Issue 254

At my former school, we used to think being a good community partner meant saying yes to everything. Every fundraiser, every awareness week, every classroom activity; if someone asked us to share it, promote it, or show up to it, we did. We thought that's what "community engagement" looked like.

Then we realized we were doing everyone a disservice.

When you promote everything, you promote nothing. Our audience stopped paying attention because they never knew what actually mattered to our school.

Here's the reframe that changed everything for us: saying no wasn't about being unhelpful—it was about being intentional with our yes. Every time we declined to promote something, we preserved the power of our platform for the things that truly aligned with our mission and mattered to our families. We protected our audience from information overload and kept their attention for when we really needed it.

When someone asked us to share their event, we learned to ask ourselves: "Does this directly serve our students, families, or educational mission?" If the answer was no, we'd say something like, "We're not able to promote that event, but we appreciate what you're doing for our community." Simple, respectful, final.

The funny thing? Once we stopped being everyone's free marketing department, the things we did choose to promote started getting way more engagement. Turns out, strategic no's made our yes's incredibly powerful.

Thanks,
Brendan

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About Our Speaker

Myra McGovern is the founder and principal of The Polaris Collaborative, a strategic communications and risk management firm serving independent schools and other nonprofits. 

Myra worked for the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) for more than two decades before launching The Polaris Collaborative. Most recently, she was the Vice President of External Relations, where her team handled media and public relations, advocacy and public affairs communications, and executive communications. Before that, she served as the Vice President of Media for eight years, overseeing the team responsible for book publishing, Independent School magazine, multiple websites, video content, and social media.

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