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Continental Council for Jewish Day School Education
Report on Community-based Day School Marketing
Draft #3
September 2004
Introduction
During the past five years, lay and professional leaders in several communities
throughout North America have undertaken dramatic efforts to expand the marketing of
Jewish day schools. In many localities, individuals representing diverse schools,
community institutions, and religious and professional backgrounds have convened –
often for the first time – with the goal of crafting cooperative marketing initiatives to
promote day school education throughout the community. The purpose of this report is
to describe the different forms that these community-based marketing efforts have taken,
to provide a brief index of techniques that have been adopted by schools and community
groups to promote day school education, and to offer a digest of lessons that can be
heeded by leaders in other communities who are seeking to establish comparable
marketing groups.
Three communities stand out as having advanced the furthest in the process of
forming community-based day school marketing committees. Leaders in the
metropolitan areas of Boston, Phoenix, and San Diego have already spent as long as four
years organizing their efforts and convening meetings, and all have developed written
strategic plans, hired professional staff members, drafted budget, and raised funds. Other
communities mentioned in this report have day school marketing plans in various stages
of development, though all have already begun to implement elements of their programs
and are planning to introduce more in the coming year. The report also references the
Avi Chai Foundation’s marketing templates and 1999 New York Times advertising
campaign to promote day school education, as well as PEJE’s plans for a series of
national advertising materials.
All of the community-based marketing initiatives discussed in this report remain
in their formative stages, and to this point few measurable results have been produced.
Therefore, there is presently little opportunity for assessment and analysis. This report
will therefore be primarily descriptive in nature, and we hope that during the coming
years, we will be able to gauge the success of these efforts and to issue recommendations
for continued strength and improvement.
The data for this report were gathered through personal interviews with
community members active in day school marketing efforts and, in some cases, from
written reports published by community-based marketing committees. Interview subjects
were asked questions about the history of day school marketing efforts in their respective
communities, the composition of marketing committees and the associated political
relationships, funding sources and resource allocation, market research techniques, and
specific plans for day school marketing projects and marketing committee development.
This report reflects information gathered from representatives of nine North American
communities: Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, the
San Francisco Bay Area, and Toronto. As noted above, these communities represent
multiple stages in the process of marketing committee formation and operation, and the
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approaches being undertaken are widely divergent. Taking these significant differences
into account, this report attempts to discern trends and lessons that could potentially be
noteworthy to leaders beginning the process of community-based day school marketing
committee formation in their own communities. Observations and recommendations are
intended as generalizations and do not necessarily reflect the experience of all
communities studied.
Lessons
Several valuable lessons have emerged from the experience of the communities that
have undertaken day school marketing campaigns:
 Marketing tends to be a good issue around which to begin community
collaboration. It is usually perceived as a common need that can be discussed
with minimal feelings of competition or tension.
 It is important that the person who leads the marketing committee demonstrate
strength in both leadership style and financial commitment.
 It often takes a long time for leaders of schools and other community institutions
to feel comfortable collaborating with one another. Patience is necessary.
 In one community (Boston), a paid facilitator proved extremely helpful in
bringing about trust and cooperation within the group.
 The opportunity to work with a national organization like JESNA or PEJE seems
to be an important factor in encouraging schools and individuals to participate in
community-based marketing initiatives.
 It is important that marketing group leaders meet periodically with leaders of
individual schools in order to keep them apprised of progress and to encourage
the development of trust and confidence.
 When conducting market research, hiring a local market researcher who
understands local political issues can prove beneficial.
 Most communities have concluded that emphasizing academic excellence is the
strongest marketing message for Jewish day schools.
 Word of mouth testimonials seem to be the most effective method of marketing
day schools.
 Community-based marketing initiatives can play a role in encouraging individual
schools within the community to enhance their own marketing efforts.
 Jewish communities and individuals can play an important role in helping parents
make decisions about schooling for their children.
