, which is why EdTec offers grant research and writing services for busy school leaders.  If you wish to speak with someone about how we can customize our services to meet your school’s needs, please send us email to learn more. For more information about upcoming grant opportunities for charter schools, you can sign up to receive our monthly grants email. 

Three Ways to Strengthen Your School’s Fundraising Program

1. Make your case. The stronger your story, the more compelled your stakeholders will feel to give. Is your per-student funding rate less than the state average? Less than the neighborhood school district? Share these facts with your audience and include numbers when you have them. You’ll also want to include a list of things you aim to accomplish through fundraising, be it reducing class size, purchasing new musical instruments, enhancing facilities, or starting an after-school STEM program, as well as a tally of funds raised to date (if any) and what you’ve been able to accomplish as a result. Give your potential donors proof that their money will be put to good use!

2. Be thankful! Always send timely thank you notes, preferably within two weeks of receiving a donation (and sooner if you can). While it is a nice gesture to send hand-written notes, this is not always feasible, especially for larger schools. Have a template thank you note ready to go, personalize the letter with the donor’s name and donation details, and ask the school’s principal or executive director to sign it.  You might also consider putting together an annual publication that recognizes donors for their contributions and includes information about the projects and improvements that were made possible by their generosity. Donors will enjoy being recognized and be more compelled to give in the future.

3. Stay in touch. Add all donors who are new to your community to your contact list and include them in relevant communications such as newsletters and invitations to upcoming invitations as a way to remind them of all the great things happening at your school and why they should continue to give! It’s always more difficult to reconnect with donors when they haven’t heard from you since their last donation. Donors are important stakeholders, and we want them to feel like they are a true part of the school community. The more we nurture donors, the stronger these relationships will grow over time.   

 

Leading in a Crisis: Engaging with Prospective Families During School Closures

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June 18, 2020

Here at EdTec, supporting charter schools to succeed is at the heart of everything we do, day in and day out. As we navigate this difficult time together, this blog series will address various topics to help school leaders identify tools, resources, and support that can help them lead effectively. This time, we’re providing a few ideas about how schools can utilize virtual and online tactics to engage with prospective families and drive enrollment for next school year and beyond, and have included a few examples of how our school partners and others are already doing that. We are not recommending or endorsing any particular tools or products, but simply sharing a few ideas for inspiration and further discussion among school leadership teams.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, charter schools relied heavily on in-person enrollment strategies such as school tours and special events that showcase student life and the programs and activities the school has to offer. But what happens when prospective families can’t get to campus?   

Like organizations in other fields, there is an opportunity for charter schools to tell their stories and keep their audiences engaged through the use of creative virtual events and other online tactics. We’ve pulled together a few ideas for how your school can focus on digital efforts to move prospective families from consideration to enrollment. Please note that like any other school activities, these ideas and approaches all have to be planned and carried out in accordance with all school policies and legal/ regulatory requirements.  

Social Media

Now is the time to use social media to connect with current and prospective families and the community at large. With many establishments closed for business as usual, folks are using social media now more than ever, and there is an opportunity for school leaders to use the tools at their disposal to foster engagement.  Before sharing photos or video content on your school’s social media accounts, website, or any other online medium, make sure you reference your school’s media release policy to ensure you are in compliance and only sharing content featuring those students whose parents or guardians have given the appropriate permissions. 

Keep Up with Posting

Rather than curtail your use of social media or scale down on posting, use it as a tool to tell your school’s story and provide a sense of connection within your community. You can use social media to share how the school is handling distance learning and supporting students and families, as well as to highlight what makes the school unique. As one example, Para Los Niños shared quotes from teachers about why they enjoy teaching at the school during Teacher Appreciation Week. These posts serve to both celebrate teachers as well as communicate the school’s strengths to prospective families.

If you could use some inspiration to help you create visually-appealing social media posts, Canva is a free, user-friendly graphic design tool that offers fun, customizable templates and the ability to design communications sized for multiple social media platforms and other uses. You can also upgrade to a paid model to unlock additional graphics and upload your organization’s official colors and logos for easy reference. Canva can also be used to design and order printed materials.  

