Where (and how) does communications "fit" in an advancement model?

Or does it? There are good reasons why it's not a match made in heaven.

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Before I start on today’s topic - one where I have strong feelings and I would urge leaders to make intentional choices around where and how communications lives at your school or otg and if it’s the best and highest use of that important function - I just wanted to pass on a short anecdote about the social security administration and my experience after my dad passed, given that there’s this idea being floated that there’s a ton of waste fraud and abuse in this system. This is just one family’s experience and I’m sure there are people gaming the system somewhere, but I was pretty impressed with its efficiency. So please feel free to skip ahead if this is of no interest!

My dad died on December 4th and his social security payments are direct deposited around the 1st of the month. For the month of December, we were running around taking care of those things you do after someone passes and then it was the holidays. It did not even occur to me I needed to notify social security! I guess I thought they would find out by some magical intra-govermental communications?

Well, it is by some magical intra-governmental communication because we received a communication in early January that we had to pay back the prorated amount that my dad had received for December from the 4th to the 30th. We had the option of paying it up front or having it taken out of my mom’s survivor benefit, and I chose the latter.

We also had a glitch with my dad’s payments about a year before. When I went to tackle this problem, I was dreading having to make my way through a bunch of automaton drones and “not my problems.” But it was not the case. It did take a few wrong turns to find the right department, but everyone I spoke to was helpful. And once I found the right office, they could not have been more helpful, accommodating and prompt getting the all payments owed sorted out immediately.

So, yay to all the people who helped me and who I suspect spend a lot of time on phone calls getting yelled at when people have an issue with their benefit. Just one person’s experience but happy to share.

Advancement and Communications - Where’s the “fit”?

Intro

Language creates concepts and shapes perceptions. Back when I was a newbie teacher, my school changed the name of the development office to the advancement office and I thought it was weird.

I had just gotten adjusted to the name “development” meaning “fundraising” as I had associated that word with R&D - research and development.

(Here’s a brief, clear summary from the excellent folks at Lindauer Executive Search defining all three terms. And Lindauer is great and if you need to do a search for a high level fundraising pro, put them on your short list of firms to interview. )

I get the whole idea that “advancement” is advancing the entire institution and “development” is developing relationships as well as fundraising. I’m not really criticizing it. It’s the accepted convention and - it is what it is. But sometimes I wonder if the fuzziness of these terms in the school and nonprofit space just underscores the conflict aversion and contributes to some of the complications of managing an advancement/development team. Because they are complicated departments, the pressure can be intense and asking people for money is sensitive business. People have lots of unprocessed feelings about money.

Then there is the decision whether or not “advancement” also oversees admissions in practice. There are very few senior leaders who have the background and inclination to manage both of these office functions and although it is quite possible to be the lead administrator for areas where you have no expertise - heads do it all the time; the science dept chair reported to me as academic dean and I was an English teacher - I don’t think it’s a situation the majority of admission or development pros are comfortable with. Some are and more power to you! But both admissions and development pros are competitive and motivated to kill it in their different areas and although both involve bringing in revenue, the cultures and methods of getting there are completely different.

And the basic problem or tension I see in the “advancement” concept concerning communications is that it was conceived at a time when communications was much sleepier. It’s snail mail rather than email; viewbooks over websites. (I bet there are some people reading who don’t even know what a viewbook is at this point, or have never seen one of the large, glossy versions we ordered in bulk to last several years back in the day.) It’s pre social media. It’s pre “proactive constituent communications is your best crisis prevention.” And the naming convention of “advancement” and “development” is in direct tension with best practices in communications for managing a crisis or a sensitive situation which are all about running towards the fire and being as direct and transparent as possible.

It felt like it was time to bring up this tension again and share some thoughts about getting clear on what you need and how all these professionals and offices can best serve the school or org.

(The following is an updated version of an article I wrote with Lauren Castagnola, Director of Advancement Communications at Yale Law School, in 2023.)

The advancement dream is an exciting collaboration between admissions and development where marketing and communication is the glue, with consistent messaging shared between them. So if a school is oriented towards this model, communications most often reports to a Director of Advancement because these outward facing departments can work together to advance the mission of the school, with communications a key component.

This idea makes total sense - so why does it so often just not work in practice, especially at smaller schools? And how realistic is it for one person to be responsible for more or less all revenue outside of the endowment draw?

Also, in practice, there are most often separate admissions and advancement/development offices but in the advancement model, communications reports to the Chief Advancement Officer. And often that doesn’t work so well.

Here are some extremely broad generalizations.

Admissions and Development - Cultural Apples and Oranges

In general, independent school admissions people and development people have widely different training, backgrounds and experience. We realize there are unicorns out there who have done both, understand the culture of both and excelled at both, but they are rare.

Admissions people generally love activities like attending conferences, school fairs and conducting revisit days. Lots of people, all the time. Lots of new people. There is a clear time frame and a rhythm to their work. Each new enrollment is a thrill but there is also a certain predictability in the cycle and when you lose one family, you quickly move on to the next. Out of necessity, there’s an acceptance that you win some, you lose some. There is a certain pace and it’s hard to get bored because as soon as you’re feeling a little “same old, same old” it’s time for the next stage in the cycle. And admissions is generally adults working together with the student at the center. It’s wonderful and helpful to have a strong relationship with the parents/adults, but the road to a successful enrollment can look all kinds of ways.

