How much does Donor Fatigue impact your school? Does this diagnosis have credibility or is this a symptom of a deeper issue?

What you place at the center of your relationship with donors is a big part of the answer. When you put yourself or money at the center, you position yourself as either a beggar or an egotist who is focused primarily on how donations benefit you. With Shared Vision at the core of your relationship with donors, however, you have the opportunity to build a consultative role that demonstrates mutual respect and collaborative success. They will see you an asset and expert who can help them accomplish their dreams and goals.

"Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation."

- Satya Nadella, New CEO of Microsoft

In his first day as the new CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella provided 3 valuable lessons regarding leadership. His two predecessors were founder and billionaire Bill Gates followed by billionaire Steve Ballmer (the 30th employee of the company), so he obviously has some big shoes to fill. His start was a bit rocky, but we're pulling for him to learn quickly and achieve great success.

How would a visionary design a school if starting today? Clean slate. No limits from tradition or the past.

What attracts students to your school is shifting from curriculum and safety to connection and relevance. Schools have used viewbooks, brochures, websites, and social media pages to market their "Excellence in Education," but what people seem to be emphasizing in their search for a school is the experience.

Modern business terminology is foreign to many school leaders, but if you're going to step up your game in an increasingly competitive education marketplace, then you want to start thinking more like an entrepreneur and less like a principal or superintendent. One place to start is to consider what the students in your target market really want. Rest assured that,

How does the school's leadership know what the variety of decisions being made genuinely contribute to achievement of the mission?

The best answer is found in discovering the ultimate school driver for your program, where you actively and consistently measure the one factor that is most influential in the achievement of your mission.

Strategic planning is tough in this climate of rapid change for schools. Given the variability of the environment, school leaders must recognize how to adjust the planning process to do more than just create a strategic plan that will sit on the shelf until next year. Today you need to create a school innovation plan, where an emerging culture of innovation begins to thrive throughout the campus.

A survey of school websites produced this wordle image. The size of each word is indicative of the frequency of its usage on each page. As you can see, "Excellence" is used consistently and persistently as a means of communicating the high standards and quality of the program. But how does the school leader support this statement? What evidence can the faculty offer to support the school's "Excellence" claim?

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5. Substantial Cash Reserves

Does the school have enough money in the bank so that when, not if, that air conditioner goes out, or that bus breaks down, you have enough cash on hand to cover these expenses? Just as in your personal finances, a school has to be prepared for those emergency financial needs. Your school should be able to handle those situations and move on. Your have to decide what that ideal number is--our recommendation is at least 20% of your annual budget in cash reserves.

Imagine for for a moment that you could hook an EKG up to your school and measure the heartbeat. What would the graph tell you? How can the board know that the school truly is viable moving forward?