Each year, Catholic Schools Week invites us to celebrate the mission of Catholic education. It is a time to honor the schools, leaders, faculty, and families who help form students academically, spiritually, and morally, often with limited resources and remarkable commitment.
At Partners in Mission, Catholic Schools Week is also a time for reflection. It invites us to look not only at the supernatural impact of our clients, communities, and the Holy Spirit, but also at how schools need to evolve in order to thrive in a fast-changing world.
Catholic schools have never been more important than they are right now. In a culture often confused about truth, faith formation, vocation, and community leadership, they stand at the intersection of these. They carry out this work amidst cultural change, financial pressure, exponential technological growth, and rising expectations from families and donors.
Our mission at PIM is to help Catholic schools and institutions thrive in this unique moment in time. And this week, we want to not only celebrate you but offer you timely, tangible data, insight, and wisdom to help you flourish in the year ahead.
This year, Catholic Schools Week coincides with the release of our 2025 Catholic School Advancement Benchmark Survey. For the first time, 130 Catholic school advancement leaders from across the country shared how their programs are performing, where they are investing their time, and what challenges they are facing.
Several clear patterns emerged.
Success in advancement is not driven by the volume of activity. It is driven by focus. Schools seeing stronger results tend to allocate limited staff time to the highest-impact work, particularly with major and leadership donors. They operate the Annual Fund as the foundation of their advancement program. They use data to guide strategy and prioritization. They make disciplined, mission-aligned choices about where to invest leadership attention.
The survey also reflects strong underlying potential across the sector. Annual funds remain the cornerstone of advancement. Personal relationships, especially face-to-face donor engagement, continue to drive results. Schools are becoming more attentive to the role of major gifts and capital campaigns in supporting long-term mission.
Catholic schools are not standing still. They are building, adapting, and leading.
Catholic schools are also preparing for a future that will look different from the past.
The fast-emerging presence of AI in all corners of our society - from education to careers and well beyond creates both big threats, new responsibilities, and unique opportunities for Catholic Schools.
Its impact on Catholic schools is uneven, accelerating, potentially vast, and unavoidable. We have seen examples from our clients at both ends of the spectrum. Leaders are confused about how to respond thoughtfully, Catholicly, and strategically.
In our recent Advancement Benchmark Survey, leaders prioritized it as a top area of interest. How can technology extend limited capacity? How can data support stronger donor conversations? How can schools adopt new tools with intention rather than impulse? How can we best use AI while strengthening our Catholic identity? How does our model and value proposition need to evolve in an AI-influenced world?
This Catholic Schools Week, we are inviting leaders to participate in the industry’s first AI Leadership Survey to help discern how Catholic schools are responding to the changes at hand and how they can evolve in the years ahead. The purpose is not technology for its own sake. The purpose is technology in the service of the mission.
The future of Catholic education will be shaped by leaders who are willing to learn, adapt, and make thoughtful choices in a changing environment.
Catholic Schools Week is a celebration. It is also a moment for recommitment.
A commitment to focus on what matters most.
A commitment to form leaders for the future.
A commitment to help Catholic schools not only survive, but thrive.
We are grateful to walk alongside Catholic schools in this work, this week and always.