Skip to content

We are here to help

We partner with leaders and teams to deliver insights and actionable recommendations that lead to critical school and organizational growth. We know what it feels like to confront obstacles, challenges, and opportunities.

Our team has decades of experience in education. We’ve worked with more than 80 schools, organizations, and associations from across the U.S. and around the world on transformational projects. It’s why we can jump in quickly to accelerate your capacity to design, lead, and implement systems, structures, and programs that deepen who you are as an institution while focusing on differentiation and long term sustainability.  

Strategy creation + execution

Strategic Plans
From inception to execution, we help you navigate this complex process beginning to end. We partner with your Board of Trustees, the leadership team, and the school community to set a course that allows the school, its students, and the extended community to flourish.  There is no one size-fits-all for this work.  Depending on time, budget, personnel capacity, and other circumstances and resources, we customize our engagements to each school. 
Institutional Research
We do powerful quantitative and qualitative research with the school community that can uncover insights leading to analysis, reflection and  thinking that fuels transformation. Our alliance with Tyton Partners allows us to offer deep market analysis and identify market growth opportunities. 
Strategic Sprints
Strategic sprints are a great way to marshal momentum and to face complexity by focusing on a single area.  The deliverable and practical results are ready for action in a short period of time.

Leadership + governance

Governance
Boards are faced with unprecedented challenges.  We work with boards to help them center on best practices and to become aware of emerging practices.  The state of play in independent schools, nationally and internationally, has changed remarkably since COVID and we help boards understand the changing dynamics with specific focus on how these dynamics are relevant to their particular school.  We support boards in their work and skill development around being strategic and generative while avoiding getting mired in the operational.  The Head of School and Board relationship is absolutely crucial to a thriving school.  We work with boards and heads on building and ensuring a strong and true partnership. 
Executive + Leadership Coaching (Riverbank Colleagues)
Each year, we take on a small number of coaching engagements with school and non-profit leaders.  These generally involve two one hour meetings per month where we work as a thought partner with our clients to help them address their most pressing issues, support their development, and to offer insights that can help them navigate their work.
Leadership Professional Learning
Leading and managing people is challenging, time consuming, and if done well, is the secret sauce to high functioning and healthy school communities.  What does it mean to take a strategic stance to your work?  What are concrete management skills that can help you handle conflict and lead change?  Why has the role of so many department heads changed so little when they should play such a critical role in the leadership and management of a school?  How do you take a strategic stance to your work and not get swallowed by reacting to the daily barrage of the urgent.  How do you do all of this and keep students at the center?  From one and two day professional learning opportunities and retreats, to ongoing cohort work, we work with schools to deepen their leadership and management muscles.

Program reinvention + design

Sometimes a long serving signature program has become long in the tooth and needs examination.  Is it still serving the purpose it was designed to do?  Perhaps it needs reinvention to better serve the current market, as well as changes with students, families, faculty, and resources.  

You have an idea for a new program, but aren’t sure how to tackle the build out.  We work with schools to co-design programs that are relevant, exciting, sustainable, and true to the unique aspects of your school community rather than an imitation of programs elsewhere.

Audits, assessments + recommendations

We know how to look and listen deeply to your school’s work in these critical areas.  We like asking provocative questions so that we can help you see what is happening, but also to help you see what might be next.

services

Branding + enrollment marketing

EXPLO Elevate’s strategic partner Viv has worked with 95+ institutions on brand development and  updates, marketing audits, messaging, enrollment communications, and website development. Viv offers custom digital solutions ranging from brand awareness efforts to organic and paid media campaigns to content and design implementation.  Each year, Viv takes on a very small number of clients where Viv acts as a fractional Chief Marketing Officer to assist the institution moving forward as quickly as  possible when inhouse staff need guidance and support.

Additional services

Schedule Design + Redesign
Schedules are often the roadblocks to everything from curricular change to programmatic change.  But for the schedule! We’ve worked with schools on clearly defining what they aspire to do and then help them craft a schedule that will support their goals and aspirations.
Recruiting + Retaining Faculty of Color
Many independent schools have broad networks when looking to recruit and hire faculty of color. However, they often don’t have adequate conversations about retention and the time to have those conversations before the recruiting work begins. We help schools go beyond their DEIB statements and clearly articulate the needs and the benefits they see in diversifying their staff.  We also provide your team support in creating tools and strategies that lead to better retention.
Faculty + Staff Wellness Workshops

[Coming soon!]

Get support