Schools should stand for someone, not everyone.

The appeal that falls flat. The event people attend out of politeness. The alum who quietly drifts. Advancement is asked to fix these later, with better copy or a bigger list. Often the answer lives earlier, in a question about who the school is for.

At the 2026 Aexis Conference, Priya Parker put it plainly: “If you don’t know who you’re not for, you don’t know who you’re for.” Her point isn’t that clarity is rare. It’s that clarity is a choice — and most people in advancement were never given the chance to make it.

What sounds like warmth is really strategy: the visible result of a choice about who you’re for, made before anyone shows up.

Three questions to find how your school is positioned

Answer them with evidence, not aspiration. Each one hands you something to use.

1. Who does your school serve best? Who is it not for?

Look at the families who are happiest, the students who thrive, the donors who give again without being asked. Ask what the school does for them, and name the through-line. If you can write it in one sentence—and it would make some families realize this isn’t their school—you have a position. If it could describe any school, you’ve found where to begin.

2. Does the experience match the message?

Walk your signature event, or your admissions tour, as a newcomer would. Write down what it implies, then compare it to what your materials claim. Where they differ, donors believe the experience. Parker told of a school that taught equity all year, then raised money at a black-tie gala that looked the other way. The gap you find isn’t a verdict. It’s an opportunity for strategy.

3. Can a donor describe your school in six words no rival could use?

Ask three of your most loyal alumni. Listen for whether they land on the same distinct thing, or reach for words any school could claim. Their answers are your real position, the one already traveling without you. If it’s sharper than your official language, borrow it. If it’s vaguer, you’ve learned where the work starts.

If the answers came slowly

That’s not a mark against you. It’s the most common place to start, and it’s honest information.

The pressure to enroll everyone, please everyone, and offend no one makes the choice feel risky, so it gets postponed. Advancement inherits the postponement, then gets asked to raise money against it.

So the choice comes first, and it’s worth making on purpose. Strategy is who you serve best, and what you’ll give up to serve them well. Positioning is where that lands in a family’s mind. Brand is what makes it felt. Decide it once, clearly, and the events and appeals stop carrying weight they were never built to hold.

Stand for someone, and the right people will know you mean them—at the open house, in the case for support, and for the thirty years after they leave.