Lessons from Notre Dame on Marketing

I should begin with a disclaimer.  I have two degrees from Notre Dame. Three of my children have attended there, as well as my son in law and daughter in law. Suffice it to say I am a fan.

Even so, I believe Notre Dame's "What would you fight for?" videos are exceptional advertisements and among the best of any university in the country.  Here are a couple in the series that have been airing on NBC during home football games these last few years: 

 

Each of these commercials  follows the same script (you can find the whole series here): A problem is identified, often with a global theme. Then, a Notre Dame student or professor is featured who is working on the problem in some sort of significant, poignant way. And then the wrap up question: "Notre Dame asks: What would YOU fight for?" Fighting to build bridges (or for clean water, against tuberculosis, etc.)" says a student or professor. "We are... the fighting Irish!"

What is compelling about these commercials? Aside from their high production value, I believe the answer is simple. If you look at how most universities market themselves, they point all the arrows inward toward themselves: "Look how many national merit finalists we have."  "Look at this innovative program we offer." "Look at how much fun our kids have. " " Look at our beautiful campus."  "Look at the success of our athletic programs. " "Look at us!"

Yawn.

By contrast, the Notre Dame commercials consistently point the arrow outward. They focus on a problem outside of the university, but then feature how Notre Dame is working to solve this problem for others. The focus is not on how great the university's programs are, but on how the university "commissions" its students and faculty to make a positive difference in this world.

I believe this altruistic, outward emphasis resonates more deeply with the viewer, first of all because it taps into a general desire in all of us to do noble things with our lives.  We are at our best when we serve others and happiest when we do so. 

Second, by focusing on the mission of the university rather than its assets, the commercials avoid the self-serving "feel" of a commercial and instead issue a challenge to the viewer to do something great with their lives: What would YOU fight for? How does YOUR life matter? What can YOU be doing to make a difference in other person's lives? "Come to a university so that your life will matter for others" is the compelling message.

I think there's a lesson for us who work in Catholic schools. If we try to go toe to toe with our private school competitors by focusing on the school's assets (our accomplishments, our academic programs, our facilities, our various extra-curricular offerings) -- if the arrows are pointing inward-- we are not likely playing to our strengths, especially if other schools are wealthier and charge much more for tuition. But even if we are among the fortunate few Catholic schools that CAN compete on that level, it's not a terribly compelling story that draws others in. Everybody's saying the same thing: Insert school, insert program features, insert invitation to join the "club" and have these things, too.

But if our focus is outward, if we focus on our mission and the difference our students are making in the lives of others, we can tell a powerful story that attracts others to join us. Thinking along these lines, we've adopted the tagline "Faith leads us beyond ourselves," a quote from our namesake, JPII, speaking from Camden Yards in Baltimore, MD on one of his visits to the United States. That motto has helped us stay mission focused in how we talk about ourselves to others.

This last Saturday, one of our Houses, the House of Pius, hosted a 5K run that drew over 270 people and raised over $5000. The proceeds will be given to the Jason Foundation, which works with teenagers for the purpose of suicide prevention. We're working on a story that features pictures of the event and includes interviews with participants, faculty sponsors and representatives of the Jason Foundation about the good work they do.

Not only are these stories more compelling, they remind us in Catholic schools of what we're all about. 

Catholic "Prep"

A few years ago, we asked an advertising firm to conduct a series of small focus group sessions in the local churches, asking parishioners how they regarded our school as a first step in helping us sharpen our message. One comment from a participant in a local Catholic parish jumped out at me: “JPII needs to make up its mind: is it a prep school or a Catholic school?”

I understand the sentiment:  Traditionally, diocesan schools are broadly inclusive of a range of students both intellectually and socio-economically, whereas prep schools are typically exclusive: a function of costly tuitions and demanding admissions standards.  But we don’t believe it must be an “either-or.”  It’s been the on-going project of Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, TN to create a “both-and” school since we opened in 2002.    

