How Independent Schools Can Build Community Relationships

As an independent school representative, you’re already familiar with the process of connecting with potential students and their families to secure your school’s success. However, greater community outreach allows schools like yours to improve fundraising results, apply for grants, and even attract talented potential employees.

However, relationship-building requires more than one-off visits to community events or social media posts—you need a strategic approach that appeals to a broad audience. In this guide, we’ll review top ideas for bolstering your community relationships long-term.

1. Define community engagement goals.

Specific campaigns your independent school may have run in the past likely had concrete goals and outcomes, such as increasing enrollment or boosting fundraising. However, community engagement goals can be tricky to pinpoint, as it’s a large umbrella project. This makes the goal-setting process all the more critical.

Answer the following questions to determine your goals for community relationship-building:

• Why are we running this campaign now? Perhaps you’re gearing up for a capital campaign next year, or your year-end fundraising deadline is a few months off. Establish the “when” and the “why” in this step of the planning process.
• What community members are we targeting? Continuing with the capital campaign example, let’s say you’re raising money for a new pool you’ll open to the public on weekends. You might target families with school-age children (especially those on swim teams) nearby, as they’re more likely to be interested in swimming recreationally.
• What assets do we have that can help? Look into your existing community connections. For instance, your board members likely know other community members and figureheads through their jobs or personal lives. 
• How will we mobilize these assets? Make it convenient for advocates to support your goals. For example, your parent-teacher association (PTA) can help by becoming peer-to-peer fundraisers or simply spreading the word about your school throughout their networks.
• How will we measure success? Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) based on your outreach goals, such as applicants per role, dollars raised, or corporate sponsors gained. Then, determine how you’ll collect and measure these KPIs—you’ll need a CRM or other database with reporting capabilities.

2. Host community-centric events.

Though sending general messages to a widespread audience is useful for spreading awareness, the best way to fortify relationships is by forging one-on-one connections. However, doing so individually takes time, and you need to entice community members to participate. That’s where community events come in.

According to Graham-Pelton, well-executed events empower independent schools to meet new people and advance relationships with existing stakeholders—all through an activity that provides value to attendees. Everyone wins!

That said, certain events work better to achieve certain goals. Here are some specific event ideas and the goals they support:

• Student showcases or talent shows display both your students’ personalities and the skills your school helps them develop, which is useful for attracting prospective students, grantmakers, or sponsors.
• Volunteer days where students, parents, and staff work together showcase your school’s commitment to social responsibility and community engagement, strengthening your reputation with prospective hires, sponsors, and students.
• Seasonal festivals (such as a Winter Wonderland celebration or Fall Harvest carnival) draw in large sections of the community, especially if you offer activities for both kids and adults. This provides an excellent opportunity to promote your school and meet community members of all ages. 

3. Partner with local organizations.

Individual outreach should only be part of your community connection initiative. Associating with well-known, respected local businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations boosts your brand recognition and broadens your network, resulting in greater support for your other initiatives. Whether you’re looking for a sponsor or a panelist for an upcoming outreach event, use these tips to enhance your efforts:

• Research your potential collaborators intensively. Look into your collaborators’ histories extensively, including their mission statements and past collaborators, so you can rest assured they share your values and will reflect well on your school.
• Build a relationship before the pitch. Approaching another organization about a partnership out of the blue might come across as disingenuous. Conduct casual coffee chats ahead of the formal proposal so you can build rapport and gather information about what a mutually beneficial partnership might look like. 
• Customize your proposal. Pitches work best when fine-tuned to your school’s and potential collaborator’s needs and strengths. For instance, you might ask a local recreation center to host a Fall Harvest Festival. In contrast, you might pitch a restaurant fundraiser to a beloved local establishment, where the restaurant contributes a portion of proceeds collected on a particular day.

4. Encourage advocate-led outreach.

Some of your most powerful outreach tools are people already invested in your school’s success—parents, teachers, faculty, and even older students (with proper oversight from adults).

With the proper guidance from your team, these advocates can effectively bridge the gap between you and your community. Get started with these tips:

• Use multiple channels. Some of your advocates might prefer conducting outreach via social media or email rather than in person. Simplify participation further by providing pre-made materials or templates they can repost or send to their networks.
• Create advocate networks. Your advocates will be interested in different aspects of your work. Create sub-groups of advocates focused on different projects, such as fundraising or event promotion, so that all advocates participate in a way that best suits their preferences.
• Incentivize participation. Offer rewards to especially engaged advocates, such as raffle entries or a celebration luncheon. Base your participation metrics on the goals for your outreach campaign—for example, measure participation by the number of people an advocate persuaded to attend a school open house or the number of likes they got on a social media post.

Planning your community outreach tactics ahead of time is essential, but you should still build flexibility into your plans. Your community can change rapidly due to societal shifts or trends, so allow your outreach strategy to pivot alongside it—you’ll keep the community invested in your independent school’s success and make more genuine connections in the long run.

Contributor- CommunityPass