Athompson organization project

The Ron Clark Academy A Nonproot Management Organizational Project Report Aaron J Thompson III

Submitted to in partial fullllment of the requirements for PA 536 Management of Nonproot Organizations

Dr. Amanda J. Stewart, Professor

April 19, 2016

Summary This organizational project report uses nonproot management themes in reviewing the Ron Clark Academy. In this report I will provide an organizational overview, followed by the introduction of three current issues facing the Ron Clark Academy: one related to development, one related to earned income, and one related to executive leadership.

Each issue will be evaluated in the context of what RCA is doing right, what deenes the issue and recommendations. Information shared in this report comes from a combination of PA 536 course resources, scholarly reviews, other sources and an interview with Ron Clark Academy’s Senior Director of Development.

This report provides practical application of course topics and resources studied over the course of the 2016 Spring academic semester, and will provide transferrable concepts across nonproot sectors in response to the issues outlined.

Organizational Context The purpose of this project report is to illustrate the organizational context and current issues of the Ron Clark Academy of Atlanta, GA, while highlighting best practices and recommendations. Through an interview with chief development offcer Kirk Brown, and further investigation of the academy, this report will examine how research and practice-based concepts inform operations at RCA and propose actions to address issues currently faced by the academy. Broadly, the products of this report will give transferable insight to related nonproots and will have relevance across varying nonproot sectors.

Organization: Ron Clark Academy Nonprofit Status: 501 (c)(3) Public Charity Founded: Fall 2007 Website: ronclarkacademy.com Enrollment: 100 Students, Grades 5-8 After School Programs: Soccer, tennis, drumming, jewelry making, tutoring, and dance Teams: Basketball, cheerleading, Essentials Step Team, Georgia Aquarium Research Team, Model United Nations Team, Robotics, Ya Heard Poets Mission: To deliver the highest quality educational experience where global citizens are born through advanced rigor, engaging teaching methods, and a passionate climate and culture.

Vision: To be the best school in the world by demonstrating transformative methods and techniques that are embraced and replicated everywhere. ronclarkacademy.com

About Ron Clark Academy Educators Ron Clark and Kim Bearden met in 2000 when Disney honored them both as national Teachers of the Year. They became fast friends as they shared their passion for students and creative teaching. In the fall of 2004, Clark and Bearden met to hold a serious discussion about something that they had casually chatted about numerous times over the previous ve years: Clark wanted to start a school of his own – one that would be unlike any other.

The two joined forces and immediately began actively recruited board members who shared their vision and passion. Once they had a team of supporters, Clark and Bearden began to scour the city in hopes of nding a school site. After looking at close to fty properties, they came upon an abandoned, dilapidated warehouse in South Atlanta and knew it was exactly what they had been looking for.

In November of 2005, Ron Clark purchased the warehouse using earnings from the sales of The Essential 55, and they moved one step closer to making the dream a reality. Extreme renovations were completed on the building while the fundraising and operational processes were set in place. Throughout the months that followed, Clark and Bearden visited countless businesses, foundations, community events, churches, and civic and neighborhood planning meetings to share their dream with anyone who would listen.

On March 17, 2007, the inaugural class of sixty students was announced. Thirty-two sixth grade students and twenty-eight fth grade students with varying strengths and challenges were selected. ronclarkacademy.com

Founding Principles

The Ron Clark Academy will…

Foster an atmosphere where students, parents, staff, and community members word together to create a family environment for our learners.

Be a school that inspires academic excellence, leadership, collaboration, and a world-class education for our students.

Teach in ways that promote creativity, innovation, wonder, joy, and passion for learning.

Embrace RCA’s motto: No Fear!

Demand academic rigor and set high expectations for every learner.

Follow The Essential 55 and create a culture with high levels of discipline, manners, and respect.

Cultivate students who will become global leaders and citizens by teaching them about the world and by traveling with them to see it firsthand.

Ensure that we have classes that are composed of students with varied academic, social, emotional, and economic backgrounds.

