A Healthy Start to Your New Christian School
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10
GraceWorks Ministries was founded
in 2000 on this verse.
GraceWorks' repeated experience in study after study is that God has created, in advance, the good works you require to accomplish His vision.
It's all about tapping into these “works of grace,” discovering them
and mobilizing them.
Operating in an abundance mentality means that the chief task of Superintendent is volunteer management and mobilization.
For many Superintendents, this is extremely good news because they lack technical educational expertise in many key areas.
With a GraceWorks' Study,
if you can work with volunteers, you can successfully start a solid, healthy, thriving, Christian school.
In an abundance mentality, the Superintendent . . .
. . . doesn't need to do all the fundraising when dozens of others want to help,
. . . doesn't need to set up every aspect of the program when a number of more qualified people will gladly pitch in,
. . . can work with specialists in computers, extracurricular activities, various sports, music, you-name-it,
. . . can be one of 6-12 public speakers for the school,
. . . never, EVER has to stuff another mailing, and the list goes on and on.
An Alternate Plan.
Unfortunately, most schools start with a scarcity mentality.
Just a dedicated few people do practically all the work, often “majoring in the minors,” and just a few people donate.
(The first decision down this path is deciding you, the Superintendent, need to do most of the work
yourself.)
Because God's resources are not found, soon people who were with you, if you had known who they were and how to ask them, are now hearing that your school is “struggling” or worse, that your very continuance is in question. They are much less likely to sacrifice for you, especially if they perceive you are “begging.”
Of the two plans that exist for your school's start-up, this alternate scarcity plan is decidedly NOT God's plan.
How to Start an Excellent Christian School
And my God will meet all your needs
according to His glorious riches
in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19
Let's Get Right to the Point!
People who decide to start a Christian school absolutely believe this verse. The problem is
they don't know how to operationalize it.
We can do this,
and invite you to
prayerfully consider partnering with us for a healthy start for your Christian school.
In a recent School Start-Up Study, GraceWorks found . . .
. . . 135 households willing to contribute something,
. . . 253 households willing to pray regularly for the project,
. . . 36 major gift prospects up to $500,000 in capability,
. . . 10 people willing to assist with curriculum design -- including a Ph.D in the subject,
. . . 6 people willing to drive a bus / van for student pickup or activities,
. . . 73 households with children likely to attend the school, and
. . . 59 people willing to help with the fundraising effort .
Practically all of these included names, addresses and phone numbers -- accurately inputted because their own church's secretary entered this data with GraceWorks' special proprietary software.
Now all of this data, from nearly 500 households, resides on the computer of the Superintendent in an easily-searched, relational database.
Of the 59 people willing to help with fundraising, 31 indicated the number of hours they were willing to work on fundraising.
That total was 297 hours per month.
That's the equivalent of a full-time Director of Development and a three-quarter time assistant!
All this was just the tip of the iceberg!
In addition to the database, the Final Report was 129 full-color
pages, including 69 pages of names and 21 pages of donor ratings for three different years.
These donation ratings where based on up to six different pieces of information from two different surveys and one-on-one interviews.
Funding, marketing, and start-up strategies were carefully detailed, with 79 specific summary recommendations.
To learn more about GraceWorks Ministries' School Start Up partnerships, call (877)-9-FOR-R-KIDS (1-877-936-7754)
to schedule a free, 45-minute, no obligation consultation.
The
Three Essentials Things You Need to Start a Christian School
Regardless of the philosophy, core values, vision, and mission of your school, in the final analysis, for a Christian school to start well the substantial support of four groups must be garnered, with excellence:
Leaders
who govern diligently (Romans 12:8),
Volunteers
who help,
Parents
who enroll students and
Donors
who give substantially.
Consider the wants and needs of each of these groups:
Leaders
want to develop a consistent program of excellence that expresses their deepest convictions and passions, and they need followers who likewise will support their dream.
Volunteers
want a mission, vision, and core values that they support, and they need a meaningful, doable volunteer role.
Parents
want a safe, Christian educational program, and they need academics with a reasonable amount of quality extracurricular activities.
Donors
want a solid Christian outreach and/or discipleship ministry that will actively “train up children the way they should go” (Proverbs 22:6), and to give sacrificially they need to believe the school is well-founded and has every likelihood of continuing well into the future.
With the sheer number of elements involved, it is impossible to start everything in a new Christian school with excellence.
However, in GraceWorks' experience, all four of these must be done well for your school to start healthy.
The first decision.
The first decision is whether you will start
your Christian school large or small. It's actually the very same question a church planter will answer -- explicitly or implicitly -- by the initial methodology employed. For whether church or school,
how we start will largely determine how fast we will grow.
The right kind of consultant team will significantly accelerate your growth.
Conclusion: Key Benefits of a School Start-Up Partnership with GraceWorks
With the conclusion of the public phase of the initial phase funds drive, what is the end result of a start-up school's partnership with GraceWorks Ministries?
In summary, the start-up school
study gives you.
† Practical implementation of a Biblical, church-based approach to starting a Christian school.
† A solid prayer support base,
with 100 – 200 people regularly praying for
your school.
† An enthusiastic core support group of two – four hundred people who are leading, giving, volunteering – even volunteers who will help with the fundraising chores.
† Maximum donor funding -- 70% pledged or given several months before the school opens.
† Solid initial funds drive that cannot help but be successful because the case for support is widely owned by actively involved volunteers.
† Several hundred donors upon which to build a yearly fundraising plan and/or to prepare for a Phase 2 funding drive.
† A solid information technology solution for marketing and fund development that starts with tens of thousands of pieces of information from the Support Study, and adds critical donor and marketing information gleaned from the entire
Start-Up Process.
† Solid architectural plans and a property site, “owned” by practically all key leaders and supporters of the school, all firmly grounded in financial reality.
† A clear understanding of what financing is needed, and how to obtain it.
† Quiet phase fundraising starts just three months into the entire process, providing
solid cash flow.
To learn more about GraceWorks
Ministries' School Start Up partnerships, call
(877)-9-FOR-R-KIDS (1-877-936-7754) to
schedule a free,
45-minute, no obligation consultation.
