Charter School Resources: Introducing Our New Client Portal

Our mission is to support charter leaders by providing charter school resources and tools you need to thrive. We pride ourselves on finding innovative solutions to your financing challenges and having the ability to be as creative and flexible as possible to meet your specific needs – when and how you need the support.
Because we specialize in taking on all the administrative pieces of your financing (so you can focus on your mission of educating your students) we recognized that anything we could do to make the process easier would be a win for everyone.
Enter our new Client Portal.
How could we make the process of working with us more simple, coherent, streamlined, and transparent for our clients? How could we provide clients a more holistic view of their unique funding journey? When we began to develop our Client Portal, these are the challenges and questions we aimed to address.

The Idea

A few years back, our Client Services team set out to find a way to efficiently:
• Relay to our school partners what their specific funding requirements are;
• Support clients in being able to easily comprehend those requirements; and,
• Make it easy for them to take action.
School leaders always have a lot on their plate so we wanted to make this process easier for them, but we also wanted to build a solution that – in the future – could offer even more value than just being a transactional tool (read more on this below). The idea of the Client Portal was born from one core aspiration—to deliver a higher quality customer experience to our school partners.

A Team Effort

The Client Portal project was led by our IT Manager and Senior Salesforce Specialist, John Caughie, along with our COO, Kirt Nilsson. But every one of our departments weighed in on the design, navigation, and content requirements—while working alongside our internal Salesforce Team (as well as our external consultants) to implement the Client Portal. Once the project was underway, it took approximately five months of hard work and dedication to see it to today’s first phase of completion.

The Challenges and Lessons Learned

According to our Salesforce Administrator, and a key leader on the project, Jennifer Day, “Deciding what design to go with was by far the biggest question that needed to be answered. Determining what information we wanted clients to see and interact with was easy in comparison to isolating a design that worked within the constructs of the platform but delivered an intuitive and appealing experience for clients. We’ve come a long way since our first user interface designs and are looking forward to streamlining the Client Portal as new features become available.”
One thing we learned was that timelines should never take priority over design and usability. We struggled with that at the onset (our initial timeline was two months), but we extended our deadline to craft a clean and well-designed user experience for our clients.
When rolling out any new “product”, testing is key. So, we beta tested the portal with some courageous clients. Four of our existing clients used the new Client Portal for two months to complete fundings for their schools. During that time, we had some initial bug hiccups when we pushed the Client Portal live, but those were resolved quickly in just a few days. Because of our amazing client and internal staff “testers”, we were able tosuccessfully address all the concerns and suggestions that were made in the first month, and fortunately, the second month ran more smoothly.

The Result

Our new Client Portal means clients can now see what actions need to be taken (e.g., documents that need to be signed, delivered, or returned), on a detailed timeline, to help them more efficiently and more easily finalize their transaction. With this portal, we’re offering our school partners a ‘funding journey’ – from start to finish – that provides more transparency and clarity into what can be a very-opaque process.

“When we first started out in 2014, we had to print out all of the documents, and scan and email, and we had to hurry up and get those things in. And now we have the online portal which really positive. The online portal makes it all much, much easier.”
~Dr. India Ford, T2 Honors Academy

Want an inside look at our Client Portal in action? Watch this short tutorial video!

What’s on the Horizon?

While the Client Portal is ready for all of our clients (currently utilizing our working capital and facilities products) to transition into by the end of the year, we do have much bigger dreams for it. Our ultimate goal with the Client Portal is to provide more than just transactional information. In the future, we intend to provide clients with the ability to:
• Manage all aspects of their transactions (including servicing)
• Discover other products and/or services that support growth and success
• Access all of our handy charter school resources (such as this blog).
One thing that is certain: you have a dedicated, innovative team here at Charter School Capital who will continue to deliver the very best charter school resources, products, solutions, and services that we possibly can to continue our support of charter schools, their leaders, and the movement as a whole.

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.8 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 1,027,000 students across the country.
For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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Charter School Capital FAQs

At Charter School Capital, we believe in the power of charter schools and their leaders to deliver quality education. We can provide reliable funding for charter schools because of the depth of our financial resources and our understanding of the unique issues charter school administrators face. We would like to work with you to help further educational opportunities for charter school students.

