Here’s something I’ve observed consistently across the charter schools I’ve worked with: the schools that fill their enrollment fastest are almost always the ones where families are enrolling as much in the founder as in the school itself.
This isn’t a coincidence. It’s how trust works in communities that have been let down by institutions before. When there’s no track record to evaluate, families evaluate the person behind the school. They want to know: who are you, why are you doing this, and why should I trust you with my child?
Most charter school founders are not prepared to answer those questions in public. And it costs them enrollment they should have won.
“Your school’s brand starts with your face, your name, and your reason for being in the room. That’s not marketing fluff. It’s the deepest source of trust you have.”
What the Founder Identity Problem Actually Is
The founder identity problem isn’t that founders are hiding. It’s that most founders haven’t built a clear, intentional narrative about who they are and why they’re doing this work—and so when they show up in community spaces, at enrollment fairs, at open houses, the story they tell is incomplete, inconsistent, or generic.
Generic sounds like: “I’ve been an educator for fifteen years and I’m passionate about giving kids better options.”
There’s nothing wrong with that sentence. But it doesn’t differentiate you from the thirty other founders who would say something almost identical. It doesn’t give a family anything to hold onto, share with a neighbor, or feel connected to.
What a Strong Founder Narrative Does
A strong founder narrative answers four questions, usually in this order:
- What did you see that you couldn’t unsee? The moment, the student, the realization that made this necessary. Not abstract. Specific.
- What did you do about it? What have you already built, tried, or demonstrated? Proof points that your conviction is backed by action.
- What are you building now, and why? The school. The specific vision. Why this model, this community, this moment.
- Why you? What makes you specifically the right person to build this school in this community at this time?
A founder who can answer these four questions clearly, in two minutes, in front of a stranger—is a founder whose school fills seats. Because the narrative is about something real, rooted in something specific, and told by someone with conviction.
The Visibility Piece
The narrative has to be communicated. This means showing up—at community events, at school board meetings, at neighborhood gatherings, at church, at the farmers market. Not just sending flyers. Showing up personally.
It also means building a digital presence that reflects your founder identity, not just your school’s brand. A LinkedIn profile that tells your story. Social posts that show you doing the work, not just promoting the school. Content that demonstrates your thinking, your values, and your commitment over time.
Families who see you repeatedly—online and in person—before they make an enrollment decision are dramatically more likely to choose your school. Familiarity builds trust. Trust drives decisions.
A Note on Authenticity
I want to be direct about something: founder narrative work is not spin. It’s not asking you to perform a version of yourself that isn’t real. The most effective founder narratives I’ve helped build are the ones that are most deeply honest—about the founding moment, the doubts, the stakes, the specific students who made this feel necessary.
Families in the communities that charter schools are typically built for have exceptional radar for performance. They’ve been told what they want to hear by institutions for generations. What they respond to is authenticity—a founder who is clearly in this for real, for the long term, because they can’t imagine not doing it.
That’s a narrative worth building. And it’s already inside you. It just needs to be articulated clearly.
Every founder I’ve worked with had a real reason for building their school. The work is always in helping them see it clearly enough to say it out loud, consistently, in a way that other people can feel. That work pays back in enrollment in ways that no ad spend can replicate.
Ready to Apply This to Your School?
Every post I write comes from work I’ve done with real schools. If you’re ready to build systems that actually fill classrooms, let’s talk.