In school advancement, there’s often a gulf between the marketing and fundraising shops. This isn’t usually intentional. 

Over the past few years, the immediate needs for strategic communication meant that communications teams were doing far more urgent work on a consistent basis than they had to do in the past. Moreover, many advancement teams go so far as to shut out their marketing and communications counterparts, insisting they don’t know “how to fundraise” and therefore don’t need to be involved in writing appeals or setting the tone for donor communications. 

Whatever the reason, it must end. The relationship doesn’t even have to be tense in order to be dysfunctional. You may have a perfectly lovely relationship with your counterpart team, and still be ultimately underutilizing each other’s strengths. 

Below are some considerations we’ve laid out to help you think about your next steps in creating harmony amongst the two teams. 

1. Create Mutual Understanding

One common challenge that fundraising and marketing professionals face is a lack of understanding of each other’s pain points and goals. This can be even more apparent in school advancement offices where a few individuals typically wear many hats. Time is in short supply, and as a result, exploratory conversations can be as well.

For any team to succeed, they must understand each other’s roles, goals and pain points. If marketing isn’t aware of the unique challenges faced by those in fundraising, or which key metrics are used to determine success, it would be very difficult for them to be an effective partner. Likewise, it’s incumbent upon fundraising and enrollment offices to ask their seasoned marketing colleagues what tools might most effectively deliver the message they’re hoping to send.

It may take several meetings, but directors need to gather every team member who contributes to school advancement. Then, visually lay out everyone’s role and why and how it supports the entire team. 

Do yourselves a favor; draw a dotted line to revenue as much as possible. While it’s obvious for a major gift officer, it’s less obvious that the communications team often produces content that retains students—therefore retaining tuition and annual giving dollars. It’s important for everyone in the room to appreciate this often oblique, but real, nuance.

2. Meet Consistently to Share Wins and Challenges

In small advancement offices, schedules can be packed with meetings, and we all want to be more mindful of our team members’ time. However, the unintended consequence is that we may end up only scheduling meetings when there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. 

As you can imagine, over time, this can naturally create misunderstanding. Instead, try to gather the entire advancement team at least monthly, and prioritize the following discussion topics: 

• Allow each department to share stories or themes going on around campus. 
• Identify the strengths of each team member. 
• Discuss challenges facing each department, and solicit feedback about how to solve them.
• Find out if there are opportunities to utilize skills or resources across departments.
• Celebrate wins together to reinforce that everyone is part of the same team, working toward the same advancement goal.

Get the Most From Your Meetings: Learn steps for creating mutual understanding between departments in our digital toolkit.

3. Build a Communications Agency Model

Consistent branding and messaging are critical components of a successful school advancement office. The communications team must be given the time and space to exercise their strengths in this area and to think creatively about telling the school’s most important stories across multiple channels, such as email, social media, newsletters and annual fund appeals. 

In order to achieve this, your communications or marketing office should be positioned like an agency. This allows them to provide creative direction between the development and enrollment departments. Moreover, it allows them to streamline story, direct lead-generating activity for both enrollment and philanthropy, and act as a partner and problem-solver working across channels. 

CASE Member Benefit: On-demand resources and events to help you develop the ideal staffing model for your school communications team. 

Where to Start to Enhance Fundraising and Marketing Collaboration 

This is a lot to take on at once for anyone in K–12 school advancement. To start, establish realistic short- and long-term goals.

• Short-Term Goals: For the next six months, make a consistent effort to meet with your team every other week. Discuss ideas, influential stories around campus, key data points and current challenges within each department. If this is the only step you take in the first six months, you’re going to see improvement.
• Long-Term Goals: Work toward developing a holistic communications strategy. This should include all the communications that are sent from any department under advancement, so you can take advantage of any synergies. By using consistent stories across multiple channels, team members can maximize their time and effort. Plus, your organization will project a stronger, more consistent brand across the board.  

Get On-Demand Support From CASE

By taking gradual steps to creating a stronger bond between your school fundraising and marketing departments, you can foster peace and collaboration within your advancement family. This will ultimately lead to greater success for your school and improved job satisfaction for your team. 

At CASE, we understand the challenges faced by schools and small advancement teams. Start with our digital toolkit on integrating your school’s advancement office, and become a CASE member today to instantly access our library of resources to help you develop a highly effective school advancement team.