Interview with Melvyn Roffe, Principal, George Watson’s College and Karen Goodman, Director of Admissions, Communications and Development
George Watson's College: Making friends and influencing people; the importance of nurturing relationships
We’re excited to present our first conversation with an Independent School who, unlike universities, work with leaner infrastructure and traditionally, less opportunities to generate revenue beyond fees. However, George Watson’s College is different. With a 10 year partnership with a major donor in Hong Kong/China, they are leading on the integration of Chinese language across the public and state education in Scotland. Melvyn and Karen share with us how they are engaging with Watsonians and supporters, to share School priorities and listen to what their donors want.
Watson’s is a school embracing development, where it’s everyone’s responsibility, from the Principal to the broader internal team, from staff to governors.
Melvyn, given the current environment with COVID-19 what are some of the tough decisions you have had to make quickly as a Principal to minimise long-term impact and ensure the viability and sustainability of Watson’s?
We had to keep providing a first class service as we pivoted to learning online. We had already made the decision to shift towards a digital environment before the pandemic, so weren’t moving entirely from an off to online culture. It was vital for us to build a positive wellbeing environment for pupils and staff, where they could expect more than sitting on Zoom calls for six hours a day.
We prepared before the Summer term, and came through it with a great sense of support from parents and staff who I felt appreciated how things had been handled. Investing in good communications, getting the tone and frequency right, really helped.
Karen, what is the one thing that has surprised you over the past six months about the adaptability of the School and your teams?
Everyone has risen to the challenge of changing to an online learning and communication environment so well. And I’m proud of how strategic the School has been. We took the time to decide what we wanted to deliver online because we identified there was an opportunity to engage with people beyond Edinburgh. We have a very active Watsonian community across the globe, and so launched “#watsonianslinked” for the community to engage with the School. People have been sharing so many stories, and it’s been a perfect place for us to contribute.
We’ve held three global online meetings with our volunteers and they get to hear from the Principal, the Watsonian President, and our pupil School Captains. We’re looking to shift other events online, such as the Caritas Lecture, Founder’s Day, and Remembrance events. This has been a fantastic opportunity for us to review how we can open up access to the Watson’s experience - not just during the pandemic, but over the longer term too.
Melvyn, what has the role of leadership meant for you in the current environment?
To be honest, it’s not that different in terms of what I have to do, it’s just more heightened and intensified. I think this is true for what many people are going through. I need to keep scanning the horizon and dealing with the day-to-day. I need to work out the priorities and balance the needs of colleagues against those of the pupils.
Even at the point where we wondered if people would stop paying their fees, we ended up with more pupils than ever before. I think the way my excellent senior team communicated with parents and supporters, and remained engaged throughout, went a long way to keeping us strong. The support from parents has been outstanding throughout.
There’s a lot of US research showing that after an economic downturn, giving and philanthropy across the sector is continuing to grow. You launched an emergency appeal, so that no pupil was disadvantaged through the pandemic. How was the appeal received and did the School achieve its objectives?
Karen - Frankly, we haven’t seen an impact or a downturn in giving. We’ve put our major capital project on hold but support has actually gone up. We launched an appeal immediately in March for urgent bursary funding, when we thought some parents wouldn’t be able to cover fees. The challenge there was to differentiate an urgent appeal from what we did every year: asking people to support those who required funding through our Foundation Places programme. We mailed 6,000 former staff and pupils, which brought in £70,000 in just the first few weeks and we also asked parents to consider gifting their fee rebates towards the appeal. In the end, we raised over £113,000, which was just £1,500 short less than had been paid out to support parents.
Once we hit the target, we drew a line under it. We wanted to keep true to our word and make it clear the appeal was to help people immediately.
Paradoxically, the outcome of 2020 has been really positive for us. We’ve got significantly more parent donors now, and overall, our number of annual donors for 2019/20 has seen a healthy rise.
The School recently launched its No Limits campaign, designed to ‘create a place to learn where talent and ambition come first’. Can you tell us more about how you developed the focus, and what success you are generating?