Is it truly possible for a diocesan high school to be both "Catholic" and "Prep"? I'd like to explain how we've tried to do that by  focusing on four lynchpin issues: access, tuitions, academic program and faith. 

I. Access

As a diocesan school, we are in service to the Church and its families. Regarding admission policies, then, we must accept a broader diversity of students than a traditional private school, recognizing, with James Joyce,  that the Catholic Church is the “here comes everybody” church.

But the responsibility to serve “everybody” doesn't fall exclusively on the high school. Long before formal schooling begins, it rests on the parents as “primary educators” to foster curiosity and a good disposition to learning.  It falls on Catholic elementary schools to help students acquire the requisite skill sets and habits of mind for more advanced work, holding students accountable and remediating where necessary. It falls on the broader Church, through generous subsidies, to support Catholic schools and to sustain the commitment of excellent teachers.

If a young man or woman applies to our school without these requisite attitudes or skill sets, we do not necessarily betray our mission if we conclude we cannot accept him or her. We are a "college preparatory school," we say, and that's more than a marketing pitch. The critical question is: Can the child be brought to a college preparatory level over the course of his or her four years within the scope of resources our school provides? I believe we should make that assessment generously, but sometimes the honest answer is "no" --a reflection of the brokenness of that child’s prior schooling or training.   

Some diocesan high schools assume the extraordinary task of fixing this “brokenness” by offering students a remedial track with lower student-teacher ratios, tutors and a separate curriculum. I applaud these schools, but don’t believe it is prudent to expect that all Catholic schools assume such a burden. The cost of getting these students to college readiness levels---especially when it’s likely the conditions that contributed to their existing state persist—require enormous resources beyond all but the wealthiest Catholic schools.  There’s a reason, after all, that schools which specialize in teaching kids with learning disabilities often charge thirty to forty thousand dollars a year!  If serving this minority forces the school to charge tuitions that stretch beyond the majority's ability to pay, we risk becoming a school that is only capable of serving the very wealthy.

Let’s move beyond abstractions to where the rubber meets the road: admissions cut-offs. JPII generally accepts students in the fortieth to sixtieth percentile or above as a matter of course, providing them with the option to pursue their studies in a “standard,” non-honors curriculum at one end, while offering an honors and A.P. curriculum at the top end.  Why 40-60? By definition, it’s dead average, and it’s hard for me to see how a school established by a diocese can exclude an “average” kid. 

But what about students who test below average? It’s a matter of degree, but generally what we look for in a “below average” applicant is an “above average” set of parents or an “above average” work ethic on the child’s part to compensate. We know that child will struggle, and without strong parents or an unusually strong work ethic, he or she will usually do poorly at JPII.  If we judge that the parents are truly able and willing to support their child at home and work as a team with teachers in the school, our experience is that a weaker student can succeed here, and we would readily accept that child. I admit those judgments are subjective, but that’s why we interview our applicants with their parents and also ask for report cards and teacher recommendations.

How far down the continuum might we go?  It matters if the student is Catholic or not.  As part of our primary mission, we stretch much further to include Catholic children. Still, there does come a point we cannot fix the brokenness that is evident in a child’s training and must deny acceptance. Over the years, we’ve certainly made the mistake of accepting kids who weren’t capable, a mistake which contributes to kids, parents and teachers becoming quite frustrated, and almost always, a mistake that ends with a sad parting. We may want to help every kid; in reality, we don’t have the program to do it.

II. Costs

Many “prep” schools use high tuitions as the gate through which they filter undesirable students and families, promoting an aura of exclusivity.  Most of those additional monies go into smaller class sizes of 14-15 students that the school then promotes in its literature as a justification of its high cost. The truth is there is no significant difference in educational outcomes in classrooms of fifteen students compared to classrooms of 20-22 students, so at JPII, we aim for an average of twenty. My own experience, confirmed by many veteran teachers, is that classroom dynamics don’t truly change until the 24-25 student mark, meaning there’s a large window to contain costs for Catholic schools interested in keeping tuitions lower, so as to widen access without diminishing the academic program.

