I have been horribly remiss in communicating through this blog lately—but for incredibly good reasons! There are so many exciting things happening at Greenwood School as we forge confidently into our future. If you haven’t already checked out the new page for our Annual Fund campaign, please take a few minutes to navigate over there (under the “Giving” tab, select “Annual Fund”) and read about the incredible expansions and enhancements we will be implementing for 2019-2020 and beyond. By next year at this time, Greenwood School will be doing and offering programs and courses that no other school in Northeast Florida can match! We remain dedicated to our mission, but we will be far more appropriately equipped to excel in that mission for many years to come.
We prioritize our giving goals in alignment with feedback we have received from students, parents, and faculty/staff over the past few years—what you like and think operates well and provides benefit and opportunity to the students, and what you think needs some improvement. That’s why classroom technology and environmental education programs were the top priority for 2018-2019—and if you’ve just come back to this blog post from reading the new Annual Fund page, you’ve seen that we were highly successful in obtaining funding to bring those programs to leading-edge status! Survey feedback also noted that a significant positive quality of Greenwood School is the physical and emotional safety of our campus. Just as we focus on students’ strengths in our academic programs, we also want to focus on the strengths of our School as a whole; so our Annual Fund this year will add efficiency and sustainability to our physical safety infrastructure.
School finance expert Dr. Richard Soghoian, in his book Mind the Gap, explains a number of key principles for school budgeting, fundraising, and spending. Principle #5 in this excellent guidebook states “Tuition income should always be for the present, and all voluntary giving only for the future” (2012, p. 188). Applying that principle in particular meant some key adjustments to our financial planning and a careful analysis of our own processes; the results were that we were able to determine a fair tuition rate for 2019-2020, and that our communication in our Annual Fund campaign has remained completely focused upon projects that will secure key capabilities for sustainable effectiveness.
What’s in store for Greenwood is on my mind 24/7—and the thoughts of what we can all accomplish together make me incredibly happy! Our students are achieving things they had perhaps only dreamed of; our strategic planning is dedicated to identifying and securing new opportunities for students, as well as professional development for our faculty and staff; Greenwood School has become a recognizable name in professional education circles across the state, and beyond. To borrow a concept from author Jim Collins (2011), Greenwood School is well on our way to going from good (very good!) to GREAT—come join us!
Dr. Anthony D. Mortimer, Head of School
Referenced in this post:
Collins, J. (2011). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t. New York, NY:
Harper Business.
Soghoian, R. J. (2012). Mind the gap! An insider’s irreverent look at private school finances and
management—with a lesson for government and industry, too! New York, NY: Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School.