Seek to enroll a large number of students who would not otherwise have the academic opportunities that the Ron Clark Academy can provide.

Celebrate diversity and different cultures.

Strive to find the best, brightest, most passionate educators from across the country to teach in our classrooms.

2014 RCA Annual Report

Since then, the success of Ron Clark Academy has been distinct and widely celebrated. Nothing is normal about RCA, including the school’s overall approach to education. Fully adapting the teaching style of its namesake, RCA is a fun and innovative learning environment that challenges students in new ways.

Complicated math concepts are taught through rap lyrics. Students learn about diverse cultures by traveling the globe, literally, to see them rsthand.

“Math and history are just some of the subjects at the Ron Clark Academy. The Atlanta middle school teaches everything from eye contact to the value of friendly competition.

The building is a 50,000 square foot warehouse in South Atlanta, transformed into the sort of place J.K. Rowling dreamed up for “Harry Potter.”

Every classroom has an elaborate theme – there’s a dragon and a two-story bungee jump and all 112 kids have to be “slide-certified” -- a symbol they’ve signed on for something different.

Students describe the school as “truly extravagant”, “challenging” and “powerful”, and they see the biggest difference in themselves. But there’s a rigor to the magic, a drive to thrive. Clark has 55 rules, a code of conduct that covers shaking hands, maintain eye contact and answering questions in complete sentences.”

Academically, RCAs students have consistently registered double percentile increases in performance on standardized test, and enjoy a global learning with trips to South Africa, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Galapagos Islands, Greece, Rome, Prague, Turkey, Australia, Peru, Trinidad, Japan, China, New York City, Washington, DC, Salt Lake City, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Nebraska.

“At RCA, we demonstrate ways for educators to increase student engagement, promote academic rigor, rigo and create a climate and culture that optimizes learning for all. This leads to students who not only love coming to school, but who also perform better on multiple forms of assessments.” –Kim Bearden AdvancED, Executive Summary, The Ron Clark Academy file:///Users/sle/Downloads/31372.pdf

In his role as Development Director, Kirk Brown is responsible for all RCA fundraising and advancement strategy. He spends his days working to identify, solicit and cultivate prospects and existing RCA partners.

Kirk Brown

Senior Director of Development Ron Clark Academy

“I’m designing, implementing and managing all of the fundraising activities around our annual giving, our capital campaign, special projects and anything else that comes to our office.” -Kirk Brown Prior to his role at RCA, Kirk Brown spent ve years with United Way of Greater Atlanta. In that capacity, he had tremendous success managing and raising more than $8 million annually from top corporate partners. Through his efforts, United Way was able to improve the lives of hundreds of families throughout the metro Atlanta area.

Brown, who joined the RCA team in 2013, describes RCA’s development focus as “two giving buckets”.

“That involves a lot, but it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “At RCA we are really focused on two main giving buckets. One is our scholarship support for our students, and the second is our educator training facility.

Closely aligned with RCA’s mission and vision, these development priorities illustrate RCA’s focus on education and method-sharing.

Scholarship Support RC target students out of the Annual full tuition for RCA students is $18,000. This prices many of RCA’s admissions process. This means that many RCA students rely on the support of the school’s donors for nancial aid. Support from earned income, individuals, companies and foundations accounts for roughly $15,000 per student in aid.

This demonstrates the importance of the development offce in securing funding in order for the Academy to fullll its mission

Educator Training Facility RCA’s popular Educator Training Program is a development offcer’s dream. The program not only helps the Academy fullll a core aspect of its mission, but it also monetizes RCA’s approach. In fact, the Educator Training Program is the second largest source of funding income at RCA, providing over 30% of its operational revenue.

“Why are we so passionate about changing education by influencing other educators? The Ron Clark Academy was created to be a model school and our goal is to extend our reach beyond our student body by having an impact upon students everywhere.” - Kim Bearden 2015 Annual Report

During our organizational interview, Brown talked a great deal about the Educator Training program.