But that logic can go too far. Many Catholic schools in this country are obscenely underpriced, a residual of the era in which nuns worked in our schools for virtually nothing. Veteran teachers in these schools have salaries in the high 20/low 30K range, whereas their advanced degrees and people skills would command starting salaries that are double or triple that in the corporate world.  While I am humbled by the vocational commitment of these heroic men and women,  I don’t believe underpaying our teachers is a template for long-term, sustained excellence. A great teacher may want to work for a Catholic school because he or she believes in our mission, but if the public or private school is paying ten or fifteen thousand dollars more per year, there are bills to pay and children to feed. The free market wins over time.

Being the lowest priced school in town is also problematic for this reason: Price drives perception of quality.  Would we feel better or worse if we found out that our surgeon charged half the cost of the other surgeons around town? By charging the least, we position ourselves as the “K-Mart” of educational options, undermining whatever monies or time we spend in marketing.

What then do I propose? Every market is different. But, since monies can be saved through adjusting class sizes without hurting outcomes, I believe diocesan Catholic schools that aim tuition at the middle of the market can provide a top tier program that competes head to head with the wealthier privates. Our tuition at JPII is about $12,000 for a Catholic family, which in Nashville, is a middle position between the most expensive private schools that charge 20-22K, and local private Christian schools that charge 6-8K. 

Even so, I am aware that $12K is well beyond the means of many middle class Catholic families. The median household income in the United States is $50K, and it’s only marginally better in my area, somewhere between 58-60K.  I believe it’s a poor strategic move on a school’s part to keep tuitions artificially low in an attempt to meet the needs of these families.  Doing so subsidizes families who could otherwise pay much more. Rather, we do better to amp up our financial aid program, providing select families with what they need while collecting full freight from everyone else. Colleges have been doing this for years; over 80% of college students in the United States receive some sort of financial assistance. Not only does that keep a college’s tuitions high, positioning itself strategically in the market, but the college can also use financial aid as a tool to entice the most desirable students to its school. We could learn a lot from them. 

 III. Academic Program

If the school has structured its admissions and tuitions as I have described, we believe it’s entirely possible for a diocesan Catholic school to offer an elite academic program for its brightest students, even while offering a solid, college preparatory program for everyone else.  

Though some educators will disagree with me, we believe this “two track” system is crucial if a Catholic diocesan school truly aspires to offer an “upper-end” option.  We’d like top students to take somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 or more Advanced Placement classes during their career, and we really want to push them to excel. We’d also like to encourage kids on the “cusp” of having A.P. level abilities to stretch themselves and take a few A.P. courses in their areas of strength, believing that good schools create a healthy amount of angst for all of its students, pushing them to go beyond themselves.

Even so, we recognize that Advanced Placement programs are beyond the capabilities of some students.  That fact often has more to do with prior training and skills than intelligence: a young man may have a high I.Q., but if he isn’t facile with Algebra I or II then he cannot be expected to have success in A.P. Calculus BC. If his writing skills are marginal, he cannot succeed in A.P. English.  

Some schools, spurred by egalitarian ideals, believe that “tracking” leads to inequities in access to the school’s best teachers. I’ve seen examples where that’s true, but it doesn’t have to be. We try to avoid it at JPII by asking our A.P. teachers to also teach classes in our standard program as part of their teaching load. That way, if our students score exceptionally well on the A.P. exams, parents of students in our standard program can be assured that the same teachers who spurred those top students to excellence are the ones teaching their children.  That’s important, especially if a school doesn’t want its reputation to drift toward “it’s only a good school for smart kids.” Such a reputation narrows the market for students, but even more importantly, it runs contrary to our diocesan mission to serve a broad range of students.