Inspiration to begin community-based marketing initiatives
Many different factors have played roles in stimulating the convening of day
school marketing committees. In several cases, lay leaders who attended a PEJE
Leadership Assembly were inspired to work toward energizing the day school movement
beyond their individual schools. PEJE played a more direct role in the establishment of
marketing initiatives in such communities as Milwaukee and Toronto, and the existence
of PEJE Consortium Grants generated interest in community-wide cooperation in other
cities.
In a number of communities, the motivation for undertaking the new marketing
initiatives grew from a sense of frustration. Some school leaders were dissatisfied with
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the amount of Federation funding being dedicated to day schools, so they were inspired
to collaborate in an effort to expand enrollment community-wide. In one city (Denver),
the merger of two schools and the opening of a new campus did not generate the expected
increase in enrollment, so school officials decided to engage a market research firm and
initiative a broad marketing program.
In certain communities, the idea for a collaborative marketing venture grew out of
cooperative committees already in existence.
Marketing committee participants
In nearly all communities, both lay leaders and professionals took significant roles
on marketing committees. Some of the professionals were affiliated with individual
schools, while others were leaders in community institutions (e.g. Federation, Bureau of
Jewish Education). A small number of committees included professional marketing
directors (either as paid consultants or as lay volunteers), and at least one community
(Boston) hired an outside facilitator to guide the group. In Phoenix, a representative from
the State Tuition Organization is included.
Funding
Funding for community-based marketing initiatives comes from a variety of
sources. The marketing committee in San Diego received a grant from JESNA’s
Continental Council for Jewish Day School Education. In approximately half of the
communities studied, the individual schools are asked to contribute funds. In some,
individual committee members or other local funders contribute to the projects. The rest
of the money is procured through grants from local Federations, PEJE, or (in the case of
Phoenix) the Phoenix Jewish Community Foundation.
Marketing committees in Boston, Phoenix, and San Diego have reached the point
at which they have annual budgets specifically for community-based day school
marketing activities and initiatives.
Strategic plans
Some communities have developed written strategic plans for their communitybased day school marketing committees. These plans include such elements as:
 Budget
 Competitive landscape (using SWOT analysis)
 Goals
 Key messages
 Mission statement
 Organizational structure
 Positioning statement
 Situation analysis
 Tactical plan
 Target audiences
 Timeline
Goals
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In general, the goal of community-based day school marketing initiatives is to
increase enrollment at day schools throughout the community. To supplement this broad
aim, some communities have identified additional, more specific goals for their
marketing plans. These include:
 Ensure that more graduates of Jewish preschools enroll in Jewish elementary
schools and that more graduates of Jewish middle schools enroll in Jewish high
schools.
 Attract families of children enrolled in non-Jewish private schools.
 Create a more positive sentiment around the community toward day school
education.
 Change the culture of the community so as to make day schools seem like a more
natural option for Jewish families.
 Increase the visibility of day schools and raise awareness around the community
of the benefits of a day school education.
 Cultivate pride in day schools throughout the community.
 Improve the perception of the quality of day school academics.
 Increase collaboration among day schools and other community institutions.
Messages
The different community-based marketing committees, as well as the national
advertising initiatives undertaken by the Avi Chai Foundation and PEJE, all selected key
messages about day school education that they would communicate most strongly in their
marketing campaigns. Most communities determined that the most effective technique is
to focus on the general academic excellence of Jewish day schools: to emphasize that day
schools produce graduates who can compete academically with their counterparts from
elite private or public schools and who can gain admission to the most selective
universities. Others chose to stress the crucial role that day schools play in promoting
Jewish survival and continuity and strong individual Jewish identity.