“At RCA, we’re not just a school,” he said. “We also train educators every single Friday. Educators from all “ across the country come to RCA; they sit in our classrooms. They watch our teaching teach, and then take our methods back to their schools all across the country. So far we’ve trained over 35,000 educators.”

RCA’s two primary funding buckets align intentionally with the school’s mission and vision, pointing to RCA’s successful development track record. This illustrates just how important Kirk Brown’s role is within the organization.

“In development, I work very closely with our executive director and co-founder Kim Bearden, and I also work with Ron Clark very closely. closel I also work side by side with marketing when it comes to donor communications and making sure the messaging is told the right way. Making sure people understand the mission, the vision and the value of why they should give a gift is very important.”-Kirk Brown

Current Issues A look at the role of development within RCA provided a starting point for determining what issues may be on the horizon for the Academy. Brown provided some context to a major issue within development, which led to more questions. In this section, I will identify an issue, what RCA is doing right and offer recommendations.

Peeling back the layers of a nonproot like RCA reveals challenges that are not obvious at rst, but gets to some cross-sector concerns that show common challenges within nonproots. The rst is a challenge that is the product of RCA’s age and mission. Having been in existence for only nine academic years, RCA’s age as an organization comes with challenges. One is an issue Kirk Brown deals with often.

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The lack of an alumni base to call on for support and the giving capacity of a low-income student family base A middle school, RCA hasn’t been around long enough to have former students with college degrees. This presents a particular challenge for RCAs development offce, as many nonproot schools rely heavily on the support of alumni.

“One of our development challenges would have to be the giving capacity of our alumni and our parent base,” says Kirk Brown. “As you probably know, many independent schools have a long history of prominent and well-to-do alumni whose kids now attend some of these schools. In addition to sending their kids there, they also make substantial charitable gifts.”

“They’re focusing on their academics; they’re in school. They’re guring out what they’re going to do in their lives. That’s a point where it could be a challenge, because so many schools have a strong alumni base who are making a charitable gift back to their school; we don’t have that.”

In addition to an immature alumni pool, RCA has the challenge of serving many families who do not have the capacity to nancially support the Academy in a large way.

“At RCA, for about 80% of our families, the average income for the home is about $34,000 a year or less.

So, while our tuition is $18,000 a year, many of our families cannot pay full tuition, and do not pay full tuition, because they are not able to afford it. We are designed in that way intentionally because we want to provide a world-class educational experience for students who otherwise would not be able to afford it.”

So, again, when you have parents at other schools who are not only paying full tuition to attend the school, but are also making charitable contributions to that same school, we do not have that parent base. So, when you talk about raising resources and looking at the overall fundraising picture for the organization, we’re not relying heavily on our parent or alumni base, so that can be a challenge. -Kirk Brown

What is RCA doing right?

Despite the unavoidable disadvantage presented by organizational age and giving capacity of families, RCA still accomplishes participation from its families. For example, each year parents volunteer 40 hours to help with student programs at RCA. “Of course we encourage our parents to make a gift to our school so that we have 100% participation, but we’re not pushing a certain number. So, you can imagine that that number is not a very high one.”

That number is not a very high one, and tuition payments overall account for only 10% of RCA’s operational revenue.

What’s the issue?

So where does RCA ll in the gap? How do nonproots like RCA face the challenge of having no alumni base to call on for support and the giving capacity of a low-income student family base?

“At RCA, for about 80% of our families, the average income for the home is about $34,000 a year or less.”

Recommendations:

Fortunately, the growing pains faced by RCA are surmountable, and the issue is a common one for organizations with similar age and mission. There are a number of research-based paths to addressing this current issue. In RCA’s case the answer is found mainly through earned income, One great example in practice can be seen in the Harvard University’s Kennedy School.

As it strives to raise $500 million in its portion of Harvard’s record-seeking $6.5 billion capital campaign, then, the Kennedy School cannot turn to its alumni base in the same way as the Business or Law Schools. Its fundraising strategy is based on a different model, relying heavily on gifts from donors who are not school alumni.