IV. Faith

Ultimately, the goal of all Catholic schools is to cooperate with God’s grace in the lives of their students to help them grow in faith, wisdom and charity. The acid test for a Catholic school is not the number of A.P. scholars or merit finalists, but the number of disciples it helps create over time. Even so, if a Catholic school is successful as an academic institution, it’s going to be a very attractive option for non-Catholic families who desire a first tier school for their children. At JPII, about  45% of our families are not Catholic. This presents a subtle temptation: should we downplay our Catholicity? Should we tailor our Catholic program toward the “least common denominator” between Catholics and our other Christian students in order to keep our “prep” image and appeal to the broadest market share?

No!

First, it would betray our Catholic mission. Our country is already awash in educational institutions that were originally founded with a religious charter that strayed from their roots and became secularized. If the “Catholic prep school” becomes just another “prep” school, it has lost its raison d'etre, not to mention its distinctiveness in the marketplace.

Second, our Catholic faith doesn’t require this false “either-or.” Ecumenism is a fundamental tenet of our self-understanding as Catholics, and the “outward-ness” that flows from our theology welcomes non-Catholics into our fold and values the contributions they make to our faith community. The surprising thing is that our non-Catholic parents often have less issues with our Catholicism than our Catholic parents! Non-Catholic parents expect the school to be Catholic, whereas the cleavages within our own faith are evident when “traditional” Catholics expect us to be more traditional and “progressive” Catholics expect us to be more progressive.  My response is that we aim to be neither “traditional” nor “progressive” but authentically Catholic, which means we want to expose students to the full scope of our tradition, from Marian devotions to social justice projects, from Gregorian chant to contemporary praise music.

So we are fundamentally Catholic in union with all of our students and families. Catholic theology classes are required of all students every year. We believe they should be intellectually rigorous if we don’t want the faith to become like “seed planted in shallow soil,” as often happens when religious training aims “more at sensation than sense,” to quote a former faculty member. We have a school-wide mass, including all teachers, students and staff, each Wednesday. We pray before school, before classes, before ball games, and before special events.  Occasionally we’ll have Eucharistic adoration, a reconciliation service or a Marian devotion in our gym. We have a Christian service requirement of all students, every year. Often the theme of my weekly addresses to students revolves around a biblical or a moral principle. We have divided our student body into six “houses” ala the British boarding school model, each named after an influential pope from our Church’s history. We have communion service as an option in our chapel before school begins each day. Our school is filled with Scripture quotes in hallways, gym and weight-room, as well as Christian imagery, statues and decorative displays—all for the purpose of reminding students who they are.  

As we see it, our mission as a Catholic high school is to be ourselves and welcome those who wish to join us. If we do that part well, there’s nothing wrong with also trying to be an outstanding “prep school”, too!

Catholic Schools of the Future

Note: I gave this talk to Catholic businessmen and women of Nashville at their monthly breakfast on the occasion of Catholic Schools week in 2011.

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you this morning.

Last week, we celebrated national Catholic Schools Week, and so I’d like to stay on theme this morning by talking about Catholic Schools of the Future. To do that, however, allow me to talk briefly about Catholic Schools of the Past.

Imagine the following:

You’re a business analyst, hired by a national company to address these alarming trends :

• In 1960, the company had approximately 13,000 franchises around the country and a customer base of 5.2 million.

• By 2000, those numbers had fallen off precipitously: The company now has 8600 franchises and only 2.6 million customers.

• By 2010, it lost another 1600 franchises and an additional 20% of its customer base.

As best you can tell, there are three issues driving these numbers:

• In 1960, this company was one of the few privately held companies in its field. Over the last decades, a plethora of new privately supported ventures and new public initiatives have made the competition much tougher.

• Prior to 1960, the company was able to pull its best employees from a training center that didn’t charge the company for its training. Now the company must employ independent contractors who demand higher wages and who must be trained at company expense to attain the same skill set as the previous base.