Other messages that marketing committees have sought to convey include:
 The role of day schools in the development of maturity and moral, ethical
character
 The ability of a day school education to foster critical thinking, leadership skills,
and citizenship
 The value of tolerance that is instilled through attending a school that is culturally,
geographically, economically, and religiously diverse
 The importance of being active in two communities, literate in two sets of
literatures, and knowledgeable of two histories
 Small class sizes, significant individual attention, and strong communal sentiment
as hallmarks of day schools
 The relatively low tuition of Jewish day schools, as compared with elite private
schools
 Excellence in athletics, arts, social action, and other extracurricular activities
Market research
A few of the marketing committees have conducted market research in their
communities as they contemplate how they most effectively can communicate their
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messages and allocate their resources. The Boston and Denver committees retained
private market research firms, while the San Diego group utilized the services of a corps
of university students. In Toronto, Jewish communal professionals at the Federation
conducted targeted interviews with members of the Israeli-Canadian community, and
they plan to do the same with members of the Russian-Canadian community.
The findings of the market research obviously vary significantly by community,
and in some cases, final reports are not yet available. An exception is Denver, which has
published significant analysis of its research conducted in 2002. Among the most
interesting of the preliminary results:
 In Boston, there is a significant untapped market of potential day school families,
and affordability is often not a primary concern.
 In Denver, it was discovered that most parents utilized an informal process in
selecting a school for their children, and that endorsements from other parents
were often the most influential determinant in the decision. The two most
important areas of concern in selecting a school were academics and diversity,
and other factors named included location, cost, class size, test scores, teacher
quality, neighborhood school, physical appearance, and involved parents. A
significant number of parents were concerned about sending their children to
school in an atmosphere that was considered “all Jewish” or “too Jewish.”
 In San Diego, the research focused on why parents did or did not choose to send
their children to a day school. Parents who took their children out of day school
cited tuition costs and desire for ethnic integration as two primary factors in their
decisions. Parents who chose not to send their children to day school at all
attributed their decisions primarily to the superior quality of the academics at elite
public and private schools and the high tuition costs of day school. The
committee concluded that wealthy families who send their children to elite private
schools do not constitute a good target market for Jewish day schools in San
Diego, and that the most fruitful audience for the marketing efforts would be
those in the $100,000-$150,000 income range.
The results of the market research in the various communities supplement the
conclusions drawn by Dr. Pearl Beck in the November 2002 study “Jewish Preschools as
Gateways to Jewish Life: A Survey of Jewish Preschool Parents in Three Cities,” (funded
by the Jewish Early Childhood Education Partnership). Dr. Beck determined that, at least
in the cities of Baltimore, Chicago, and Denver, most families who decide to send their
children to Jewish day schools make that decision prior to enrolling their children in
preschool. A smaller proportion of families – primarily families who are able to afford to
pay tuition for Jewish day schools or other private schools – make the decision during
their children’s final year of preschool.
According to Dr. Beck, the primary factors that contributed to Jewish families’
deciding to send their Jewish preschool graduates on to Jewish day school included:
 High levels of observance and affiliation (strongly religiously observant families
rarely considered non-day school options)
 Perception of day schools as beneficial for the child
 A peer group who send their children to day schools
 Motivation to maintain Jewish ties
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Newly found (i.e. while the child was enrolled in Jewish preschool) belief in the
importance of Jewish education
Avoidance of perceived negative aspects of public schools
Belonging to a synagogue prior to preschool enrollment
Receiving information about Jewish education from preschools
Travel to Israel by mother and/or father
Parents’ most commonly cited reasons for deciding not to send their children to
Jewish day school included:
 Negative feelings toward day schools – regarded as “too intense” or “too
sheltered”
 Cost
 Distance from home
 Belief that public school education is consonant with American values
 Inability of day schools properly to serve students with special needs
 Belief that family religious observance is a necessary prerequisite for day school
enrollment
 Concern about creating a “knowledge gap” between parent and child
 Lack of peers who had chosen to send their own children to day school
 Desire for a more “diverse” educational setting
 Parents’ own negative experiences in Jewish day schools
Targeting
Essentially all community leaders and marketing professionals agreed that day
school marketing is most effective when messages are carefully targeted toward
particular groups. A striking example of this is decisions surrounding the PEJE national
day school advertising campaign, which was abandoned after the PEJE leadership
decided that it was too difficult to select images and taglines that would be attractive to a
broad, national audience. They decided that a more prudent course would be to support
marketing campaigns that attempted carefully to match key messages and photographs
with the target audience most likely to be enticed by them. This approach has been
adopted in many communities – in particular by marketing committees in Denver,
Phoenix, and San Diego, whose marketing plans identify several distinct target groups
and specify particular marketing strategies and messages for each.