Utilize Video

Video on social media is a great way to introduce your school to prospective families. You can ask current students, teachers, and administrators to record short clips about their experience at the school using their phones; these clips can be shared on their own or combined into a longer video about the school. Video is a great way to bring your school to life during this crisis. Albuquerque Collegiate put together videos celebrating their teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. The videos not only highlight the school’s great teachers, but also touch on why the students like their school. Your school’s videos don’t have to be tied to a specific holiday; anytime is a good time to share stories about how your school community is staying connected, engaged, and inspired during this period of distance learning.  

Go Live!

Going live presents an in-the-moment opportunity for your school to engage with families. Your school can utilize live features on either Facebook or Instagram to host Q&A sessions with prospective families. During this series of live sessions, school leaders can answer questions from prospective families about the school’s mission and vision, academic and extracurricular programs, and how the school is responding to the crisis. Buffalo Creek Academy, a school scheduled to open in Fall 2020, holds a twice-daily broadcast on Facebook Live and Instagram Live to share information about their mission and academic programs as well as answer questions from participants. Synergy Academies hosted a live event on Instagram’s IGTV video app the night before college signing day to announce where their seniors would be attending college in the fall.  

Create Facebook Groups

Your school can use Facebook groups to connect current and prospective students and families. As a moderator of your school’s private Facebook group, you can share important updates while creating a safe place for prospective families to ask questions. It is important that you set guidelines at the start regarding the goal of the group as well as expectations for conduct.   

Virtual Events

Across the country, schools are finding unique ways to tap into virtual events to promote their enrollment efforts, such as hosting virtual school tours. In the absence of campus tours and in-person interactions, virtual events provide an opportunity for schools to continue their enrollment efforts. Below are a few ways that your school can use virtual events to meet families where they are and give them the information they’re looking for.   

Virtual Tours

Virtual tours are the new school tours during this time of school closure. It is a great way to engage prospective families and provide an on-campus experience without asking anyone to leave their homes. Success Academies used a sophisticated web-based application to put together this virtual tour of an elementary school. For schools looking for a quicker or less expensive option, a virtual tour can be recorded by anyone using a phone or video equipment, and they can even narrate the tour to include examples of activities that take place in each part of the campus. If your school doesn’t have access to this equipment or the campus is not open for access right now, you can utilize existing photos to put together a presentation that describes the campus so that prospective parents and students can visualize what it might be like to attend school there.  

Virtual Information Sessions

Your school can organize virtual information sessions or town halls by using a video conferencing platform you are familiar with, such as Zoom.  These town halls can follow the format of a typical school information session,  where an administrator gives an introduction to the school and moderates the event, and other staff or school ambassadors (including teachers, students, and parents) participate by sharing their experiences and taking questions from the audience. Always make sure to check your video conference platform’s security recommendations to minimize the risk of unwelcome guests and other concerns.   

To help ensure the event runs smoothly, require folks to register in advance; this way, you can manage crowd size and know what to expect. You can also request that participants submit questions in advance so you and your team can assign them to the person most equipped to answer and prepare to have the information needed to provide a meaningful response.   

Ethos Classical Charter School gives prospective families the option to set-up a one-on-one information session by using the Calendly scheduling tool. A callout is included on their home page, along with an email address for those with questions. The sessions are led by members of the school’s leadership team.  

To advertise the event, post the details on your website and share it on social media. Include links to additional information and prompt folks to sign-up, if applicable. You can also record these town halls and post them on your school’s website and social media to both build your content bank and share it with those who weren’t able to participate live.  

Just like with in-person events, it’s important that everyone who represents the school during virtual events has had the training to ensure consistent and appropriate messaging. 

Other Virtual Sessions

Beyond more formal virtual events such as town halls, some schools are planning virtual office hours or “coffee chats with the principal”. While most of these events target current families who may have urgent questions about the school’s distance learning plan, they can also be used as a fun, informal way to engage with prospective students and parents. 

Schools may also want to consider thematic virtual events that target specific interests. For example, school leaders could partner with a few coaches to organize a “virtual sports chat” to share information about the school’s athletic programs and accolades as well as take questions from prospective students interested in joining sports teams.  A similar event could be organized with college and career counselors to discuss the school’s track record with college admissions and spotlight a few students who were recently accepted into the colleges of their choice.  