• Each franchise must invest heavily in buildings and infrastructure to deliver its product. Unfortunately, many are now surrounded by customers unable to pay retail price because of changing demographics. The businesses are now too far away from the customers.

“What has the company done to address its precipitously dropping market share?” you ask the CEO of the company.

“We’ve counseled our franchises to look for ways to raise capital to improve their buildings and hire better employees” says the current CEO, fidgeting. “We’ve also suggested to keep their prices low and give discount pricing to those who might need it so as to keep brand loyalty.”

“That doesn’t sound like a winning formula”, you remark. “How can you reasonably expect these franchises to raise revenue for capital improvements when they can’t collect full freight for goods and services? "Let me ask it differently” you say. “What has the company done to help the franchises? ” “Well”, the C.E.O. says hesitatingly, we’ve created a national association of these franchises, and we have an annual convention to swap good ideas and conduct research that measures how we’re doing.

“It looks like your research says it's been a bad fifty years” you say. " Do you have a new business model? Have we tried to re-organize the way we do things? Or are you still pretty much delivering it the way you did fifty years ago?

“Uh… We've added some technology, but the business model is the same”.

It is impossible to imagine a company in the Fortune 500 operating this way. Their boards would have fired many CEO’s over those fifty years. The company is crumbling and yet they have no business plan, no plan for his franchises to re-structure, re-locate or try something new.

But this is exactly the state of Catholic K-12 education in this country. From our peak enrollments in the early 1960’s, we’ve lost more than 60% of our student population and closed 6,000 of our schools. In the last ten years alone, we’ve lost 1600 of those schools and 20% of our student population. (NCEA, Annual Statistical Report on Schools, 2009). Just last month the Archdiocese of New York announced it is closing another 27 schools next year—26 elementary schools and one high school.

It’s an absolute crisis. Our Church and our schools are making heroic efforts to stem the tide, but we’re tackling this crisis as if we just need to work harder and keep doing what we’re doing better.

Catholic Schools of the Future will need to consider new paradigms.

I have five thoughts about this.

My first thought: Catholic Schools of the Future are going to have to be more willing to experiment with hybrid parish-regional models of Catholic schooling. Exclusively parochial schools—schools tied to a parishes—worked very well for the first hundred years of Catholic schools, but I don’t think it’s going to work for the next 100. City demographics have changed and will continue to do so, leaving once well-positioned schools in neighborhoods that can no longer support them. And so, a kind of Darwinian evolution takes place—the strongest schools, surrounded by the most affluent neighborhoods, thrive, while the weaker schools die a slow, painful death. I think we’re going to have to look at models—not in every parish or every school, but where this makes sense—where schools need to be linked to several parishes. It’s not a coincidence that of all the schools which have closed in the last 50 years, relatively few are diocesan high schools—precisely because they are not tied to single parishes, but pull from a broad geography. Regional schools are also more able to create robust financial aid programs that help subsidize families who need it, making Catholic education more accessible.

Second thought on Catholic Schools of the Future: I think we’re going to need to experiment with our traditional K-8, 9-12 model and look at different age groupings for our schools where that makes sense. When the K-8 model formed in the late 1800’s, there was virtually no competition other than public schools and elite, very expensive private schools. Now, it’s an extremely competitive market, with all levels of private schools and magnet schools. Statistics show that our schools become vulnerable when students move into 5th, 6th and 7th grade, because at that age, our schools compete against K-12 or 5-12 or 7-12 private schools that leverage their high school facilities—libraries, science labs, athletic fields, athletic programs, down to their younger kids. I think it's unrealistic to expect that stand-alone K-8 schools can duplicate those offerings. Remember too that although we talk about K-8’s, the reality is that many of our kids are not beginning in K anymore—they're beginning in 4 year old programs or even 3 year old programs, meaning by the time the child gets to 6th grade, he or she has been at that school as long as a the 8th grader has in a traditional K-8. So I predict that nationally, we’re going to need to look at other more competitive models—perhaps, for example, distinct middle schools, perhaps locating those middle schools on the campus or in the vicinity of the high schools, tied to some sort of regional paradigm. Or perhaps we need to think about K-12 schools like our private school counterparts.