Karen - The pandemic put on hold our plans to launch a major capital appeal for a Creative Hub, which would bring together a number of teaching areas. However, in February, just ahead of lockdown we had a fire in our sports pavilion. So by sheer coincidence we have kickstarted a very short term capital project to raise £550,000. Following feedback from Watsonians, pupils, staff and parents, we are hoping to turn the pavilion into a school and community hub. For me, this brings to life the community focus and collaborative approach that runs through Watson’s, and it’s turned a simple rebuild appeal into something way more ambitious and connected. Fundraising is paused at the moment for the campaign, due to the pandemic, but we’ll be creating a new home for our archives and special collections, all to be made available to the community.
Melvyn – The main capital project for the No Limits Campaign was the Creative Hub and as Karen said, even though we can’t pursue fundraising for that building at the moment, as it wouldn’t feel fair to the donors to raise money for something which has no delivery date in the present economic circumstances, we’ve used this opportunity and time to socialise the idea with specific donors, particularly international donors and those in engineering. The original capital plan was well conceived, considering both our needs and the broader societal movement of increased collaboration between industry, communities, schools, charities etc.
Melvyn, we speak to many institutions who acknowledge the role that China plays culturally, and in education and business. We were interested to read that George Watson’s College is one of three schools in Edinburgh to teach Chinese language and culture through the Swire Chinese Language Centre. How did this project originate and why is it important to Watson’s?
This is the largest single piece of philanthropy the school has ever had. Over £2 million worth of support over 10 years from John Swire through their charitable trust.
When I arrived here six years ago, I made it a priority to connect with the Heads of the two local high schools, Gillespie’s and Boroughmuir. We’ve had Chinese language in the school for 11 years now and we agreed that Boroughmuir and Gillespie’s would benefit from having the same.
When the Swire Foundation heard about what we were planning, I had one of those calls that you dream about, where someone says “we’d like to give you some money.” Our reputation preceded us, and as a result, Swire came to talk to us
We are now in our fourth year. Twenty-six schools are involved, with 2500 pupils receiving an appropriate level of Chinese education from fully qualified teachers of Chinese. To give you a sense of the scale, the 33 local authorities in Scotland employ a total of 14 teachers of Chinese. We employ eight teachers and are far and away the largest single provider of Chinese education in Scotland. Our next venture is the Programme for the Advancement of Chinese Teaching in Scotland (PACTS) which will be supported by the Swire Foundation as part of our planning for the sustainability of the programme.
You have a significant alumni community, ‘The Watsonian Club’. How have you seen your global alumni community respond to the needs of the School during COVID-19? How will the development team continue to nurture, maintain and grow these relationships?
Karen - When times are tough, you need to find money from all sources. Philanthropic giving is essential. We have an ambition to increase the number of foundation places without increasing the burden on fee paying parents. We’re intentionally widening the gap between what we raise and what we spend, so we need to make the case for support even more compelling.
It’s about positioning the Foundation Places programme as a life changing opportunity for those who couldn’t participate without it. This is something that’s been at the heart of Watson’s for over 20 years, and it’s already going down well with funders. For example, one major donor said he wouldn’t have given the large sum of money he did if it had not been clear that our programme was about social inclusion.
The long term sustainability of our business model depends on keeping the fee at a level which is attainable by a significant proportion of Edinburgh. Anything we can do, from philanthropic giving, business activities using our facilities, consultancy, online learning or whatever it is, anything we can do to increase the amount of money we get from other sources rather than simply charging parents is going to make us more sustainable and inclusive.
A more diverse income portfolio means learning how to ask for different things in different ways. Melvyn, what do you see as your role in developing philanthropy, for example devoting time to major prospects and supporters and decisions around alumni engagement?
We have a 20 year tradition of having a development office, so we’re not new to this. We’re now focusing that resource towards direct, straight forward asks. The same goes for my focus. If you’re a former pupil thinking about giving a major donation to your school, there’s a risk that your idea of what the School is doing is decades out of date. So we need to articulate the impact Watson’s has on the lives of the children right now, and show how philanthropy can make an even bigger difference to that.
We can’t - and wouldn’t want to - rely simply on nostalgia, we want supporters to engage with the Watson’s of today and tomorrow. That’s how you get people to give who aren’t nostalgic about the school – and many are but many are not. It’s the best way to show the school’s impact to other funders who have no special interest in Watson’s per se. We articulate our purpose and demonstrate our impact.
We’ve recently seen many donors responding positively to engagement with leadership teams and senior development professionals. Many have taken this time to spend time online one-to-one with their most significant donors and prospects. What has been your experience and how have you engaged with your donors during this time?
