Suggestions on what to do when guests visit your school

I have now visited 41 KIPP schools nationwide (exactly half of the 82 in existence), plus many other high-performing schools, and my nearly universal experience is that the schools do a great job of inspiring people, they're not doing even the basics to turn these visitors into long-term supporters.  Thus, I drafted the memo below to the leadership of KIPP with my suggestions for improvement (they immediately forwarded it to every KIPP School Leader) and am now sharing it publicly because this is not just a KIPP problem -- nearly EVERY school I've visited isn't doing the basics, so I hope my memo helps stimulate a change.

 

Memo to KIPP leadership

 

Having visited more than 30 KIPPs (more than a dozen in the past month and three more this week: Charlotte today, Indianapolis tomorrow and Balt Wed), and usually bringing 1-4 friends on my visits, I'm convinced that we're SERIOUSLY dropping the ball in terms of follow-up when people come to visit our schools -- one of our best opportunities to build a network of funders, board members, supporters, etc.  How many of our strongest supporters first got inspired by KIPP via a school visit?  If my experience over 10+ years is any guide, it's a very high percentage (for me, it happened when Wendy Kopp brought me to meet Dave and see the original KIPP in NYC in 1999).

 

When someone takes two hours out of their busy schedule to come visit one of our schools, there is NO BETTER prospect so we should be milking this to the max -- yet we're not.  On a scale of 1-10, I'd give us a 3.  The school leaders are wonderful and inspirational and give great tours.  Their passion and competence are evident -- and KIPP sells itself, of course -- so visitors get VERY fired up.  But our follow-through is miserable.  We should be doing all of the following really basic things, none of which is happening today:

 

1) Get every visitor's business card and enter this info into our database.  Believe it or not, it was very infrequent that a school leader asked for the business card from a guest I'd brought to the school.  How can we follow up if we don't have the person's contact information?!

 

2) Each visitor should be given the following before they leave:

 

A) A folder with materials about the school, local and national press clippings, and a DVD of the 60 Minutes (and perhaps other TV such as the Making Schools Work).

 

B) A copy of Work Hard, Be Nice

 

C) A school t-shirt

 

3) Each visitor should get a brief thank-you email, with an electronic copy of the materials in the folder (in one .pdf, not multiple attachments), plus a link to the videos on the DVD – this allows guests to forward info to others and create viral effects.

 

Yes, the cost of this is maybe $20 in total, but this is a TINY cost relative to the benefits: educating someone, giving them materials they can share with a spouse or friends and, critically, creating reciprocity, one of the most powerful human emotions.  Can you imagine someone getting all this KIPP bling and then NOT giving money to the school when the time comes???

 

I think KIPP National should provide every school with a box of books and a few dozen ready-to-go folders with national press clipping and a DVD.  Then, each school can add local press clippings to the folder and provide the t-shirt.  I also think all of this should be mandatory -- this is a NO-BRAINER.

 

Two other optional suggestions:

 

1) My guests and I were BLOWN AWAY at KIPP Heartwood when, every time we entered a classroom, one or two students immediately got up, came over, shook our hands, looked us in the eye, introduced themselves, and explained what class we were in and what they were studying at that moment.  This was the only school at which this occurred and it made a HUGE impact.  Ali Sehba said the students who are designated for this are rotated every week or so and it's an honor to be chosen.

 

I understand that some might view this as a distraction (especially for schools with lots of visitors).  I think if only one or two students greet guests (and it rotates among students) and all of the other students stay on task, then it’s a minimal distraction – plus it gives students the opportunity to practice looking people in the eye, shaking hands firmly and making conversation.

 

2) During my visit to KIPP Truth in Dallas, Steve Colmus and the board chair told me about a program to get as many visitors as possible to visit the school.  EVERY Friday during the school year, the school hosts an open house from 7:45-9:00am.  They publicize it widely, including printed business cards with the open house dates for the entire school year and RSVP information on them, which Steve carries and which are given to every staff and board member.

 

The only other KIPPs I'm aware of that have regular open houses are KIPP Philadelphia (the first Wed. of every month) and KIPP Ujima Village in Baltimore (the last Tuesday of every month). 

 

I understand that KIPP’s experience with open houses in NYC is poor due to lousy attendance, but I'm convinced that's because it wasn't marketed properly and we weren't proactive enough.  If we did what KIPP Truth did, I have ZERO doubt that we could get solid turnout once a month – and that this would, over time, lead to more supporters and donors.

 

By the way, this is not a critique of only KIPP -- my experience visiting other charter schools is identical.  I think EVERY charter school in the country should be doing these all of these basic things, so I’m sending this memo out to my entire email list.