As of February, the Kennedy School had raised $383 million in its segment of Harvard’s record-seeking fundraising drive. According to Kennedy School spokesperson Doug Gavel, though the school’s school alumni constitute the majority (75 %) of donors who contributed to that sum, their contributions in dollars make up only about 20 percent of the whole.

The Harvard Crimson

The Kennedy School has used a strategy of promoting the good of the school in securing support from individual non-alumni donors. Their success is proof of the idea that when donors connect with the mission they are motivated to give, whether they are alumni (past participants) or not.

“I often say that the major mobilizing factor of philanthropy is identification – so identification with its mission, and what leads to identification is association.” –Paul G. Schervish RCA is ahead of the curve in the arena of attracting diverse support. Just a few of the Academy’s supporters are as follows:

While large corporate partnerships can be beneecial, nonproots should enter them strategically.

“I believe that in order to survive, nonprofit organizations must develop explicit ties with for-profit corporations.

Instead of hoping to become the lucky beneficiaries of a company’s independent cause-related marketing campaign, such as Benetton’s ads promoting AIDS awareness or Ticketmaster’s programs to combat violence, nonprofits must enter into cause-related marketing alliances with corporations. Such partnerships, of course, are not risk free. Nonprofits that ally with corporations may find themselves in unproductive short-term relationships and may end up associated with superficial campaigns and overpriced and inferior products and services.

Many of the risks can be avoided if nonprofits think of themselves not as charities but as true partners in the marketing effort. From the corporation’s standpoint, cause-related marketing is not philanthropy. In fact, funding for cause-related marketing programs usually comes of a company’s marketing budget, not its corporate giving or community relations budget.

Profits for Nonprofits: Find a Corporate Partner, Harvard Business Review

The scale of success to youth seen in the case of Ron Clark Academy is not a typical one. Many advantages have helped RCA to operate above the norm when it comes to development success, but this Stanford Social Innovation Review article points to key development practices for overcoming the challenge of being a young nonproot organization.

“In a recent study of the most dynamic midsized youth-serving nonprofits in the country, the people we talked to repeatedly asked, “How do we get really big?

The answers to this question are anything but obvious. And examples of nonprofits to imitate do not readily come to mind. The average founding year of the 10 largest U.S. nonprofits is 1903. What can younger nonprofits learn from organizations that began before the First World War?

We identiied three important practices common among nonproots that succeed in building large-scale funding models: They developed funding in one concentrated source rather than across diverse sources They found a funding source that was a natural match to their mission and beneeciaries They built a professional organization and structure around this funding model Creating High-Impact Nonprofits, Heather McLeod Grant & Leslie R. Crutchfield, Stanford Social Innovation Review

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The health of RCA’s public trust in the level of transferability of its teaching methods.

Is the success of RCA transferrable to other schools across the nation? Are huge factors overlooked in the method-sharing process of what happens within the Educator Training Program? How feasible is it for a public school to reproduce RCA’s strategies, and will that effectiveness or the lack thereof impact RCA’s public trust?

The 2010 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article “Ron Clark Academy Success Comes at a Price Few Schools Can Afford” provides a good example of this issue.

“That success shows the double-edged truth about RCA: It’s possible to help any child succeed in school, but Ron Clark Academy spends twice as much per student than Georgia’s public schools to make that happen.

What they do is great; he has a lot of resources that allow them to do wonderful things, said Cory Buxton, associate professor of middle school education at the University of Georgia.

“Not every school is blessed with all of that.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/ron-clark-academy-success-comes-at-a-price-few-sch/nQhHD/

Each year, hundreds of educators visit RCA, at a price tag of $395 per school day, to witness the world-class Ron Clark Academy learning facility and the innovative teaching methods.

What’s RCA Doing Right?

The Educator Training program is rooted in the mission of the Academy and serves the purpose of spreading the RCA method with educators throughout the nation. It also using earned income to help ll in gaps created by the previous issue. It is not unusual for innovative nonproots like RCA to nd a way to monetize that innovation in order to support other mission areas.

In fact, privately derived earned income is the single largest source of revenue for the entire nonprofit sector.

