The Watkinson Story Vault
Watkinson School, a genuinely progressive, independent day school in Hartford, CT for students in grades 6–PG (post-graduate), has a complex story to tell. The school doesn’t feel like a typical private school, partly because its commitment to serving the historically underprivileged population of Greater Hartford creates a more socioeconomically diverse student body than other regional schools. The school’s educational philosophy is similarly unique. It’s easy to feel the Watkinson difference on a visit to campus, but it can be challenging to put it into words, partly because the phrases we might use to describe Watkinson — “student-centered", “rigorous and supportive”, “culture of respect” — are the same phrases other schools can (and do!) use. How’s a prospective family to know what it’s really like?
We decided to answer that question... by letting the Watkinson community answer that question themselves.
The Watkinson Story Vault is a continually growing collection of short videos from Watkinson students, parents, teachers, and alumni. We decided not to worry about making them “slick”; the videos are casual and unscripted, and I record them on my phone.
The series has been an immediate success. Prospective families have even shown up to Open Houses quoting videos that moved them. Hearing students and teachers cover all the “marketing points” I would have spent hours trying to craft is deeply satisfying.
Even in our print materials — our viewbook, direct mail postcards, Annual Fund collateral — I’ve scaled WAY back on the amount of copy I write. Our viewbook, for instance, consists almost entirely of stories, told verbatim. All I wrote were the headlines on each page.
The resulting viewbook is far more genuine, credible, and compelling than anything I could have written in marketing-speak. If you’re looking for a way to up your organization’s storytelling game, I highly recommend letting your constituents speak for themselves.
You can visit the Story Vault here: watkinsonstoryvault.org
And you can see the way I’ve incorporated some of those stories as the main content of the school’s regular website: watkinson.org