School in the Square

TURNING PARENTS INTO ORGANIZERS

The Challenge: School in the Square (S2) is a small charter network serving Washington Heights and Inwood in Manhattan. They came to us with plenty of parent organizers who knew their community inside and out and were great at speaking with local families about the benefits of their school, but who needed systems to take their outreach efforts to the next level.

Our Approach: We took everything we know about training a great canvassing team and created materials and systems to turn School in the Square’s parent volunteers into professional-grade organizers. We conducted training sessions and created role expectations and messaging worksheets. We gave the volunteers the tools they needed to track and organize their work and follow up with leads, ensuring their outreach resulted in high-quality applicants entering the enrollment funnel.

The Results: Underdog successfully overhauled S2’s recruitment systems and streamlined their efforts to bring in high-quality applicants. Our training and support enabled the school to elevate dozens of parent volunteers into qualified community organizers who not only speak passionately about their school with prospective families but who are operationally equipped to follow through on those leads and help bring families into the school in an authentic and effective way. S2’s families found working with Underdog so helpful that they brought us back for a second year to train new parents.