Welcome to SchoolAdvancement!
Welcome to SchoolAdvancement!
Systems Thinking to Help Schools Form a Firm Financial Foundation
Questions about Advancement, Systems Thinking, or the ARMED Framework for your school?
Questions about Advancement, Systems Thinking, or the ARMED Framework for your school?
Email SchoolAdvancement
Connect with the School Advancement Group on Facebook
Connect with the School Advancement Group on Facebook
If you're affiliated with a faith-based school, tap/click "Request to join the Group" below!
Estimate and Plan For Your 24-25 Enrollment Today!
Estimate and Plan For Your 24-25 Enrollment Today!
Use your school's enrollment data to easily estimate next year's enrollment, and develop a target to help it grow!

Move Your Mindset From Fundraising to Development to Advancement

Linear Thinking is Process-Oriented; Systems Thinking is Systems-Oriented. Your school may have excellent results, but all its systems must be working toward excellence to be sustainable.
A tetrahedron is a commonly called a three-sided pyramid, even though it has four sides. When one side changes, the whole object must adjust to accommodate the change to maintain its shape.
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“The DREAM," which was the weekly eNewsletter, was sunsetted at the end of June 2021, but may be coming back via a new site email address and a new editing tool. Subscription will require a "name-specific" email address, such as [email protected]. "Position-specific" email addresses, such as [email protected], will be rejected. Due to changes in the way email permissions and spam filters have changed over the years, as well as GDPR compliance regarding privacy concerns, these policies are now required to maintain a vibrant online community. Thank you for your understanding and consideration.
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The Need For SchoolAdvancement

At this time in history, fatih-based schools have closed or merged due to rising costs and changing demographics. Schools simply cannot rely on traditional fiscal approaches to fund their ministries.

Conversely, some areas of the country have experienced growing populations, producing a desire for additional faith-based schools. Some of those populations do not have the financial means to pay for large construction projects, and growing communities are put in the same financial conundrum as those that are shrinking.

While school leaders grapple with the changes they're facing, a paradigm has begun to take shape. Isolated successes have been experienced in some areas of the country, while other dioceses, deaneries, parishes and their respective schools, as well as Christian and other faith-based schools, strategize to plan for the future.

Rather than continuing to “reinvent the wheel,” this site's goal is to provide guidance gleaned from schools which have experienced successes, accepting responsibility for achieving not just excellence, but sustainability. In a spirit of community, SchoolAdvancement shares "next" practices, proven strategies, failed experiments and suggestions regarding what to avoid along the path, and, interestingly, how some small "shifts" can have a significant positive impact on the future of a school. Though the curriculum of various faith-based schools may be different, the five elements of Advancement - Asset Management, Retention, Marketing, Enrollment and Development (The ARMED Framework) represent the “business" side of the mission and are essential for every school’s success.

While some school leaders and boards are beholden to the belief that “It’s all about the money,” others have said “It’s all about enrollment.” Actually, “It’s all about all of it!" Your school's customers will evaluate "the experience" of your school based on their expectations of excellence.

Download your FREE copy of "Understanding Advancement: A Systems Thinking Framework for Today's Faith-Based School!"

Membership in SchoolAdvancement is on the Horizon!

Visitor (no membership)

Access to select articles, as well as podcasts (when produced) and publications

Free Membership

Access to all elements of the Visitor plan, as well as articles about The ARMED Framework and Systems Thinking as well as the weekly eNewsletter (when available)

Premium Membership

Access to all elements of the Visitor and Free Membership plans, with access additional articles, tools and the discussion group.

Recent Articles

The Dip: Part 1 – The Biggest Mistake They Made In School

You may have attended one of my seminars on marketing. In the past 17 years, I’ve made presentations on marketing […]

DOUBLE Your School’s Enrollment

This week’s article spotlighting enrollment rounds out another quintet of the five aspects of advancement.  Even though many schools have […]

The 5 Elements of The Wizard of Oz

About eight years ago, my daughter went to see The Wizard of Oz on stage in Pittsburgh.  She’s been a […]

March: Build Cohorts

After reading the title of this article, you may be thinking, “What’s a cohort?” According to Wikipedia, “In statistics and […]

Think Outside…and Inside…the Box, Then Do.

At this point in history, the phrase, “Think Outside the Box,” probably sounds trite, since people have been saying it […]

The 5 M’s of Development Success

Development is a long-term approach to sustainable revenues brought about by the effective engagement of individuals in the mission of […]

Podcasts: Coming to Soon to SchoolAdvancement

Move Your Mindset From Fundraising to Development to Advancement

Linear Thinking is Process-Oriented; Systems Thinking is Systems-Oriented. Your school may have excellent results, but all its systems must be working toward excellence to be sustainable.

Join the SchoolAdvancement Facebook Group

Visit this link to join!  You’ll receive newly-published article previews there and can comment on them in the Group rather than on the site!