According to the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, private-sourced fees for goods and services made up more than 45 percent of total nonprofit sector revenue in 2010. http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_importance_of_earned_income_in_your_funding_model

What’s the issue?

How, then, is this a possible issue for Ron Clark Academy? Why should the organizational leadership consider the Educator Training program a possible emerging issue? The answer is simple: public trust. As much as nonproots need the public’s trust for legitimacy, RCA should pay close attention to the vulnerabilities that may exist within it’s organization. If every aspect of a nonproot organization’s operations are not scrutinized to eliminate weaknesses, they become susceptible to a default in public opinion and trust.

The earned income from RCA’s RC Educator Training program, for instance, may draw critique when it comes to how true the program is. RCA is currently vulnerable to a few possible public relations challenges. The central question of this issue is whether or not it is an honest pursuit to promote to educators that what happens at RCA can be replicated in their classrooms, absent the many variables that play a part in RCA’s success.

Public critique has already sprouted in a number of scattered incidents. One example is from this Atlanta JournalConstitution article: But some say RCA’s thrill-seeking approach is not very practical. RCA, funded by training seminar sales, corporate donors like Delta and Coca-Cola and gifts from philanthropists, spends $18,000 per student. The per-student average in Georgia is $8,900.

“There are lessons you can learn from Ron Clark Academy,” but one style doesn’t fit all, Buxton says. “I get worried when teachers feel like what is important is for middle school to be entertaining.”

AJC (cont)

The dissimilarities between RCA and other schools do not stop with the sheer amount of money spent perpupil at RCA vs. public schools. Other differences like the highly selective nature of the admissions process, global eld trips sponsored by Delta Airlines, and the backing of people with names like Oprah, all impact how RCA does what it does.

Determining how much of RCA’s success is because of funding vs how much is because of innovation, and how much one makes the other possible is impossible. What is for sure is that a dormant vulnerability exists in RCA’s method-sharing activities.

2014 RCA Annual Report

Another component of this issue is the missing element in the function of a well-known nonproot like RCA: external advocacy. Advocacy is a core practice of any nonproot that is established or seeks to be established as a leader in effective change around their sector issue.

The secret to success lies in how high-impact nonprofits mobilize every sector of society (government, business, nonprofits, and the public) to be a force for good. In other words, greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organization than with how they manage their own internal operations. The high-impact nonprofits we studied are satisfied with building a ‘good enough’ organization and then focusing their energy externally to catalyze large-scale change.

Serve and advocate. High-Impact organizations may start out providing great programs, but they eventually realize that they cannot achieve large-scale social change through service delivery alone. So they add policy advocacy to acquire government resources and to change legislation. Other nonprofits start out by doing advocacy and later add grassroots programs to supercharge their strategy.

Ultimately, all high-impact organizations bridge the divide between service and advocacy. They become Ultimatel good at both.”

Creating High-Impact Nonprofits, Heather McLeod Grant & Leslie R. Crutchfield, Stanford Social Innovation Review

Recommendations:

Sections from the Renz book provide great insight on the importance of strategic communications to any nonproot organization. This element of management is critical in gauging public trust and setting perception for the work of any organization.

Positioning an organization, framing issues, soliciting funds, and describing services are all elements of strategic communications. A review of past coverage, of lack of it, can help build for the future. Through Internet searches and with the help of Web-based resources, nonprofits can develop an instructive profile of how issues are covered in the media, how often an organization is quoted, how others describe it, and what public opinion polls have been conducted on relevant topics.

The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management

The Renz book goes on to suggest two key projects in implementing communications: a media trend analysis, which involves an all-inclusive look at story placement, tone, bylines, spokespeople, messages and timing; and quantitative and qualitative research.

Other Recommendations: -Develop more clear messaging regarding what educators can expect to gain from the educator training program.

-Revisit RCA’s commitment to advocacy for education funding for all schools (as a part of the high-impact nonprofit responsibility to mix service with advocacy.) This will show real commitment to the cause of great education for all students.