Major gift officers who often become chief development officers foster relationships over time. Sometimes, really long periods of time. They hone strategies. They play golf with donors. (Golf takes a long time.) They are meticulous about detail because any detail missed could be a donor pissed. Not aggravating constituents is a huge part of the development office’s job. Often parents are a key constituent and they can be around for twelve years. Major donors aren’t relationships for the cycle, they’re relationships for the century. And mainly it’s about the adult relationships; which puts more pressure on the individual interactions. There’s a lot of phone conversations, too, and making notes in Raiser’s Edge. It’s a completely different time horizon and pace.

But you can see how the very nature of these two offices can come into conflict. You can see how marketing in a new world to new families is a very different flavor than marketing alumni events to constituents you don’t want to annoy.

So it then stands to reason that when many development offices became advancement offices, they essentially remained development offices with fundraising and constituent relations as their portfolio. We have no idea why it was mostly the development offices that became advancement offices, but we’ve never seen an admissions office become an advancement office where there is also a stand alone development office.

But our point being - if the school believes in this concept of advancement being the troika of admissions, development and communications, it’s going to have a different outlook and expectations than if there have always been separate-but-equal admissions and development offices. “Advancement” can reinforce the concept of communications as a service to the outward facing functions of development and admissions. This is not necessarily always the case, but we’re saying it can be a complicating factor.

But an elevated communications function is becoming a must. Given the complications of today - the need for crisp, accurate and compelling brand messaging, SEO and social media ads, the enduring but ever shifting need for print materials, the care and feeding of the website both to keep it up to date and gauge when it’s time to refresh - admissions and development deserve an elevated comms professional because they have other important work to do and they need a talented partner.

So what’s the solution?

We believe the ideal is to have a communications office run by a communications professional with a clear job description who manages a discrete budget and reports to the head of school. Yep, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again!

However, that is just not going to be possible at many schools, given budgets and culture. So where do we go from here?

We think it’s helpful to think about the admissions - communications - development trio in this way as they advance the mission of the school:

• Enrollment management/admissions - Recruits and supports retention of mission matched students and fulfills revenue goals

• Development - Fundraising and constituent relations and fulfills revenue goals

• Communication - Guardian of the brand, the keeper of consistency - the messaging (in our opinion, the most important part), the look and feel of your communications. Someone who ensures the brand message is being consistently conveyed, even in subtle ways, throughout school communications and marketing.

And remember, you have a brand whether or not you want to call it that. You have a reputation. And you have values. And you have a mission, a why-you-exist. The brand messaging is how you convey who you are and what you stand for. You can understand the power of consistent messaging and strategy employed by admissions and development saying who you are and what you stand for. It’s powerful and it’s inspiring. It cuts through the noise. It’s not just picking up a bull horn and broadcasting, “yes, we’re a great school!” It’s why you’re a great school and who the student is whose life would be changed by joining your community. It’s earnest and it’s for real.

It is a three legged stool and although we think it works best if all functions report to the head, it can still work if the director of comms reports to development or admissions, too - IF she is treated with respect and like an equal partner. It is more complicated and takes time to manage if this position doesn’t report to the head. Positional authority matters and if the comms director doesn’t have it, you can still treat this position with respect and as an equal partner but don’t be surprised if there is some political grumbling and confusion in the org in general as to this person’s status.

Communications really does have the power to elevate your school, from supporting improved internal communications, to enhancing the communication of the head of school from everything ranging from weekly newsletters to the charge to the graduates to the ever more important area of crisis communications to supporting bold enrollment goals to increasing fundraising capacity. Schools need to strategic storytellers who can highlight the amazing work of faculty and staff while also understanding constituents’ needs. It all results in strengthened relationships with the school.

But you need to start somewhere building the muscle that communications is an important and valued function in and of itself.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you need a highly paid new senior administrator. But you need a person who understands the power of your brand - harnessing and directing the reputation and qualities you already have - who is given visible opportunities to build political capital and community trust, and who is publicly thanked for their contributions, whether it be towards reaching enrollment goals or making the annual fund goal or creating that really great new internal weekly eblast. It needs to be clear that people in authority respect and value their work.

And the comms director deserves clear direction, an accurate job description, feedback with both applause and, if needed, course correction and evaluation.

And for those of you who are regular TOOS readers, this will come as no surprise to you, but what you also need to move towards the ideal is to get a clear picture of how marcomm or communications or advancement communications looks and operates right now.

Ask some hard questions and ask constituents what is working and what isn’t. Make no assumptions. Are you deploying your precious resources around marketing and communications wisely or could it be utilized better in some other way?

A very durable insight is this: Water the flowers that are blooming. Don’t water the rocks. Then the garden grows and the appreciation for communications can really blossom.

See you next week with a #TopFiveTuesday!

If you’re going to NAIS Thrive 2025 in Nashville - say hello!

If you’re interested in this interview, come to this session at the conference:

Powerful Partnership: Skills and Tools for Head/Board Collaboration - NAIS Thrive 2025, Nashville, TN - 11:15AM Friday, Feb 28th

with Moira Kelly, President, Explo

I’m arriving around noon on the 27th and will be there all day on the 28th. I’ve booked some appointments but I still have time to connect if you’d like to have coffee and chat, just reach out. I’d love to connect with TOOS readers and hear what’s on your minds.

Featured Stony Creek Strategy service - Building Better Teams

I’m booking retreat facilitation for this summer and fall now - for senior teams, advancement or development offices, admissions offices, boards - any group that can become a higher performing team. You can read more about our Building Better Teams approach here and any retreat would of course be customized for your goals. If you’re curious, reach out if you’d like to have a chat here or email me at jfaulstich@stonycreekstrategy.com.