Two Keys to Resist Losing Heart
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
The theme for the school year at Logos Academy has been “Rejoice. Pray. Give Thanks.” That sentiment has not been the easiest to maintain through 2020 and early 2021.
It is a high probability that anyone reading this has little interest in hearing more about COVID-19. The quarantines, job and business losses, mental health struggles, and waves of deaths have cast a long shadow over all of us. One might call this a tempting season to “lose heart.”
How can we resist the tendency to lose heart in this difficult time?
Key #1: Strategy
At the beginning of COVID-19 in late March, the folks over at Praxis published a timely piece called Leading Beyond the Blizzard. The gist was that the virus was not like a blizzard we needed to wait out but more like a mini ice age that would remake our world. The authors called on leaders to throw out their current playbook and begin thinking like a startup organization operating in a brand new environment. Almost one year later those words are almost strangely prophetic.
Our mission at Logos Academy is to offer high quality, Christ-centered education to kids and families that can’t afford it. Most of our families have annual household incomes ranging between $25,000-45,000. Their students attend the school for an average tuition of about $1,500 or less. Since it costs the school over $10,000 per child to educate them, this means the school has to figure out how to cover the remaining gap. To that end, we end up needing to raise about $2.5M per year. To lose heart in our mission would be to fail the kids God has called us to serve.
Suffice it to say, when COVID-19 hit we knew that we would have to embrace several components of a new strategy that would help us not just weather the storm but thrive for the sake of the kids.
Our old strategies and plans would have to go.
We spent the summer making plans. We revised plans over and over as new guidance was issued. It was the most frustrating season of planning, drafting communications, scrapping plans, and starting over. Even though it was frustrating, we refused to lose heart.
Our first strategic decision was to reduce our budget by 17% in July in anticipation of what the year would hold financially. This included difficult staff reductions and decisions to not fill key positions. We did not naively think that we could do more with less people. That sentiment usually sounds better than is realistic. Instead, we chose only to do those things most vital to our mission and learn to say “no” or “that will have to wait” to other decisions.” We strategically had to focus on a no-frills decision to deliver only on the fundamentals most necessary to educating students.
The second strategic decision was to wrestle with the challenge of how to safely get students in person. We weighed the benefits of going remote versus staying in person. The risks felt higher than ever given the unknown dangers of the virus. Our operating plan had to be adjusted.
We asked faculty and families about what they wanted and did our best to listen. The groups were evenly divided on what they wanted and strongly opinionated. There was no way to make a decision without one constituency walking away, and they did. Some families chose to homeschool their students. We knew waffling back and forth attempting to please everyone would not work so we deliberately chose a path.
Based on our small school and classroom size, we made the decision to offer in-person instruction for four days per week and to give families a remote alternative. 80% of our students have been in person throughout the school year. At the time, four days per week of in-person instruction was a bold move as some schools were planning on keeping instruction fully remote.
We also chose to limit new enrollment so that we could maintain safe distances in the classroom. This decision was a scary move as it would be for any private school that is dependent on healthy enrollment numbers.
Strategic thinking kept us from limping along, enduring one more unpredictable event after another, from losing heart. We embraced the belief that, with God’s help, we could steer the ship toward our destiny as opposed to being controlled by forces beyond our control.
Key #2: Investment
A streamlined budget and operating plan helped us be realistic about the challenges that were ahead. Yet, streamlining was only the first aspect of our strategic decisions. Cuts and alterations can only take you so far. To avoid losing heart and focus you have to make strategic decisions about where to invest energy and resources.
Investing in relationships is our focus in the current season. Teachers have invested in the smaller number of students in their classrooms. Our development team has invested in creatively engaging our donors.
We had to rethink how to raise that $2.5M in a year when in-person meetings, school tours, and events might be impossible. It was inadvisable to stay disconnected from our donors despite the fact that everyone was moving into social distance and isolation.
As people have embraced virtual meetings, it has been amazing to see the ways that we have been able to connect one-to-one with people even more intimately than before the virus. To date, our donors have been exceedingly generous in sustaining the mission of our school.
Our faculty met this week individually with high school students during parent-teacher conferences; one student sitting with four to five faculty members via virtual technology. Their goal was to hear from students about their experience, a challenge they were facing, and what habits they were choosing to embrace to solve the challenge.
My heart was thrilled to read a follow-up note from a parent whose high school student is fully remote. Their family has endured so many disheartening realities this year. The student had just emerged from meeting with faculty and the parent was overjoyed with the support, love, care, and encouragement the faculty showed for the student. In the midst of what could be a discouraging year, the student was deeply encouraged by the investment of the faculty.
Investing in relationships has been critical this year and did not cost us a dime to do it, only energy and love.
We have had to make strategic decisions about key financial investments needed to fulfill our mission.
Even though we reduced our budget, we had to make substantial investments of over $125,000 to ensure that we could operate safely. This included the acquisition of new learning technology, deep sanitation and cleaning capabilities, water bottle filling stations, and UV filters in the building. This was a difficult but necessary decision to make to fulfill our operating plan.
In 2019 we made the decision to begin an $8M capital campaign to expand our campus to serve more students. The public phase of our campaign was to happen in the first quarter of 2020. COVID-19 hit and threatened to completely derail our campaign.
We refused to lose heart and give in with regard to our capital campaign. Instead of giving up hope, we separated the campaign into two phases. The first phase is $4.25M. As of the writing of this letter we are $700,000 away from giving our contractors the green light. We need to close our funding by March in order for the project to open in the fall.
Through it all, we have refused to lose heart. Our light and momentary trials are achieving a glory for us that will far outweigh them all. This mission of offering a Christ-centered, classical education to students in desperate need of opportunity is too critical for us to get disillusioned.
Two keys have helped us thrive in the mini ice age: strategy and investment. The next time a seemingly insurmountable event threatens your survival, take the time to strategize and invest in those things that will ensure you continue to execute your mission.
Losing heart is a choice to be resisted, not an inevitable reality.
