What is schools' development?
IDPE (the Institute of Development Professionals in Education) is the professional membership organisation supporting schools with professional engagement and fundraising programmes. Our charitable purpose is to enable schools to develop cultures of giving so that our young people have the best educational experience.
Professional fundraising in schools, often known as ‘development’, is booming in the UK. The money raised by schools has increased from £100 million to £157 million in the last decade, which helps to fund a wide range of projects from bursaries to new buildings. Schools’ development is the process by which schools seek to engage with their alumni, parents and other stakeholders to generate support and income toward a school’s strategic objectives.
Development is an emerging and growing sector in UK schools and yet many senior leaders are uncertain about how to approach it -
- What do you do first and how do you approach it?
- How long does it take and what constitutes success?
- Who leads it and how much of the Heads time does it take?
In response to IDPE member feedback, we have designed this year's professional development programme to provide a range of seminars, workshops, events and webinars to help answer the above questions.
IDPE's flagship event of the year is the IDPE Annual Conference. It is the largest event in the sector focussed on development in schools and addresses these questions and many more.
In 2017 IDPE introduced a Start-Up service designed to allows schools to have a one-to-one contract with IDPE's schools' development specialist, Jenny Hipwell, to discover and focus on what will make your development office as effective and successful as possible, and to provide the support you need throughout this process.
If you have any further questions please get in touch with Caroline Pix, our Membership and Engagement Office, who will be happy to help: 01225 829030 | info@idpe.org.uk