Website

Your school website is a primary source of information about your school, and it’s the first place many current and prospective families go when they have a question. Families are likely looking for information about how the school is responding to the current environment and how it might impact the school’s plans for next school year. It is important that your website includes a section about how learning continues at your school, and that your home page includes a straightforward link to this section, so visitors don’t have to dig for it. 

Create New Landing Pages for Virtual Events

Since your school’s website is a primary source of information, it is an ideal place to include details about all your public-facing virtual events. A good way to make the event information easily accessible is to create a new page dedicated to promoting your virtual events. This page would host the event details along with registration information, if necessary. You can also use this page as a media hub and post photos and videos that highlight your school’s mission, culture, and achievements. Method Modern Public Schools has an events page that also includes links to virtual tours of universities, museums, and other sites with no specific dates attached.  

To encourage attendance at your virtual events, include them in the newsfeed on your home page for increased visibility, and link to them on your social media. 

Provide Enrollment Information

To make things simple for parents and students looking to submit an open enrollment form, include all relevant deadlines and information on your website and link to it on your homepage so it is easy to find. You can also provide a form on the website where parents can submit questions and get answers regarding enrollment and/or address this information on a frequently asked questions page (more on this below). 

Create a Frequently Asked Questions Page

Create a Frequently Asked Questions page to address the most common questions you receive from parents. You could include questions about enrollment, academic and extracurricular programs, and school culture, and also use this as an opportunity to highlight what makes your school unique so that parents don’t have to search for it elsewhere. Rocketship Public Schools has a robust FAQ page that also includes questions and answers about charter schools to address common misconceptions.  

Protect Yourself! 

While there are lots of creative ideas and easy–to–use technology tools for virtually engaging with current families in your school community and prospective families, it is always advisable to step back and to evaluate in advance what is to be shared online by your school, and by representatives of your school, for appropriateness, compliance, and security.  Leverage the appropriate legal and related expertise, including recommended training for your team, for smoother virtual family engagement. 

While school doors are closed for the remainder of this school year, now is the time to look ahead and think about how you will make next year a success. Although using in-person events as an enrollment marketing tool is unlikely for the near future, there is still a tremendous opportunity for your school to use digital tools such as social media and virtual events to build up your enrollment pipeline.

Developing A Human-Centered Approach to Community Engagement

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By Jeremy Divinity, Marketing Specialist

September 25, 2019

It’s not only important to identify a school’s most significant stakeholders, it’s also essential to engage with them. This is where the idea of community engagement comes into play. Community engagement is the active participation and shared responsibility for student success between school, families, and the community. Research has proven that active community engagement can improve school readiness, academic achievement, and graduation rates.

When it comes to community engagement for charter schools, it’s beneficial to take a human-centered approach. Human-centered engagement approaches engagement from a place of deep understanding and is a way to help ensure that your community engagements are collaborative. This approach places emphasis on understanding the community’s values and hearing the families’ voices. Empathy drives the idea of human-centered engagement.

There are many ways school leaders can develop a human-centered community engagement strategy to support learning and development. Here are a few helpful recommendations for the various stakeholder groups.

Parent Engagement

Your school’s parents and families want the best for their kids, so fostering relationships with them is critical to student success. Often, parents feel like they aren’t contributing to their child’s education, which can make them feel unheard or unvalued. Involving parents within the school through active engagement efforts that communicate their roles and responsibilities as members of the school community is mutually beneficial.

You can start by asking a guiding question of “What can you tell me or what can we do that will help us to help your child learn or meet specific academic goals?”

When school leaders and parents actively co-create and co-design, it leads to the development of better programs and services that benefit students. This process begins with developing a family engagement action plan. This action plan should focus on fostering a welcoming school climate, identifying the leaders’ roles in creating a welcoming school climate, and investing in families to meet school goals.

