It’s the time of year for reflection and resolution and it’s also year-end giving season, so your advancement teams are working double time, wrapping up Giving Tuesday campaigns and thinking through those pledges and gifts they want to secure before December 31. 

This past year, CASE has looked closely at annual giving trends and their implications for the future, so it’s time to pause reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re likely to go in independent school yearly fundraising and engagement.

Many of you have participated in CASE’s webinars and pulse surveys, so the upward trend in annual giving shouldn’t be a surprise to you. In our most recent iteration of our annual giving pulse survey, CASE found the following:

• ·60 percent of schools (mostly from the US, but with some participation from Europe and Latin America) reported an increase to annual giving.
• The average increase for those schools trending up was 16 percent year over year.
• Only 15 percent of schools reported a decrease in annual giving.
• Day schools fared slightly better on average than boarding schools.
• Small schools saw the largest increases year over year.
• Parent and alumni giving is largely up, though participation still lags behind.

Overall, the news is good: schools are generally faring better (from a revenue standpoint) in the pandemic than prior to the pandemic. As many have noted, fiscal years 2018 and 2019 were fairly dismal in terms of annual giving, reflecting a significant slump in both giving and participation by parents and alumni. Enter 2020 and 2021, however, and PPE funding, increased demand for enrollment, and increased annual giving have given schools a previously unforeseen bump to their bottom lines.

However, as many of you who have heard me speak will remember, I am quick to caution: this boon to independent schools may not ( and probably will not) last. For a number of reasons -- about which I sincerely hope I am wrong -- I believe we’ll see schools return to pre-pandemic giving and enrollment levels by the end of FY 2024. (Although, for the record, I think 2022 will be another strong year as part of this short-term bump.) While schools have made great strides in the past two years in our ability to be nimble and forward-thinking, we generally like to rest on our laurels and expect families to be eternally grateful for the product we’re offering them, rather than continually remarketing the school and its value to our existing customers.

If we want to keep as large a slice of the annual giving (and enrollment) pie as possible, however, remarketing our value is exactly what we need to do.

So, this December, let’s avoid the traditional tropes of last-ditch efforts for outright gifts that articulate the school’s need and start making a concentrated shift toward articulating the school’s value. As someone recently remarked to me, “Independent schools are some of the only nonprofits where the donor is also the beneficiary.” I.e. the parent or the alumna gets something out of the donation they make, either through their child or their emotional attachment to the institution. Let’s think this winter about what that specific value to the donor might be, and then market it with all you’ve got.

Looking at your appeals from this lens will have the dual benefit of convincing new families to remain in the school community and will convey a stronger emotional appeal to your donors who want to invest in the good work you’re doing as an institution.