Diocesan Advancement Coaching for Catholic Schools

ISPD’s expert coaches partner with Offices of Catholic Schools to build advancement and enrollment capacity — across every school in your (arch)diocese, in a single year.

Customized
Meeting each school where it is

Collaborative
Building a diocesan learning community

Sustained
Moving from coaching to implementation

ISPD diocesan advancement coaching for Catholic school leaders

Every School in Your Diocese Deserves a Strong Advancement Program. ISPD Helps You Build One — Diocese-Wide.

A year-long coaching partnership that meets every school where it is and moves your entire system forward together.

Most (arch)dioceses have schools at every stage of advancement and enrollment management — from high schools with established programs to elementary schools that have never launched an Annual Fund. Left without sustained support, that gap widens. Schools that struggle in isolation stay isolated. Principals who want to do this work well — but lack the tools, the training, and the time — keep falling behind.

One year of sustained, expert coaching changes that picture across your entire diocese.

What Makes This Different

ISPD’s coaches are not outside consultants telling your principals what to do. They are former and current Catholic school administrators who have sat in your principals’ chairs — and who know firsthand what it takes to build a culture of advancement from the ground up.

Every engagement is customized to your diocese, your schools, and your superintendent’s priorities. No two engagements look exactly alike — because no two dioceses are exactly alike. What is consistent is the ISPD framework and personal commitment behind the work.

Coaches help your principals and school teams:

Apply ISPD’s 7 I’s of Catholic Development™ — Identify, Inform, Invite, Involve, Implement, Invest, and Improve — as a practical roadmap for engaging more people in the mission of each school.

Build out ISPD’s Six Boxes of Catholic School Development™ so that communication, enrollment management, annual giving, major gifts, special events, and alumni/constituent relations all work together as a coordinated system rather than isolated activities.

Move beyond “fundraising programs” to a culture of belonging, where development is understood as the meaningful involvement of people in the mission and vision for the future, leading to enrollment growth and increased giving.

What Diocesan Advancement Coaching Includes

The Archdiocese of New Orleans partnership illustrates the scope and rhythm of a typical ISPD engagement.

Diocesan Assessment

Create a baseline of advancement, development, and enrollment management efforts with a diocesan-wide survey to all schools. Define the schools’ challenges and develop a plan for a shared framework, common language, and collective accountability across every school from day one.

Annual Administrators’ Conference/In-Service

Kick off with an energizing keynote and begin building teams with ISPD coaches and school leaders. Introduce the foundational philosophy for advancement success. Educators leave charged with vision and direction and equipped with the tools to transform their development efforts.

Quarterly Workshops

Equip principals and advancement leaders through four sessions based on ISPD’s dynamic playbook The Cadence of Catholic School Development/Advancement — providing actionable solutions to clarify and sequence a systemic, school-wide advancement plan; connect key efforts like the Annual Fund, enrollment, events, communications, and alumni engagement; build a culture of belonging that invites people to belong before they are invited to invest; and establish processes, teams, and tools that create an ongoing, sustainable cadence for development rather than one-time programs.

One-on-One Coaching

Dive into eight personalized sessions on Executive Committee structure, effective donor database, compelling case points for the annual fund and Giving Tuesday, increasing enrollment, and school-specific priorities — culminating in an action plan for Advancement and Enrollment Management.

Coaching Cohorts

Share best practices, challenges, and solutions in groups of five to six cohort schools, building a peer learning community that solves problems and creates best practices for all schools in the diocese.

Partnership Length
1+ Years

Built for Meaningful, Sustainable Progress

Engagements typically span a full school year and may continue over multiple years, allowing leaders to implement, evaluate, and strengthen their work over time.

Case Study

Archdiocese of New Orleans

Archdiocese of New Orleans - Coat of Arms

In 2025-2026, ISPD’s partnership with the Archdiocese of New Orleans, more than 50 schools completed a Plan for Advancement and Enrollment Management — many for the first time. Schools that had never participated in a coordinated giving day launched iGiveCatholic campaigns. New Annual Funds were established at schools that had been operating without one. The Archdiocese has engaged ISPD for a second year.

“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 each school stands — and where it’s headed.”

Dr. RaeNell Houston, Executive Director of Faith Formation and Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of New Orleans

What Your (Arch)diocese Walks Away With

By the end of year one, every participating school has a completed, implementation-ready action plan for Advancement and Enrollment Management. Your office receives copies of the ISPD Advancement Scorecard™ — a clear, school-by-school picture of where your diocesan schools stand and where they are headed.

That scorecard becomes your planning tool for year two — and beyond.

Why the ISPD Diocesan Coaching Model Works

Capacity over
Coaching

One workshop changes awareness. A year of sustained coaching changes behavior — and builds the infrastructure to sustain it.

Community over Isolation

Schools that learn together solve problems together. Cohorts create a community culture that no single school could build on its own.

Customization over
Standardizaton

Every school starts somewhere different. ISPD meets the school — and moves it forward on a pace that guarantees continued success.

Coaching moves schools beyond one-time training.
It embeds best practices and supports progress over time.

“The ability of a Catholic school to move from a ‘transactional’ culture to a ‘relational’ culture will oftentimes make the difference between surviving in the short-term or prevailing in the long-term.”

— Frank Donaldson, Founder

Ready to strengthen advancement and enrollment across every school in your diocese?

The schools in your diocese are ready to grow. Let’s build the partnership that gets them there.