When it comes to developing a welcoming environment, it’s essential to be visible and approachable. Enhance the experience of parents with the school through increased access to teachers and staff. First impressions are made in the front office. Michelle Gayle, a principal from Tallahassee emphasizes the importance of a friendly front office, “Office staff, teachers, and aides all take responsibility for making sure guests feel welcomed in the front office. Saying hello, providing useful information, and having a warm smile all make a difference.”

Lastly, go the extra mile! Don’t wait for parents to come in voluntarily but engage by actively reaching out. Outreach is a very human activity and can take many forms. Each touchpoint outside of the school setting, such as home visits, can make parents feel welcomed and valued as an integral part of their child’s education.

Engagement with the Broader Community

It isn’t just parents who are critical to student success and achievement; the broader community plays a role as well.

One human-centered approach to engaging the community is to create a Community Advisory Council. The council can include teachers, parents, and leaders of local businesses and organizations. A goal of the council is to identify challenges faced by both the school and the community so the two groups can work together to solve those challenges.

Like parent engagement, engaging the community requires open dialogue. In addition to the community advisory council, there are other initiatives you can take to further community participation in the school’s mission and vision. A two-way dialogue starts with inquiring the community through conversation by means of forums, surveys, canvassing, and focus groups. Townhall meetings are another way to have your ear to the voice of the community. The overall goal of inquiring initiatives is to foster relationships between your school and the community.

The other side of the dialogue is to inform the community using both traditional and non-traditional communication tools. These tools include newsletters, mailings, blogs, email, open houses, picnics, and various workshops. It’s vital to begin outreach early and consistently. Informing the community helps the community to stay in touch with what’s happening, and helps you to proactively build a network of supporters for your school.

Partnership Engagement

“I think a great partnership begins with organizations and individuals who can check logos and egos at the door and focus on what needs to get done. It’s being able to use a strengths-based approach and ask, who does what well, and then supporting that work of one another,” said Carrie Holden, president, and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound.

A human-centered approach to community partnerships can provide the needed resources and benefits for school success and is a great way to leverage your school’s limited resources. There are three types of partnerships to consider: partnerships with non-profit organizations such as community organizations, cultural institutes, and education institutes; partnerships with for-profit organizations such as local businesses; and partnerships with public agencies such as public-health organizations, government, and police.

It’s critical to ensure that your partnerships within the community are natural partners. To do so, first identify the strengths of each organization through open communication, focusing on how it can support students’ social, emotional, and academic development, and how this work advances the organization’s mission. Partnerships should address gaps in the school’s abilities to serve students as this approach also provides opportunities for businesses and educators to join forces, rather than duplicate efforts, and work together to enhance outcomes for the community’s youth.

For community partners, a partnership with a charter school is beneficial to expand the reach of their services and work toward the fulfillment of their goals. As an example, many museums conduct outreach to schools to integrate their programs into the school curriculum and fulfill part of their organizational missions. For charter schools, community partnerships can help in providing needed resources in terms of facilities, funding, curriculum instruction, and other administrative support. To use the example with museums, schools benefit from receiving free educational tools and experiences to incorporate into underfunded programs.

A charter school in Memphis enriched its music program by sharing a space with a museum that was commemorating a renowned record label. As a part of the partnership, the museum brought in the Memphis Symphony Orchestra to formally mentor students. As a result of this partnership, the museum advanced its mission, and the school benefited from access to resources that resulted in a stronger music program for its students.

Implementing Engagement Strategies

A human-centered approach to community engagement starts with empathetically listening to both parents and the community alike, and then creating opportunities for these stakeholders to get involved and help to work together to boost school and student success. The key signs of success may range from increased parent attendance and participation in school events, to improved student achievement!

Have you implemented successful community engagement strategies at your school? Let us know about it in the comment section!

 

Facts about Charter Schools

Watch Your Language! How We Can Use Our Words to Reinforce Facts About Charter Schools.

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By Melanie Horton, Senior Marketing Manager

August 8, 2019

With so many myths out there about charter schools, it’s important that we as advocates use language that encourages the spread of accurate information about our schools. This is just as important when communicating with others in our own school communities, from parents to teachers to local leaders, so that we continue to cement the very concepts that drew us to charter schools in the first place.

