ISPD is not a general consulting firm that also serves Catholic communities. It is the only kind of work we have done for thirty-seven years, and every associate on our team has run a school, a parish, or a diocesan office themselves.
What follows is everything we do, organized the way our clients actually arrive: not by what we sell, but by what you are facing. Most communities begin with one service and end up somewhere they did not expect — and that is usually the right outcome.
The goal of every ISPD engagement is the same: to leave your community stronger, more capable, and more deeply rooted in mission than when we arrived.
Start with what you are facing
Six sentences we hear most often, and where each one leads.
“We need to understand where we stand.”
An honest picture of your community’s health — financial, operational, and cultural — before you plan, campaign, or hire.
Operational Vitality Study — assessment across five dimensions: financial stewardship, strategic direction, resource management, mission alignment, and innovation. Most communities find both more strength and more opportunity than they expected.
“We need to know if this is even possible.”
Opening a new school. Relocating one. Consolidating programs. Merging parishes. The question is not how to do it — it is whether it should be done at all.
General Feasibility Study — demographic analysis plus community interest research, ending in a Go, No-Go, or Go-with-Conditions recommendation. We have given all three.
“We need to raise significant money.”
A new church, a restoration, a building, an endowment. Major capital work needs the right foundation before the first ask.
Financial Feasibility Study — whether your community is ready and whether your goal is achievable. If the answer is not yet, we help you build capacity first.
Capital Campaigns — case statement through quiet phase, public launch, and post-campaign stewardship. On-site monthly, in contact weekly.
“We need a direction everyone will actually follow.”
Most strategic plans fail because a committee wrote them instead of a community building them. Ours engage dozens — often hundreds — of the people who will carry them out.
Nine strategic planning processes for schools, parishes, parish-and-school communities, and dioceses. The hub page sorts them by who you are and what is driving your timeline.
“We need our people to get better at this.”
Sometimes you already know what to do. You need the person in the seat to be able to do it.
Coaching in development and advancement, enrollment management, leadership, and board development — regular virtual sessions, between-session accountability, and a plan your team helped build.
“We need this across a whole diocese.”
Every diocese is at a different chapter. Some need a shared vision uniting pastors, principals, and the bishop. Others need capacity built school by school.
(Arch)diocesan Partnerships — multi-school coaching, diocesan-wide strategic growth planning, and a sequenced workshop series for your leaders.
How it usually goes
Almost nobody hires ISPD once. Not because we sell hard — because the work compounds, and each piece exposes what the next one should be.
The School of the Incarnation in Gambrills, Maryland, came to us six years ago with no development office at all and fundraising that ran entirely on events. A Strategic Growth Plan surfaced one clear priority: build a development program. We designed the framework, helped create the office, and supported the hiring of their first Development Director. They launched a first-ever Annual Fund. Two years of steady growth naturally led to a Financial Feasibility Study and then to a capital campaign that exceeded its $3.2 million goal.
Assessment, plan, capacity, feasibility, campaign. Not a package we sold them — a sequence the work revealed.
Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati has now had four engagements with us, including a campaign that finished $7 million over goal and a 2026–2030 growth plan that was just launched.
Everything we do
Four families of service. Most communities touch two or three over the life of a partnership.
Assessments & Campaigns
Where you stand, and how you fund where you are going.
ISPD Operational Vitality Study
Five dimensions, one honest report, prioritized recommendations.
ISPD General Feasibility Study
Should this school, site, or merger exist? Demographics plus community interest research.
ISPD Financial Feasibility Study
Can your community fund it, and at what number?
ISPD Capital Campaigns
120+ campaigns. 95% success rate. Nearly $1 billion raised.
Strategic Planning
Community-built plans that turn shared vision into a roadmap people own.
Full engagement: Strategic Growth Plan for Schools · Collaborative Strategic Plan · Long-Range Pastoral Plan · Total Stewardship Plan · AWE Plan of Action
Focused & abbreviated: Abbreviated Strategic Growth Plan · Strategic Plan for Advancement & Development · Strategic Plan for Enrollment Management
Coaching & Formation
Building the capability, not just the plan.
Development & Advancement Coaching
Moving a team beyond event-driven fundraising to sustainable advancement systems.
Enrollment Management Coaching
Retention systems and recruitment rooted in ministry rather than marketing.
Leadership Coaching
Strategic decision-making, board relationships, and change management.
Board Development
Helping boards clarify purpose, define roles, and lead with confidence.
University of Dayton for-credit courses
In partnership with the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives — online, asynchronous, applicable toward advancement certifications.
The ISPD Compass™
Our AI for Catholic school and parish leaders, built on thirty-seven years of ISPD content. Free trial available.
(Arch)diocesan Partnerships
Shared vision, stronger schools, built to last.
Multi-School Coaching for Advancement & Enrollment
A year-long engagement that meets every school where it is. Administrators’ meeting, quarterly workshops, one-on-one coaching, coaching cohorts, and an Advancement Scorecard. Every school finishes with a completed plan.
(Arch)diocesan-Wide Strategic Growth Planning
Assessment, steering committee, five planning teams, a diocesan convocation, and a published plan — about ten months, built around your calendar.
(Arch)diocesan Workshop Series
A sequenced curriculum: foundations, the Six Boxes of Catholic School Development, enrollment management, annual fund, and major gifts.
“Over the course of a year, ISPD helped every school in our archdiocese build a plan to strengthen advancement and enrollment. For the first time, we have a clear picture of where we stand and where we’re headed.”
— Dr. RaeNell Houston, Executive Director of Faith Formation and Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of New Orleans
nearly raised in capital campaigns
campaigns met or exceeded the goal
Catholic communities served
leaders trained nationwide
Questions we get before the first meeting
If you would rather work it out yourself first, the six statements at the top of this page cover almost every situation communities bring us.
What we will not do is sell you a campaign when the study says you are not ready, or a plan when what you actually need is a development director. We tell you the truth, even when it costs us — that is a stated core value, and it has cost us engagements.
We only serve Catholic schools, parishes, and dioceses, and we have done nothing else since 1989. Our associates have more than 300 years of combined experience working inside Catholic institutions — as principals, pastors, development directors, and diocesan staff — not observing them from outside.
Practically, it means we already know your accreditation cycle, your bishop’s calendar, your tuition-assistance math, and why the school gym question is never only about the gym.
It depends on the service, the size of your community, and the timeline. Transparent pricing is one of our core values, and our fees are built for Catholic budgets.
One thing worth knowing about planning engagements: compressing a timeline does not usually reduce the total fee. The work concentrates rather than shrinks.
Let’s Make Things Happen!
Tell us what you are facing. If one of these services fits, we will say which. If none of them does yet, we will say that instead.
Contact us today to learn more.
