The Magic of July
For independent school leaders, July is a time of new beginnings. It can be an exciting time and an anxious time. The fiscal year marks a reset in Admissions, Development, and Marcom. Last year’s wins and losses serve as guideposts and benchmarks for the new year, but you don’t get to carry those wins forward.
That always seemed a little unfair to me. Do we really just move onto the new year with a clean slate, new goals, and reduced energy to tackle a new year? When do we take time for deep reflection, strategizing, and planning?
We need to do that in July.
Many school leaders worked in other roles at schools before their headship or directorship. As a teacher, summers are a time for rest, rejuvenation, and extended time off. The opposite is true for advancement administrators and staff. In the absence of students and teachers, summer is the time to take advantage of the altered pace to consider the school’s overall strategy, departmental processes, and data. It is a time to map out structures for campaigns (of all sorts), evaluate the strengths and opportunities on your team, and the feasibility of your scope of work. It’s a time of intense thought, planning, and departmental collaboration if done right.
If the advancement team is on vacation for an extended time in the summer, they miss the critical time to plan for the year, to be positioned to hit the ground running and prepare to work together in a lean shop with precision. When the advancement team does car lines, lunch duty, subbing in classrooms, acting as advisors, and supervising student clubs, they can’t take time off during their slow times of the year. If the advancement team could choose their yearly schedule and tailor it to the best effect, it is not in tandem with the academic teams.
How do we make this better? Here are three ways to start:
One. Remove expectations of the summer vacation. Just because teachers take the summer off does not mean the same is true for administrators. Additionally, the school has two types of administrators: academic/programmatic and advancement. Each group deserves a schedule that serves the work, the constituencies they serve, and the people doing it.
Two. Ask each department to produce a plan of work. What does the yearly schedule look like for each department? Where are the slow times? It might be January for Development, September for Admissions, or June for Marcom. That is when those teams should ideally take more time off.
Three. Help everyone at school understand the role of advancement and their part in its success. I recently met with a school leader struggling with a culture of marginalization of the admissions team by the faculty. Even when a beloved teacher was promoted to assistant admissions director, the faculty turned on her. They stopped talking to her, stopped inviting her to lunch, and expressed distaste for her new job. When I was a new development director, a teacher approached me and told me how much she hated rich people. She told me that she didn’t know how I could stand my job and that the school was wasting its money on my role. We need to do better.
July is also a time of celebration. It’s time to celebrate a new role, new possibilities, and the anniversary of your time at your school. Every July, I celebrate the anniversary of the all-in launch of Jill Goodman Consulting, the time that I decided it was no longer a side gig but my full-time job and calling. I am grateful and honored by the many school and organizational leaders who have worked with me and trusted me to bring light to unclear situations. We trust each other to work together to move forward with intention and clarity and focus on reaching their strategic goals.
So, here’s to July, the magical month of possibilities. Let me help you evaluate where you are and where you’d like to be, and then we can decide how to get there.
The author, Jill Goodman, is a consultant working with independent school leaders to advance their school's mission, enhance their processes, and bolster their skills. Learn more about all services here.
