- Cultivate support among all relevant constituents. Even good programs do not sell themselves. Building support requires a comprehensive strategy to educate and inform all stakeholders including administrators, teachers, school nurses, politicians and the community. (See Program Results on ID# 029322, ID# 030189, ID# 032293, ID# 032362, ID# 044462.)
- Getting support from teachers is vital, but you must also have support from the administration to sustain the effort. Without administrative support, project staff for many initiatives will find it difficult to keep the effort going. (See Program Results on ID# 044705.)
- Never stop cultivating support. Administrators and teachers turn over, so building support for an initiative must be an ongoing effort. (See Program Results on ID# 027098.)
- Be concrete and quantitative. The culture of many schools necessitates a quantitative approach to convincing school administrators and communities of the need for a particular initiative. Translate the data into communication products to demonstrate value to political supporters. (See Program Results on Making the Grade and on ID# 029836.)
- Winning the support of community leaders for education reform requires diverse, personalized marketing strategies. Decision-makers tend to be cautious and to need encouragement, one-on-one invitations, evidence of success and sufficient time to commit resources. A proactive communications strategy can help build support in local communities and with other stakeholders. Keep it up— a steady stream of high-quality communication with the community can generate public support for the initiative. (See Program Results on ID# 032362, ID# 038766 and on the Public Health Pipeline.)