In a 2007 study, the Association of Fundraising Professionals found that Development Directors stayed at an organization an average of 3.6 years (3.5 for females and 4.17 for males). Given the time it takes for a Development Director to gain trust with a Board and develop relationships with school donors, it is important to develop strategies that would enable your school to keep its Development Director for a lengthy period of time.

Each fall, ISM publishes a set of conversion factors to facilitate the recasting of previous tuitions into current dollars. (See the table below.) We continue to use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).1 However, we realize that the CPI-U does not completely reflect expenditures in private-independent schools; it can only serve as a base figure. There are compelling arguments for adjusting your tuition at a rate 2% above the overall inflation rate. The CPI has a built-in “productivity factor.” It assumes that the work force is increasingly productive as computers, streamlined mechanical devices, and other laborsaving developments provide greater output with fewer personnel. The more efficient a business becomes, the more the business can stabilize or reduce the effects of inflation.

The School Head is the sole employee of the Board. It is essential that the Board be fully conversant about trends in Head compensation. Only then can the Board determine what adjustments, if any, are needed to ensure that the school retains the Head, or to enhance its ability to be competitive in its next Head search. Make management of the Head’s compensation a high priority, in terms of Trustees educating themselves about the marketplace and understanding the complexities of the School Head’s job. ISM recently surveyed a random sample of I&P subscriber schools concerning compensation for faculty and administrators. This article focuses on the survey results regarding the salaries of School Heads at our participating schools.

Many schools are exploring alternative revenue sources to mitigate ever-increasing tuitions; some strategic plans even call for an investigation into this concept as a means to maintain sustainability. Is this a wise course of action? On the surface, exploring alternative revenue sources is indeed logical. If a school could design a way to create, for example, $265,000 in profit, tuition increases could be curtailed. This thinking can, however, be misleading—and even detrimental, in some cases.

In the recent research ISM carried out relating to faculty compensation and benefits, a corollary to the findings was this one: Schools are still underfunding professional development. In the chart below, the percent of budget spent by schools on professional development is 1% or less in 82% of responding schools. ISM’s Success Predictor No. 17 suggests that the appropriate amount is “roughly 2% of the total budget of expenses to be devoted to faculty professional development, plus an additional allocation of 1% of the total budget for support of professional development for nonteaching personnel (including Trustees).”

Concentrated close-of-summer planning is one of your Board’s best guarantees of strong Board performance. An evening buffet or weekend cookout at the start of the school year—sponsored by the Board for faculty, school administrators, and key staff—can do much to increase your school’s sense of community and “family.” This is especially effective when invitations are extended to spouses as well. Try to hold the event on campus. The setting will remind everyone of their common tie: service and dedication to students.

As School Head, you are unavoidably aware that this is an era in which year-to-year enrollment is especially difficult to predict. If your strategic financial plan is set up according to ISM’s 13-line, six-year format, and if you have followed ISM’s standard advice regarding holding your enrollment projection flat on Line 1, you will want to be prepared for quick action if your actual enrollment in the new school year is substantially over or under your Line 1 number. For your 13-line financial plan, you have surely chosen a conservative number for your enrollment projection. And you will also have, as ISM urges, included enrollment-building goals in your planning document, while, at the same time, not chosen to have those goals play themselves out in the strategic financial document. Thus, you will have built into your plan—if you do meet or even approach your enrollment-increase goals—surpluses well beyond those indicated on Line 9 of your document.

ISM is often asked its perspectives on succession planning at the Board level. ISM's views on this are grounded in a long-established set of conclusions about the relationships between Boards and institutional excellence. These views—more accurately, ISM conclusions—strongly emphasize "Board-as-task-group" over "Board-as-bureaucracy." Thus, while ISM opposes the oft-used corporate concept of succession planning per se, we support the concept of succession training. ISM's position has little to do with the most common approach to this, i.e., future Board Presidents serving first as Board Vice Presidents. There is an inherent problem with the whole concept of "vice president," and the problem is apparent in many organizations, not just Boards of Trustees: Other than presiding in the absence of the President, the position's responsibilities are elusive.