General

Giving Thanks

5 min read

Nov 24, 2022 8:00:00 AM

Some personal and professional reflections on 2022.

Today, I — and many, many millions of the rest of you, if the current statistics on U.S. travel are any indicator — will gather at a cherished friend or family member’s house, gather around a polished wood table, and dig into delicious food. And perhaps a warm candle will spice the air, and its particular scent will always take you back to Thanksgiving 2022.

Then, one by one, each person will share a memory (or perhaps 50, if good ol’ Uncle Joe is there) and what you’re grateful for.

Okay, disclaimer: if you’re a grin-and-bear-it type of holiday person, just disregard this whole scenario and instead envision your ideal Turkey Day. But please keep reading. I’m done with my Hallmark Thanksgiving story.

In the spirit of today’s Turkey Day, I want to share some reflections on 2022 — both my own and also those of SchoolMint.

giving thanks

What Am I Grateful For?

This year holds a special resonance for me. It’s the first time I’ll be cooking for Thanksgiving.

And, yes, I had this blog post scheduled to go up. At this moment, you’ll probably find me 40 minutes into making my Cajun roux (for chicken-and-sausage gumbo, of course; I make the best one I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot, because my Cajun momma set the bar very high).

This is also the first year where I’ve made an intentional effort to practice an attitude of gratitude, to make myself focus less on negativity and more on the things I have that I’m fortunate to have.

I’m grateful I can afford food. I’m grateful I have a home in which friends and family can gather. I’m grateful for having a job, especially one that I enjoy so much and that has given me so much professional growth.

And, of course, I’m grateful for my wonderful fiancé and the time we get together — such as our recent trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Check us out in the picture below!

visiting gatlinburg tn

But enough about me. I promised I’d talk about SchoolMint, so here we go — here are eight things we’re grateful for as a company!

1. SchoolMint Celebrated Our NINTH Birthday

Although SchoolMint has acquired a variety of companies over the years — including some companies that even predate us! — we recognize September 9, 2013, as our official birthday.

That means we turned nine years old this year!

You can read about this year’s acquisition and new product launches below:

2. Lots of Laughter, Fun, and Hard Work

All across the globe, our Mintees showed up. From Costa Rica to Greece. From the West Coast to the East Coast. From the swamps of Louisiana to the snowy fields and mountains of Wisconsin.

This year, we worked hard so that we could also play hard. What are some of the scenarios in which we came together?

Our customer success team threw a baby shower for a coworker and his wife’s upcoming baby girl.
Our sales and marketing teams gathered early in the year for a week of planning and team-building activities.
Our team down in Costa Rica — who are all fully remote — met once a month to work together, have lunch, and go out hiking.

And, of course, we threw a party for the company’s birthday. Check out the winning costume from the costume contest below!

3. Tons and Tons of Content — for YOU

White papers. Research briefs. Educational guides. Case studies. The SchoolMint Insider newsletter. Videos. New webpages on the SchoolMint website. And over 100 blog posts.

2022 was our strongest year for content yet, and I’m not just saying that because I’m SchoolMint’s content marketing manager! Rather, this year, I saw an incredible company-wide effort of people producing content and sharing it with me, often with a humble, “Hey, is this something you find useful?”

Of course, ultimately, it’s not ME who is the person that finds all this stuff useful.

It’s YOU — the district leader, the school principal, the teacher, the paraprofessional, the front desk worker, the admissions and recruitment officer, the guidance counselor, the instructional coach, and on and on and on.

While we produced more content than ever this year, I feel confident about one thing in 2023: we’ll create just as much — if not more — to help you get answers to your burning questions and solutions to your most pressing problems.

By the way, you can sign up for our newsletter here. It goes out every other week.

4. Video Series Launch

This year, we finally leaped into videos! Check out our two new series — The Seg-Mint and Study Hall — at our YouTube channel.

You’ll also find an abundance of product overview videos and a sneak peek at our upcoming interview with the principal of École Saint-Landry Elementary:

5. SchoolMint Engage

As mentioned earlier, we had a slew of product launches this year. Perhaps one of our most exciting (okay, they’re all exciting) launches was that of SchoolMint Engage back in March.

SchoolMint Engage takes the hard work of digital enrollment marketing and recruitment off your plate — and puts it onto ours.

We love digital marketing, but we understand that it can be a lot even for people who do understand it!

You can learn more about the four broad areas of SchoolMint Engage — aka, the four things we can take care of for you — in these previous blogs:

6. Digital Advertising Services

In line with the enrollment and recruitment support SchoolMint Engage provides, we further beefed up our offerings with digital advertising services for schools.

With our acquisition of Enrollhand in April, SchoolMint truly became a global team — as well as capable of providing social media advertising services for schools!

If you’re curious what this looks like in action, you can read how we helped Baltimore International Academy East attract 109 new families here.

7. SchoolMint Insights

We love data. We hope you love it, too. And if you do, SchoolMint Insights just might pique your interest!

SchoolMint Insights launched in May as a solution for school districts to get (you guessed it) insights into student enrollment.

What’s extra cool about SchoolMint Insights is that a.) it’s the only platform of its kind in the industry and b.) it uses a mix of public data (such as review sites and SIS data) and SchoolMint’s proprietary data to give districts insights that no other company can give.

You can learn about all the data sources the platform pulls from on the SchoolMint Insights page.

8. Our SEM Story Grew Stronger

We’ve been introducing schools and districts to the idea of SEM all year long, explaining to leaders everywhere why attracting and retaining students takes a strategic approach.

To help make the idea more digestible, you can click the image below to view our interactive infographic, affectionately dubbed the SEM Cycle:

(Or click here.)

So there! Amid your turkey and togetherness, leave room for dessert along with a heaping of ample appreciation as we head into the most wonderful time of the year.

What are you thankful for? Comment below — I’d love to know!