One summer. Five financial levers. Your school's priorities at the center.

Strategy Lab: Financial Series—Choose Your Focus brings NAIS’s Financial Series Strategy Labs together into a single, flexible summer experience—giving schools the opportunity to focus on the financial drivers most critical to their current context.

This virtual Strategy Lab is organized around five distinct tracks:

Tuition Tactics

Explore how shifting market dynamics and independent school pricing trends are reshaping families’ willingness—and ability—to pay. This track helps teams analyze their current tuition strategy, pressure‑test assumptions, and consider tuition tactics that align market realities with mission and sustainability.

Auxiliary Revenue

Examine emerging trends in nontuition income and identify opportunities to leverage your school’s distinctive assets. This track explores how auxiliary programs can strategically offset expenses while strengthening, rather than distracting from, the core school experience.

Discounting and Financial Aid

Focus on affordability and access through a closer look at how schools are structuring tuition reductions and assistance today. This track explores multiple pathways for supporting families while balancing enrollment goals, revenue implications, and mission commitments.

Innovative Staffing Models

Reimagine how schools attract, support, and retain talent by rethinking roles, responsibilities, and structures. This track explores alternative staffing models, flexible configurations, and new ways of organizing work to better support teachers—and the students they serve.

Compensation Strategies

Dig into how schools are responding to rising expectations around transparency, equity, and competitiveness in compensation. Using mission‑aligned examples from the field, this track helps teams examine compensation philosophy, trade‑offs, and opportunities for clearer alignment with values and workforce realities.

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Each track stands on its own and is designed for school teams to engage deeply in analysis, strategy development, and planning. Rather than a one-size-fits-all experience, schools select the track—or tracks—that best align with their priorities and capacity.

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Across all tracks, teams will work with curated data, research-informed frameworks, and structured facilitation to:

• Examine your current reality and surface key tensions or opportunities.

• Move from observation to interpretation to strategic choice.

• Generate and prioritize innovative solutions grounded in mission and feasibility.

• Translate insights into clear next steps that you can share and advance back on campus.

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The Strategy Lab model emphasizes dedicated team time, cross-school learning, and practical application. Your team is not just absorbing information—you are actively working on real challenges with colleagues who share responsibility for driving change and new directions.

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By the end of the Strategy Lab, teams leave with sharper shared understanding of a pressing challenge or promising opportunity, a clearer sense of strategic direction, and concrete ideas you are prepared to move forward—supported by data, structure, and peer insight.

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If you have questions about this session, please contact the Strategy Lab team at strategylab@nais.org.

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Recommended Team Composition by Track

Tuition Tactics
Teams may include the head of school, CFO, director of admissions, trustees, and leaders responsible for strategic initiatives or enrollment-related planning.

Auxiliary Revenue
This track is well suited for directors of auxiliary or enterprise programs, including leaders responsible for summer programs, after-school offerings, extended-day, or special programs. Schools may also include the CFO or business office staff who oversee or account for alternative revenue streams.

Discounting and Financial Aid
Recommended participants include the head of school, CFO, director of admissions, director of financial aid, trustees, and other administrators involved in affordability, access, and enrollment strategy.

Innovative Staffing Models
This track is designed for directors of talent development or human resources, directors of teaching and learning, division heads, and leaders responsible for recruitment and retention, workforce strategy, or organizational design.

Compensation Strategies
Teams may include the head of school, CFO, HR leaders, and strategic initiative leaders involved in compensation philosophy, equity, and retention planning.

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Important Planning Note  

Each track requires a team of at least two participants, who remain in that track for the full workshop. Teams work together over three days to develop a strategic action plan, making collaboration essential for focused thinking, idea‑building, and completion of the action‑planning template.

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Topics Covered

• Explore your school’s vision in connection with the challenges or opportunities that exist around each track.

• Engage in trendspotting and data analysis to assess internal and external markers to inform strategic approaches.  

• Delve into innovative examples from the field led by subject-matter experts to spark your own brainstorming session.

• Get tools for communicating a bold new direction and ways to outline the strategic priorities to achieve this goal.

Lead Facilitators

• Hilary LaMonte, senior vice president of DASL, NAIS
• Mark Mitchell, vice president of access and affordability, NAIS
• Jackie Wolking, senior director of strategic initiatives, NAIS
• Additional subject matter experts

Registration Information

The deadline to register is Friday, June 26, 2026 due to the prework required to complete prior to the session start date. ‍

• Team-based registration: Each track requires a team of at least two participants; teams of two to four are strongly recommended for the most effective collaboration.

• Multiple tracks: Schools may register more than one team if they wish to participate in multiple tracks. During the registration process you will tag attendees to their chosen track.

• Pricing: Registration is per person. There are no discounts for enrolling in multiple tracks.

• Nonmember Registration: Nonmembers should reach out to NAIS program and logistics coordinator, Kelly Cavanaugh at cavanaugh@nais.org to register and pay via invoice. Nonmember pricing is per person. There are no discounts for enrolling in multiple tracks.

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Cancellations must be received in writing at strategylab@nais.org. Cancellations received up to 30 days before the program’s start date (June 13) will be fully refunded, less a $75 administration fee. Cancellations received fewer than 30 days prior to the program will not be refunded.

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Please contact strategylab@nais.org or (202) 973-9700 with any questions.