Charter schools are public schools. We often hear people – inside and outside the movement – referring to local district schools as “public schools” and our schools as “charter schools”. Since charter schools are public schools, we should not reserve the label of “public” for district schools, and we should instead refer to district schools as just that – district schools. Both charter schools and district schools fall under the umbrella of public schools. You may also want to consider referring to charter schools as “public charter schools” to further drive home the message.

Open Enrollment. One myth that exists about charter schools is that we’re allowed to “cherry pick” our students by administering admissions exams. Let’s make sure we always use the term “Open Enrollment” and not “Admissions”, as some may associate “admissions” with the private school or college admissions process, which involves determination based on academic record and other factors.

When open enrollment rolls around, we need to collect prospective students’ personal information so that we may enter them into a lottery for the available spaces at the school, and we do this by asking their families to fill out paperwork.  Instead of referring to this paperwork as an application, which implies a selection process (or at the very last, a formal review and determination by a greater authority), let’s aim to use another term such as “form”. While it’s true that the form must be reviewed to ensure compliance with a charter school’s lottery guidelines, we do not want to imply that students are being evaluated or judged in any way. This might seem like a small detail, but the words we use can have powerful implications that either support or detract from the truth about charter schools.

To reinforce that all students are eligible for enrollment in charter schools so long as they meet the requirements outlined in the lottery guidelines approved by the schools’ authorizer, we can post these guidelines at the school and remind stakeholders that students are randomly selected during the lottery.

Accountability. We often hear from critics that charter schools aren’t accountable and don’t have to abide by the same rules as district schools; that charters can “do whatever they want”. While charter schools have some regulatory freedoms relative to district schools, which allow charter schools to meet the unique needs of their communities, we accept this flexibility in exchange for increased accountability for student and operational results. New charter schools are required to submit a robust charter application that outlines the school’s proposed educational program, governance structure, budget, and additional details specific to each authorizer, and must renew their application every few years in order to continue existing (how often depends on the authorizer).

Renewing a charter school involves submitting a charter renewal application in which the school must show tangible progress toward the goals laid out in the original petition.  Schools may be denied renewal for poor academic performance or financial mismanagement, so this is serious business.

Let the members of your community know how charter schools are held fully accountable in a multitude of areas throughout the year as well as how they are required to prove – every few years – whether they’ve earned the privilege of continuing to serve their students and families. We can communicate our accountability by keeping our stakeholders in the loop when we’re going through the renewal process or fulfilling another local compliance requirement. This can be as simple as briefly sharing these milestones and achievements in the employee and parent newsletters and at board meetings.

Let’s remind the people of our communities – across the spectrum of advocates, critics, and the uninformed – that charter schools are about choice, accountability, and innovation.

What other positive language suggestions do you have for charter school advocates? We’d love to hear from you and build out our recommendations. Leave us a note in the comments section!

Engaging Parents as a Powerful Marketing Tool

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By Melanie Horton, Senior Marketing Manager

April 29, 2019

When thinking about how to spread the word about our charter schools and create an enrollment pipeline for future years, we often target parents of prospective students. We organize school tours, hang up flyers at community events, and advertise upcoming open enrollment dates on the school marquee. These are all smart, important marketing actions, but we also need to remember to pay attention to our largest group of built-in ambassadors: parents of current students! When parents are happy, good news about our schools will spread among their networks through word-of-mouth – a powerful marketing tool that can also do much damage if this important stakeholder group is unhappy or ignored.

Assess the Current Situation

Before you can attract new families to your school, you want to make sure the current school community is satisfied with your performance, so you’re not caught off guard when parents of prospective students ask you to explain something they’ve heard. Parents of current students are a great resource when you want an honest review of what is going well and what isn’t. Here are a few easy, helpful ways to solicit parent feedback.

Annual Surveys

Most schools already administer an annual parent survey as a state requirement. Take advantage of this opportunity to understand how happy parents are with current school operations, including areas such as extracurricular activities and course offerings. Make sure the survey is comprehensive but not too long, as we want to encourage high response and completion rates. It’s also important to include optional, open-ended questions that do not limit answer choices. This way, you’re making it easy for busy parents to provide quick feedback, while also giving those with more to say an opportunity to share their thoughts.