Karen - There’s a window of opportunity to turn parents into supporters. Ideally while their children are at Watson’s but certainly within a couple of years of them finishing. We’ve got around 10,000-12,000 contacts that we need to focus on, and our team size and structure reflect that. I dedicate a lot of time to the campaign and fundraising, and also lead the Marketing & Communications, Admissions, Partnerships, Outreach, and oversee our Historic Archive and Collections. We have great leaders across these units, taking a collaborative and holistic approach to what we do. I’m so impressed with how it opens up opportunities through our community engagement and outreach.
I also sit on the School’s Leadership Team which is essential to effective Development. To do my best, I need access to what’s going on; the issues, challenges, good news stories and ambitions for the future. We’re lucky that we have two Heads of School so that frees up Melvyn - as Principal - to really focus on what we need him for. He does all of the major asks so everything is initially presented through him. As long as we have our senior leadership team and other senior colleagues, our governors and the principal all scripted and understanding their role, we’re in a great place to keep growing without increasing the size of the development team.
Karen saying you don’t need more resources at the moment must be music to Melvyn’s ears. How do you utilise the networks that you have available to you to create that institutional approach to development, and to building that kind of culture?
This business is about relationships. But they need to be sustainable and managed. The school has suffered in the past from the Development office forming close relationships that have stalled when staff have moved on. Having been in this sector for a long, long time, I’m conscious of how career progression and new opportunities mean people inevitably move. So, everyone - from your teaching staff, governors, and others - need to be ready to keep those relationships understood and active. So new development colleagues don’t have to start from scratch, and you keep the institutional knowledge.
We talk to our clients a lot about how in America, they build a culture of philanthropy that goes beyond raising money and beyond the Development department. We still witness people cringing at the idea of fundraising in the UK, but you’re talking about it being integral to the business of the college, approached with complete professionalism and a natural objective for everyone to understand and participate in.
Melvyn - Making the whole approach much more professional and recognisable in a fundraising marketplace is really important. RSPB and other great charities have been doing this for 100 years or more and doing very well. We won’t be exactly the same but we shouldn’t cringe at the thought of asking for the money to do the good things that we’ve always done. There is a great tradition of philanthropy in the UK and we just need to tap into something which has always been there, as the American sector does.
Looking to the year ahead, what would be your one piece of advice to alumni and development professionals in schools who may be struggling to demonstrate their institutional value?
Karen - Relationships need continuity. The worst thing you can do is pick people up during the good times and drop them during the bad.
We’ve got the 150th anniversary of George Watson’s Ladies’ College coming up, which has presented challenges, such as merging the Ladies’ College with the boys’ school. It’s a really good example of a group of people who should have been so engaged as the schools merged, that they feel George Watson’s College was always their school, just at a new site.
But they don’t feel like that. They feel like their school has gone and they’re not part of the new school, so we’re working hard to change that. You give up relationships at your peril, and you don’t maintain them at your peril!
Another example is a project with The University of Edinburgh to create a historical archive of the education of girls and young women. A vast amount of valuable content is with external stakeholders, and if we don’t stay connected, we risk losing it.
Melvyn, education across the globe has been impacted significantly due to COVID-19. What do you believe to be the one major change we will see across the Independent School landscape in the next 3 years?
Sadly, I think schools who are not flexible and agile, and well enough supported will not survive. I think that’s almost inevitable across the sector. The challenges and opportunities brought by technology in education is now even more of a priority. It’s been dominated by slightly outlandish sci-fi talk about AI and AR etc, which will develop over time, but now we should be talking about how technology can remove barriers to the institutions We need to demonstrate the value, the positive benefit and impact technology can have, both to our students and also the wider communities.
If people are struggling to convey the importance of relationships, what would your advice be? That you need to find your story? A hook that demonstrates the importance of these relationships to the institution?
Karen: Not everything costs a lot of money. Little things like we send birthday cards and Christmas Cards, and they used to go out signed by the Director of Development. Nobody wants a card from me, they want it from the Principal. I don’t think Melvyn’s ever done so much signing! For me, it’s keeping the simple things, those very intimate personal things going that don’t cost a lot of money.
Melvyn: If I were suggesting to a Development Office how to approach a Board or a sceptical Head, I would highlight in tough times, you need all the friends you can get. For goodness’ sake, don’t get rid of the facility that’s dedicated to making friends and influencing people!