Each year, our annual best practices Summit is where our customers and friends come together to share their successes and learnings in tech and parent engagement. This year, we switched things up and created three Summit tracks (for 3x the fun!):

• Improve Student Success

• Strengthen Enrollment Efforts

• Enhance the Family Experience 

Our Summit Series featured presentations from over 20 partner institutions such as Auburn University, Morgan State University, and The New School. Each school shared unique perspectives on how they’ve leveraged strategic family engagement to address challenges and reach campus goals.

Whether you were able to join us or not, read on for four major themes from the Summit Series sessions that came to the forefront — and use these learnings to help guide and improve your family engagement strategy for 2024.

Takeaway #1: Texting parents amplifies your biggest messages and encourages action.

First-generation and lower-income families are populations that are most likely to prefer text messaging as a communication channel. Texting families not only reaches and informs families who need the most support, but offers a channel to achieve institutional results in a short amount of time.

Case in point: Muhlenberg College sent one text to families and increased Family Weekend registrations by 51% in less than 24 hours. University of the Pacific texted families a deposit reminder and increased deposits by 6% in less than 48 hours. Texting families also breaks down barriers for student success. New Mexico State University reaches Spanish-speaking families by targeting SMS campaigns in Spanish. Incorporating SMS in your family engagement strategy is an easy way to make a big impact. 

Takeaway #2: No matter who owns parent engagement, cross-campus partnerships are critical.

Parents want to learn about a variety of different topics – and knowledge about those areas are often owned by departments across your campus. Collaboration is critical to get families the information they need to support their student. 

“If we truly wanted to streamline the way the university communicated with families, we needed to adopt a collaborative approach,” said Marshall Greenleaf, Director of Student & Family Support Services at University of Massachusetts Lowell.

UMass Lowell increased their average open rate from 22% to 59% after getting 10 campus departments to contribute content. Other CampusESP customers have also successfully grown their content partnerships. University of Kansas scaled their number of content contributors by 9x, delivering insightful parent content without increasing their workload.

Takeaway #3: When you have a strong family engagement strategy, successful fundraising can enter the conversation.

Communicating consistently nurtures family relationships and makes it easier to ask to support your institution philanthropically. Parents want to help — 40% of families said they want to be even more involved with their student’s institution. 

University of Maryland used CampusESP to promote Giving Tuesday and doubled their $5,000 fundraising goal. When UMD turned to CampusESP again for UMD Giving Day, their most significant annual fundraising event for the university, they raised $120,000 from parents and families alone!

Fostering relationships with families helps build affinity and a desire to give back over time. Catholic University leveraged strategic parent communication and data captured in CampusESP to grow their Parents Council and donor pool … and secured a $50,000 gift from a major gift prospect! Fritzie Charne-Merriwether, UMBC’s Director of Parent & Family Engagement, noticed that when she was able to connect and build a relationship with a family, they often returned to her down the road and asked how they could donate and give back to the school.

Takeaway #4: Reviewing your engagement data is cool; harnessing it is powerful.

It’s one thing to look at the data, but another thing to do something with it. At Juniata College, admissions counselors were met with silence from many prospective students already on their list. The Juniata team was looking for ways to connect with more prospective students that might be interested, but not on admissions counselors’ radar. 

Through Parent Promoter Score™, a predictive model that shows the most engaged parents in CampusESP, Juniata revealed some stealth interested parents to contact directly and push movement during a critical part of their enrollment cycle.

“After leveraging parents with a high Parent Promoter Score, almost every admission counselor ended up adding new names to their ‘still in play’ list,” said Alisha Boerstler, Director of Enrollment Communication at Juniata College. “Our Senior Associate Dean of Admission was able to connect with every family on his list through cold calls.”

Thanks to all who were a part of our Summit Series! We appreciate everyone who came out, presented, asked questions, and shared ideas.

Want to be a part of Summit 2024, May 20?