Consider sharing the survey results in a parent newsletter or other medium; the more transparent you are with the results; the more parents will feel you recognize and care about what they have to say. It doesn’t stop there, though – to show parents that we value them as critical members of our school communities, we must show a commitment to progress toward improvement. For example, if most parents reveal they are less than satisfied with the availability of extracurricular activities, open this up for discussion at committee and board meetings and invite parents to join a task force to explore options. If we’re all talk and no action, parents will eventually catch on and assume the school has no interest in their opinions.

Focus Groups

While surveys are a great way to get high-level feedback about broad categories of school operations, it’s also important to be able to take a deeper dive into more specific topics. We can accomplish this by organizing parent focus . Keep the groups on the small side – no more than ten participants – so that all parents have the chance to speak up and don’t feel overwhelmed by a large group. Make sure to offer participants the chance to provide written feedback as well in case there is something they don’t feel comfortable sharing in a group setting. While you can still structure the discussion around more broad categories to make sure you touch on various topics, be sure to invite parents to comment on anything that is on their mind.

During the focus groups, make sure to encourage participants to share thoughts about what they are happy with as well as what they think needs improvement, so we know where we should continue to focus resources and where we might need to make changes. For example, if parents share that they are dissatisfied with the current library hours, school leadership can open this up for discussion at committee and board meetings to decide if it is financially and operationally feasible to extend library hours. If parents express excitement at the new STEM-focused programs, we know this is a valuable investment we should continue to explore.

The focus group initiative can be led by a school site council, on its own or in collaboration with a parent advisory group. It’s important to advertise the focus groups in multiple places to encourage participation of diverse groups. For example, schools can include a call for focus group participants in the parent newsletter, in materials for various parents’ group meetings, or by making an announcement at a parent event such as a regular “Coffee with the Principal” or information night. While continuity among participants is important and helps us to stay accountable, we should open the groups to new participants every now and then to make sure we’re receiving feedback that is representative of our audience. If the group gets too big, it can be split into multiple groups. In terms of meeting frequency, because these are more intimate conversations that we want to be able to build on, try to meet two or three times per year.

Create A Culture of Feedback

If we make the feedback process a regular part of school operations, parents will get used to sharing their thoughts and the quality of feedback will continue to improve. This will also train school leaders to become comfortable with both positive and negative feedback and consider it an integral part of school site planning, as well as alert school leaders to potential areas of improvement to be considered when putting together the school budget or setting the class schedule or activities calendar for the upcoming school year. Most importantly, it will signal to parents that your school values their feedback and wants them to be happy with the choice they made for their child. Happy parents translate into positive word of mouth marketing and a stronger pipeline of future students!

Moreover, this culture of feedback will lead to stronger relationships with parents and encourage them to get involved with school initiatives. This increased engagement will allow you to build a critical support network of volunteers and advocates with a genuine interest in helping the school to meet its goals and strengthen its presence in the community.

Use Feedback to Inform Marketing

In addition to promoting positive relations with parents of current students, feedback can be used to inform marketing efforts that aim to attract new parents. For example, if several parents of current students mentioned in a focus group that they are impressed by the school’s robotics program, school leaders can plan to include a stop by the robotics room during the next school tour to show it off to families considering the school as an option for their child.  Similarly, if survey results have shown that access to Advanced Placement courses is of high importance to parents of current students, school leaders will know to highlight this on the school website and in marketing materials distributed to parents of prospective students.

Conclusion

While it is important to be thinking of how to attract parents of prospective students and secure enrollment for future school years, it is also important to remember not to lose sight of our most important stakeholders – the families we currently serve. This group is our most helpful window into what we are doing well and how we can improve.  After all, we can only provide new families with a quality public school option if we’re successful in our current endeavors!

Grow Your Enrollment Applications With School Tours 

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Use tours as a marketing tool to reach prospective families and tell your school’s story.

by Melanie Horton, Senior Marketing Manager

July 10, 2017

You’ve gone through all the hard work of starting a charter school.  Your programs are successful and your students are doing well. But you’re still struggling to meet your target enrollment numbers each year.  Success on its own will not automatically generate a waiting list; you must arm prospective parents with information about why your school is a strong educational option for their children.  Because while school choice provides the opportunity for your school to exist in the first place, it also creates competition.