Among the groups that were selected to be targeted in different communities:
 Families of children enrolled in Jewish preschools
 Families of children enrolled in non-Jewish private schools
 Particular geographic regions, including “stretch markets” – areas where
individual schools are not able to spend a significant amount of money on
advertising
 Particular income groups
 Particular nationality groups (e.g. Israeli, Mexican, Russian, South African)
 Grandparents of Jewish children
 Young, married couples and families with expectant mothers
 Jewish community leaders (lay and professional)
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Non-Jewish influencers (e.g. realtors, corporate leaders, health care professionals)
Techniques
There seems to be consensus about the fact that word-of-mouth testimonials are
the most effective marketing technique for Jewish day schools. In many communities,
marketing groups have attempted to take advantage of this fact by initiating parent
ambassador programs, parlor meetings, parent coffees, and other events that can facilitate
face-to-face contact.
Other marketing techniques that have been implemented or are being planned by
community-based marketing committees include:
 Adult Jewish learning programs that introduce parents to the day school
community
 Advertisements in local magazines, newspapers, or synagogue newsletters
 Advertising posters featuring parent testimonials
 Brochures highlighting all day schools in the community
 Day school fairs
 Direct mail letters to parents of preschool and 8th grade students
 Direct outreach to local preschools and synagogues
 Email a friend campaigns
 Internet marketing campaigns, including pages for individual day schools,
advertisements for upcoming events, and the option to register to receive
materials by email
 Open Houses at schools
 Press releases and submissions of articles to local newspapers
 Promotional videos
 Regalia (e.g. car decals, t-shirts) promoting the schools
 Speakers’ bureaus
Challenges
As committees for community-based day school marketing have been established
in communities throughout the continent, they have encountered several significant
challenges to their work. Among the most salient or common of these have been:
 Overcoming a lack of local funding, which is often required to convene a
marketing committee and to begin implementing its plans.
 Identifying a particular geographic region in which the committee will operate,
and determining which schools should be included. These regions may not
coincide with Federation catchment areas.
 Determining the optimal committee structure and leadership.
 Negotiating complex time demands on busy professional and lay leaders.
 Convincing officials of individual schools that the work of the committee is
worthwhile.
 Creating and maintaining mutual trust and confidence among members of the
various schools and community institutions.
 Overcoming the occasional unwillingness of congregational education leaders
(and some congregational rabbis) to cooperate with the marketing of day schools.
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Dealing with potential political complications if a particular community
institution or school is not invited to participate.
Ensuring that funds are allocated in such a way that enables all schools to benefit
equally.
Ensuring that marketing professionals who are hired by the committees work to
implement the agenda that was developed by the committees.
Encouraging lay-driven committees to continue functioning once marketing
professionals are hired.
Determining a fair mechanism for including specific information about individual
schools in community-wide day school advertising media.
Disseminating information to the community about the committee’s progress.
The most significant challenge faced by community-based day school marketing
committees is the difficulty associated with gauging effectiveness. In most communities,
this work is in only its earliest stages, and there has as of yet been little opportunity to
analyze data in order to measure the success of the marketing initiatives. Hopefully, as
communities continue to develop and implement their plans, subsequent editions of this
report will be able to provide detailed assessments of existing programs and to provide
more specific guidance to communities that are seeking to form their own communitybased day school marketing committees.