Get a fresh look: Inside the marcom audit

We’ve often discussed the expansion of marketing and communications duties within schools. The folks once tasked with newsletters, magazines and websites now deal with much more.

The growth has been so constant that even the people in charge of these duties may not recognize all the changes — much less, their supervisors. For example, the stereotype of communicators as writers above all continues to drive the hiring of department directors, even though responsibilities have moved beyond the written word.

To better understand the current state of play and how to move forward most effectively, schools are increasingly considering an audit of the marcom office. (Fine Point conducted more of these in 2025-26 than in any previous year.)

This project documents what a school is getting for its marcom FTEs and expense lines. It also helps leadership determine whether marcom is doing the right things, at the right time, in the right way. What results is better administrative alignment and less second-guessing.

What goes into an audit

Conducting an audit is not complicated, merely time-intensive. The project typically runs about a month, from start to finish. It can take place around the daily work of the school; this doesn’t have to wait for summer.

It can be performed in-house, if a school has the available resources. (For instance, an institutional-research office could handle the assignment.)

More commonly, though, schools engage a consultant for the job, both for the greater bandwidth and, especially, the fresh perspective. An outside expert can observe operations with no conflicts of interest.

The audit relies on a lot of research:

Poring through the school’s print publications, digital materials and marketing campaigns.
Conducting one-on-one interviews with school leaders.
Environmental observation (body language in interviews; campus signage; whether online themes show up within the school).
The visible work of neighboring and competing schools, and perhaps that of similar schools in other parts of the country.

Is all this necessary? Yes! Too little information-gathering can fatally undermine an audit; the garbage-in/garbage-out principle in action.

Analysis of all the information comes next. The auditor identifies objective and subjective successes and opportunities for improvement.

That analysis then informs recommendations for the school, along with timelines.

What should the school do immediately to start maximizing its return on investment in marketing and communications? Just as important: What should it stop doing today to make room for the new work?
What outcomes will need more time — say, six months or a full academic year — to take root?
Where should the department focus over the long term?

What an audit won’t tell you

What can’t a marcom audit clarify?

1. The strategies of other departments

For example, the audit may note how the school targets a particular cohort of prospective families, if that work touches on marcom, but it won’t get into whether the school should be doing that.

2. The opinions of constituents outside the school

Don’t conflate an internal audit with an external survey. The latter is a major undertaking on its own, one that often precedes strategic planning.

If a school recently ran a community survey, findings can be part of the audit’s research into, say, the strength of local reputation. Generally, though, the school won’t have up-to-date information to offer for analysis.

3. Depending on the auditor, objective comparisons with other schools may be limited

Educators are accustomed to deep, reliable datasets on development and admissions operations, thanks to work by CASE and E3N, respectively, over many years to explain and support these operations.

That’s not the case with marcom, where there’s a void in gathering the information schools need to know. (Although Fine Point is working on that!)

Without comprehensive data, auditors must rely on their own knowledge and firsthand experiences of what other schools are doing and how.

This makes an off-campus consultant who works with many schools far more useful for an audit than on-campus staff, such as an institutional researcher or marcom leader, who may have little visibility into the practices elsewhere.

How an audit pays off

Why go to the trouble of commissioning an audit? Because the final report provides confidence and an agenda.

Anyone in a school knows, report cards are anticipated. People hunger to learn how they’re doing.

And report cards are useful, validating where one truly is strong and specifying exactly where greater attention and work would pay off.

An audit works the same way, establishing how well marcom personnel are fulfilling the school’s charge and the obstacles that stand in the way.

It also provides an action plan for addressing opportunities, which a busy director may not have the time to build independently. (This is particularly useful when the school is shifting from one department leader to another.)

An audit report in hand can inform conversations between the marcom director and other school leaders about how to get where the school wants to be.

And it brings common vocabulary, understanding and expectations to discussions of marcom work. These, in turn, build greater cohesion and investment in projects.

In schools where a director wants a clear-eyed evaluation of the department, where administrators are fuzzy on exactly what marcom contributes to strategic success, or where a third-party evaluation would give all parties the same information, a marcom audit could be just the project to consider this year.

Last call for the MarCom Survey

Last month, we introduced the Private School MarCom Survey.

Since then, many Refill readers have answered these questions, and we are so grateful for the responses! Through our participation incentive, Amazon gift cards have gone out to four marcom leaders — although we’re not finished yet!

If you haven’t taken the survey yet, this is your reminder:

The Private School MarCom Survey closes Sept. 30.

We want independent and parochial schools to be as represented as possible in the survey report. So please consider sharing news of the survey with your networks and encouraging marcom leaders to fill it out.

Learn more about the survey!

The Treasury makes a statement

This month, the Treasury Department proposed new regulations that would strip most colleges, universities and independent schools of their nonprofit tax status. The action was meant to draw headlines and public attention, and indeed, it was big news for many media outlets.

The proposal’s language echoes in many respects what the Education Department asserted in February 2025 regarding diversity, equity and inclusion practices in schools. That message, which became known as the “Dear Colleague” letter, was quickly enjoined by a lawsuit and never took effect.

Given the earlier experience, we recommend monitoring the Treasury proposal but making no statement about it. No federal changes will occur through Nov. 3 — Election Day — during a public-comment period. And legal maneuverings are already taking place: NBOA says it is teaming up with NAIS on a response.

This one will have plenty of developments to watch for quite some time.