Tweet: Most charter schools don’t have a large marketing budget, but there’s a lot you can do that doesn’t cost much at all. Start by offering tours of your school. Advertise these tours on social media and at local community events. Get in touch with the local homeowners’ association or chamber of commerce, and ask if you can speak for a few minutes at the next meeting. Talk about your school’s mission and how you serve local families, highlight recent achievements, and invite community members to take a tour of the school and/or pass along the message to those with school-aged children.  Reach out to local churches, community centers, and businesses, and ask if you can post flyers on their bulletin boards.  Make sure to include the tour schedule along with your school’s website, phone number, and social media information so that those who wish to contact you about tours are able to do so.

It’s important to get the tour logistics right. Aim to schedule tours at times that are convenient for working parents, such as early in the morning or during lunch hours.  Make sure to keep the tours under an hour (you can always assign staff to stay later and talk to families who aren’t in a rush). If you’re not sure when to schedule the tours, ask a few parents of current students for their input. Maybe evenings and/or weekends work best for your community.  In that case, you might not be able to implement all of the suggestions below, but at least you’ll have a captive audience.

It’s helpful to capture visitors’ contact information so you can stay in touch and monitor interest in your school across time. Create a simple sign-in sheet – the data gathering is easier if this is done on a tablet or computer – that includes the  parent’s name and email address, and the prospective student’s current school (if applicable), and ask visitors to sign in when they arrive for the tour. Knowing where prospective students are coming from will help you to target future communications efforts, and having a database of email addresses of interested families makes it easier to keep telling your school’s story after the tour. If your school sends  newsletters to current parents, include your new contacts in future newsletters to keep them informed of all the great things happening at your school.

Start a cohort of student ambassadors who, along with school staff, will participate in the tours and talk about their experiences. This is especially valuable at the high school level, as parents tend to bring their children on the tours, and they often have questions that only current students can answer.  Inviting parent volunteers to participate in the tours is also beneficial, as they can speak to why your school is a good fit for their families.

It is helpful for the tours to be led by an administrator and a teacher, as both offer valuable perspectives and can answer different questions about the school, its programs, and policies and procedures.  If possible, divide the visit into a school overview (complete with a short question and answer session), and a walking tour. During the presentation, remember to highlight what makes your school unique, including interesting programs and classes, innovative learning methods, and awards and achievements. Invite the student ambassadors to give a quick presentation about something they’re involved in at the school, and invite parent volunteers to speak about parental involvement.

Parents like to know what their child’s day-to-day will look like. On the tour, make sure to visit at least one classroom in action; you can create a rotating sign-up schedule in advance so there isn’t any last minute planning on the day of the tour. Guests don’t need to sit down and observe the class, but they will appreciate being able to pop in and note the setup and size. If possible, visit both a core subject classroom (e.g. math or science) as well as a music or arts classroom. Also plan to stop by areas that are unique to your school, such as a school garden or robotics lab. For larger schools,  parents might be interested in seeing key facilities such as the gymnasium and theatre.

Make sure to provide visiting families with something they can take with them that will aide in their decision-making process. Create a simple one-pager that includes key statistics about the school, such as enrollment, average class size, special programs and classes available, graduation and college statistics (if applicable), contact information, and enrollment/lottery dates and details (there will likely be a lot of questions about this last one, and you want to make sure everyone has the information they need – after all, this is the point of the tour!).  You don’t need to be a graphic design expert to create an effective document, and free online tools like Canva and HubSpot can help with layout and design.

If anyone on the tour has a question you can’t answer, note their contact information so you can follow up with them when you find the answer. And make sure your main office staff is knowledgeable of the school and trained to answer questions, or direct inquires to the appropriate people, when they receive follow-up phone calls.

When guests leave the tour, they should have a clear understanding of what your school is all about. This is a valuable opportunity to connect with prospective families and brag about your school; make the most of it!