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The celebrity of founder Ron Clark.

The nal identiied issue is the possible impacts that the celebrity and personality of Ron Clark could have on the Academy. Robert Herman’s chapter of executive leadership (in the Renz book) discusses the importance of spending time on external relations, there are possible pitfalls if executive leaders are not careful. What happens when personal brand supersedes the brand of the organization?

What is RCA Doing Right?

RCA has a problem many nonproots would love to have: their founder and chief executive is well-known and has a major platform for sharing messages and ideas. Clark appeared twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and was named Oprah’s “Phenomenal Man of the Year”. He was Disney’s Teacher of the Year and has had a movie made about his life story. With his 41,000 Twitter followers, and countless speaking engagements every year, the Ron Clark brand is known far and near and is even more pronounced within the realm of education.

What is the Issue?

Part of the burden of being one of the most celebrated educators in America, having written several bestselling books, having been the subject of a made for TV movie, and being a sought after keynote speaker is that Ron Clark is often absent, physically, from the Ron Clark Academy. But, beyond the challenges of his very busy schedule is that of the public scrutiny associated with celebrity.

Ron Clark, who is not shy about offering critiques to parents, often nds himself in a bit of trouble with pieces like his CNN article “What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents”. In it, he says that teachers are not nannies and that teachers see students in a different light than parents. There’s nothing too controversial about those statements, but Clark goes further.

Trust us. At times when I tell parents that their child has been a behavior problem, I can almost see the hairs rise on their backs. They are ready to fight and defense their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, “Is that true?” Well, of course it’s true. I just told you.

From the same article: If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, “I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class, because I know that children can exaggerate and that there are always two sides to every story.” http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/

This sharp retort to these comments shows the risk associated with polarizing comments from a visible exec: Sorry, Mr. Clark and all your minions, but I will NEVER stand against my child in support of you or the system.

I will never apologize for jumping to my child's defense - and I will ALWAYS jump to my child's defense. Sorry, but I can't trust you - especially when you say my child has a behavior problem. They are no problem at home.

If behavior problems only occur at school, it is YOU that is doing something wrong, not me!

Anyone who would defend the system at the price of driving a wedge between the parent/child bond is NOT TO BE TRUSTED! The healthy, health natural parent/child bond being assaulted by mechanisms of the system, like Zero Tolerance, standardization, etc. is the real and true problem - not the students or their parents.

As long as this system exists, teachers and parents will always be "frenemies.

The Innovative Educator, http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2011/09/parents-take-issue-with-advice-of-super.html

Recommendations:

Ron Clark’s ability to reach audiences with the message of RCA is invaluable to the organization. Best recommendations in terms of this issue would involve the organization making sure that safeguards are in place in case any risk emerge as a result of his celebrity. celebrit This can be a diffcult discussion for nonproots with notable executives and founders like Ron Clark.

This list of nine ways to avoid Founder’s Syndrome can be very helpful in that process.

Create checks and balances. In your bylaws and other early policies, prohibit nepotism and have a board of both insiders and outsiders.

Ensure that your board is advised by outside counsel on CEO compensation and evaluation.

Be open to changing roles. As the organization grows, the founder may need to move out of operations and hire a chief operating officer and other senior team members, for example.

Bring in new people. As you grow, you will need new talents and fresh perspectives from your staff and your board.

Have an exit strategy. As hard as it is, a founder shouldn’t necessarily plan to be there forever. From the start, envision how leadership will transition and how the founder might be involved in the organization in the future – i.e., founder, president emeritus.

Establish succession planning for staff and development program for the board. With this in place, it will minimize the perception of anyone being indispensible to the organization.

Have an accountability partner, group or coach outside the organization to provide honest feedback to the founder. founde Have the founder embrace continuing to improve his or her skills so he or she evolves as the organization does through formal education (a master’s degree in nonprofits of an MBA, for example), coaching, a network of nonprofit CEOS and site visits to other organizations.