Third thought: I think we'll need to look at new partnerships between high schools and existing elementary schools, where administration teams merge to run both schools. For example, in the president-principal model typical of diocesan high schools, the president may be able to help the elementary school by using his or her development office to help market that school and professionalize that school's external image. Or more radically, in Montgomery, AL we took two existing parish elementary schools, merged them with the diocesan high school to become a "K-12 school with three campuses", renamed the school "Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School," and made the president responsible for running a single business office and development office that served all the campuses together. Each campus, however, retained its own principal, who retained the day to day administrative responsibilities (for more on this, go here). This was a more realistic use of resources than expecting each elementary school to hire its own president, run its own business office and hire its own development director. It also allowed us to do things that our parents appreciated, like giving cross-campus discounts to families with kids at both the high school and elementary campus.

Fourth thought: To attract and retain the kind of teachers we want and to offer competitive programs with our private school counterparts, we are going to have to adopt more of a college tuition model for our schools. By this I mean we’re going to have to ask parents to pay for the true cost of educating a child, raising tuitions to get to that point, while at the same time, increase our financial aid substantially. We can no longer be the cheapest game in town—the sisters are no longer with us. Yet the most highly educated, highly credentialed teachers in Catholic schools across the nation with 20+ years of experience rarely make more than 50,000/year. Most diocesan principals make less than 70,000/year. Think about trying to support families on those numbers after being in the same career for 15-20 years. Though passing on the faith remains our most central mission, middle class Catholics expect us to also offer first tier, competitive academic and athletic programs. We cannot do so if we’re priced at ½, or ¼ as much as our competitors. Being the cheapest will no longer sustain us. So I think we’re going to have to raise rates aggressively, but while we do so, offer robust financial aid and remove whatever stigma exists about applying for it. After all, almost 80% of full time college students in this country receive some sort of financial aid.

Fifth thought Regarding these paradigm changes, let us admit that our church is not very good at changing paradigms. We’re better at preserving and caretaking than innovating. In contrast, businessmen and women such as yourself are much better at strategic planning, much more adept at modifying on the fly based on what the numbers show you, quicker to change marketing strategies if necessary, more accustomed to risk-taking, more willing to innovate.

That’s why I believe Catholic schools of the future must consider models of institutional governance that give a greater role to committed Catholic laypersons such as yourself, not just within the local schools, but at a broader, diocesan level. The archdiocese of Chicago, for example, founded a Board of Education in the Spring of 2009 to help them make recommendations for the future of their schools. The Board was hand-picked by the bishop, and reads like a who’s who list of Chicago Catholics—CEO’s, university leaders, top level Catholic businessmen and women. They’re doing amazing things—I invite you to spend some time on their diocesan web site just to get a sense of things. But here’s the biggest news: for the first time in decades, Chicago Catholic schools opened with more students than the previous year. I don't presume to have all the answers, but I think if we empower people like you to dream, innovate and lead, there are new models and new ideas that you will uncover help us implement.

Concluding thoughts:

Of this I am convinced: We have a lot to work with in Nashville. We have two remarkable diocesan high schools. Most dioceses would give their right arm to have EITHER a Father Ryan or a JPII. We have many excellent, strong elementary schools. The active presence of the Dominican nuns is a tremendous blessing to Nashville, and has lessened some of the national effects I have discussed here. With a few exceptions, we are generally healthy. But that’s precisely the time to really plan for our future, to consider new paradigms and structures—from a position of strength….not from weakness or out of desperation.

I want to thank all of you who are already involved as volunteers in our schools or those of you who send your kids to our schools. If I or Pope John Paul II can serve you or your families in any way, don’t hesitate to call me.

Thank you.