As schools move beyond early experimentation with AI, new challenges emerge: overlapping initiatives, unclear authority, faculty fatigue, and difficulty translating values into consistent practice.

Many schools are experimenting with AI in isolated, reactive ways often driven by individual enthusiasm, external pressure, or emerging concerns about risk.

Many development offices are highly productive but still struggle to make meaningful progress toward their goals.  The issue is rarely effort or commitment.

Too many strategic plans stall because they lack two critical companions: a financial roadmap and a philanthropic plan to fund them. A strategic vision only gains traction when it is translated into a clear, time-bound fundraising program with defined priorities, targets, timelines, owners, and measures of impact.

Join ISM’s Scott Wilson for a candid conversation with two successful and innovative independent school heads about the challenges they (and their peers) are facing today and in the immediate future. 

Annual giving is the foundational program from which all other development efforts grow and flourish. Yet, for some development offices, efforts tend to be reactive rather than part of a coordinated, strategic plan.

The difference between a thriving fundraising program and a struggling one often comes down to the leadership of the development committee chair.