Goal 5: Create a Culture of Philanthropy

Christian Brothers High School will build a culture of philanthropy based on the principles of “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve,” where service and financial giving are cultural norms, thus strengthening the school’s inclusive, diverse, and sustainable nature.

Main Objectives & Priorities

  1. Establish and implement a strategic communications plan that will successfully reach all constituents where they live, work, worship, and play through effective collaboration between the offices of philanthropy and communications.
  2. Build a sustainable alumni organization that fosters alumni support and cultivates a pipeline of ambassadors representing the storied history of CB and future generations of alumni.
  3. Develop a communications and engagement strategy that both educates our community on the disparity between tuition received and the total cost of educating our students, taking facility maintenance into account and based on current and replicable data from the finance department, and emphasizes the critical importance of philanthropic support for the costs of operating CB and delivering a top-quality education to our students.

Action Items to Achieve Goal Five

Year One

  • Identify, schedule, conceptualize, and implement an annual outreach plan. 
  • Coordinate calendars with philanthropy, president’s office, administration, and school events.
  • Work with finance to determine valid, explainable data reflecting the annual revenue/expense balance and incorporate language into donor outreach. 
  • Implement a strategic communications plan in collaboration with the communications office.
  • Establish structure, goals, and core champions of a revitalized alumni organization. 
  • Formalize additional tiers of engagement, expanding opportunities for involvement for those with narrow interests, limited capacity, or niche reach.
  • Execute a grassroots and mass marketing approach to fill out additional giving tiers.
  • Incorporate language into our outreach and online content that addresses the disparity between tuition received and the actual cost of educating our student body.
  • Implement an engagement plan based on the community’s understanding of the revenue/expense/tuition balance at CB. 

Year Two

  • Implement a philanthropic strategic plan and make necessary improvements.
  • Assess CB’s readiness for a capital campaign.
  • Recruit for and develop an alumni organization.
  • Assess the existing volunteer program and craft a strategic growth plan.

Year Three

  • Monitor improvements to the philanthropic strategic plan.
  • Develop the structure and resources for the execution of a capital campaign.
  • Implement a plan for a volunteer program.
  • Research and assess donor data and demographics, and correlate outreach plans.
  • Engage the Philanthropy Champions Council (PCC) to support and advance major and planned giving efforts.

Year Four

  • Review and assess philanthropic improvements.
  • Initiate a quiet phase of the capital campaign.
  • Monitor improvements to the volunteer program.
  • Implement and make improvements to protocols regarding the engagement of marginalized constituency groups.
  • Introduce a complementary endowment and an estate-giving campaign.

Year Five

  • Research and assess industry benchmark institutions and practices.
  • Initiate the public phases of the capital campaign.
  • Implement an encompassing stewardship and recognition program responding to the capital campaign.
  • Monitor improvements to the marginalized constituency plan.