Increase planning and establish systems as your organization grows. Conduct strategic planning involving key constituencies, and don’t allow anyone person to control the process to a specific outcome. http://www.nonprofitpro.com/article/9-ways-nonprofits-overcome-founders-syndrome/

Best Practices Kirk Brown What Best Practices Guide Your Work?

I have a few best practices that I sort of refer to in the mornings and in the afternoons to make sure I’m on track. One thing that really holds true across the fundraising arena and for myself personally is a motto that my former chief development officer used to beat into our heads when I worked for United Way. ‘She always said that ‘the number one reason people do not give is because they are not asked.’

It is so true. People are afraid to make the ask, and you cannot be afraid to make the ask when you are a fundraiser. That is so important. We can talk about cultivating. We can talk about stewardship. We can talk about building those relationships, but if you are not making the ask, then what good are you? What are you contributing? What substantial change are you effecting?

When you ask, you shall receive. A “no” is not “no” forever; it’s a no for now. You can always come back later and make the ask again.

All things considered, sometimes success comes down to plain luck. That’s what happened when Ron Clark Academy recently saw a wave of national attention and new donors thanks to a viral video of its students performing a rap song with founder Ron Clark.

What About the Viral Video?

That video was ridiculously crazy. Ron and a few students decided to learn a dance one Sunday. They went to the school, learned a dance and posted it to social media just because that’s what we do. We do something funny and post it to social media; that’s the RCA sort of way of doing things. This video literally took off over night.

A parent posted it on her Facebook page, that took off. Ron posted it to his Instagram and then Balleralert posted it. The next morning it was a viral hit. I mean, it was everywhere. The next few days were crazy. craz Good Morning America, FOX News was broadcasting live from our school. NBC Nightly News was at the school. Everybody was there wanting to figure out who we were, who our kids were and find out more about Ron Clark.

So that was a huge success for our school, because then we were able to use that national platform to then catapult and tell more about the larger story about our school, about our students, about their success rate, about the high schools they go to once they leave RCA, about our graduation rate, and all these incredible things about our school.

When you talk about outcomes it was crazy. The video received over 80 million views on various sites. We had national and international media coverage on 20 different media outlets. Time Magazine, People Magazine, Huffington Post, Inside Edition, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Yahoo, Washington Post and so many other outlets covered it.

We got over 100,000 new likes to our RCA Facebook page. We also got over 70,000 new followers on Instagram, and we also got a lot of small donations that started to pour in to our website. We had a huge influx of gifts.

That was incredible for us, because people were led to our website and were able to then learn more about what we are doing.

RCA 2014 Annual Report

Recap Current Issue 1: The lack of an alumni base to call on for support and the giving capacity of a lowincome student family base.

What’s RCA Doing Right?

RCA is achieving participation through family engagement and small gifts, while managing to find funding through a mix of corporate sponsorships.

What the Issue?

What’s Filling in the gap of the missing alumni/family funding base.

Recommendations: Continue to solidify funding sources, set structure in place for alumni to plug into once they are able, and create new ways to gain “participation” for families.

Current Issue 2: The health of RCA’s public trust in the level of transferability of its teaching methods.

What’s RCA Doing Right?

RCA is monetizing a key element of its mission and operation.

What’s the Issue?

Vulnerabilities of the Academy to public trust issues around the facts that elements other than teachingstyle contribute to the success of RCA. The question of honesty and transparency in the Educator Training program is one that may be an emerging concern for RCA. Recommendations: Strategic communication is key. RCA should make sure it tells the whole story of what impacts innovation deepl Participating in the government and classroom success. Also, RCA must dive into advocacy more deeply. process is essential in moving the needle on access to quality education for all.

Current Issue 3: The celebrity of founder Ron Clark.

What’s RCA Doing Right?

RCA has a valuable resource: a visible and charismatic chief executive who is able to reach a large audience with it’s message.

What’s the Issue?

The Academy is unprotected against public critique that could come from a sometimes polarizing founder/executive figure.

Recommendations: Be strategic about executive leadership succession planning and setting up accountability structures for executive leaders. Also, the role of communication is reiterated here.

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