Here are the answers to our most frequently asked questions.
Q: How long have you been around and what type of customers do you serve?
We’ve been helping charter schools reach financial stability and grow for over ten years. We’ve served some of the largest charter organizations in the country while also serving some of the smallest schools just starting out. No matter what size you are or what stage of growth you are in, we’d like to customize a solution to fit your needs.
Q: What can I expect from customer service when I choose CSC?
Each client is assigned a dedicated Client Services Representative, Account Manager, Financial Analyst, and an Underwriter to provide the best service in the business.
Q: How long do schools typically fund with CSC?
It depends on the needs of the school (stabilization v. growth); some schools have simple, individual project needs; and some schools have grown into large networks and have been clients for years as we’ve funded their growth.
Q: How do we apply?
Give us a call (toll free) at 877.272.1001 and one of our Client Services Representatives will walk you through the prequalification and application process. Should our programs align with the needs of your school, you’ll fill out a brief online application and we’ll collect additional documentation as needed.
Q: How do we qualify/ What do we need to submit?
Our documentation requirements start with your charter and your financials. Your Client Services Representative will guide you through the process.
Q: What is a “receivables sale?”
In a receivables sale transaction, Charter School Capital purchases state aid payments that are due to the charter school from the state and, in exchange, provides funding to the school in advance of the state payment distribution date.
Q: If we enter into a receivables sale transaction with you and the state delays payments, what are the risks or additional costs to us?
Charter School Capital assumes the timing risk if the state delays the distribution of the payments that are due to the school. There are no additional costs to the charter school in the event the state delays payments.
Q: How does your organization acquire the funds it distributes?
As a responsible capital provider, we have access to reliable capital from private funding sources, assuring we can always support your needs.
Q: Do you require a personal guarantee?
No, we do not require a personal guarantee.
Q: How are we charged? And what are the costs involved?
We charge a discount rate. The discount rate is determined by market-related factors including, but not limited to: short-term interest rates, the type of receivable being sold, the time the receivable is outstanding, the credit profile of the school and market rate returns for similar investments.
Q: Does it take a long time to get funds?
We can sometimes fund in 10 business days for an emergency, but your first funding normally takes four weeks. After your first funding, it typically takes two weeks to fund. Our in-depth process and procedures ensure that we finance charter schools ethically and responsibly.
Q: Can a school receive working capital financing and facilities financing?
Yes, we have schools that leverage both our working capital and facilities financing.
Q: What differentiates your facilities financing program from others?
We purchase buildings and lease them back to charter schools. A long-term lease can provide security and flexibility with relatively little cash up front, compared to other facilities financing options like bonds or other ownership options.
Q: Are there other services you provide?
Our product availability varies with state charter laws. In addition to our working capital and facilities financing, we also can provide:
• Loan products in select states
• Growth funding
• Capital expenditure funding
• Gap funding
• Help with access to grants and donations
• Marketing support
• Charter school informational resources (webinars, blog posts, guides, etc.)
Q: What advantages do you provide that your competitors don’t and why should you choose to partner with us?

We’re mission-driven and 100% dedicated to the charter school space.
Unlike traditional lenders like banks, we work with you to solve the unique challenges you face.
We are dedicated to financing schools ethically and responsibly.
Your success is our success. Our goal is to help your school become financially stable, successful, and set up to serve more students.

You can count on the personable and knowledgeable team at Charter School Capital to find the financial solution that is right for your school, and we’ll provide access to consistent funding you can count on as you grow. Contact us today to learn how we can meet your funding and facility needs.

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

Phone: 503.227.2910 | Toll Free: 877.272.1001
Email: GrowCharters@CharterSchoolCapital.org

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The True Impact of Charter School Capital Funding

At Charter School Capital, we believe in the power of charter schools and their leaders to deliver quality education to families across the country. And we’re proud to provide the reliability and stability charter leaders require as they walk their journey to better educate more students today—and in the future. We were honored to get some of our customers and partners to share with us the true impact of charter school capital funding on their students and schools in this short video.
We are the nation’s leading provider of charter school financing including working and growth capital as well as facilities financing. Over the last 10 years, we’ve put more than $1.7 billion to work for 600+ charter schools educating more than 800,000 students across the country. Not only do we provide funding for charter schools, we also provide strategic planning for growth, financial planning, legislative and state budget insights, charter school resources, and an ongoing commitment to charter schools. To learn how some our clients and partners have been impacted by working with us, take a look at the video. The transcript can be found below.

Intro Speaker 1: I think funding for education, in general, is difficult, but in charter schools, we have some additional problems. One example is the hold-back situation
Intro Speaker 2: For every dollar we’re spending, we’re suddenly only getting sixty cents back during the current year with the promise that next year we’ll pay you back. I mean that was a serious problem for us.
Intro Speaker 3: We’ve made commitments to students, parents, and teachers to provide a high level of education and, unfortunately with the state of the economy and the state of deferrals, we find ourselves having to find different options.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED…

NOT A BANK

Ricardo Mireles, Executive Director, Academia Avance (RM): Starting the relationship with charter school capital is different from what we have experienced with other financial institutions and that they’re very focusing on the viability of the school going forward relative to the charter.

Frank Stucki, Chairman of the Board, Paladin Academy (FS): They have educators on staff, they understand the process, understand what running the school means, so they were different than any other lender that we had talked to. That was refreshing and important.
Dr. Bill Spira, Executive Director, Augsburg Fairview Academy (DBS): That’s something I think that is probably different with most banks, is that they really haven’t gotten the message that charter schools are a dynamic small business.
Dr. John Biroc, Principal, Charter High School of the Arts (DJB): You know, banks, financial institutions, and that seems to me like an awful lot of work that an awful lot of effort. We have bigger fish to fry. We’re trying to educate kids. And Charter School Capital has always stated to us in one way or another, we believe in you.
FS: Their commitment to the industry of charter schools is that I don’t. I don’t know anybody else out there doing that and that’s very, very important.

A RELIABLE OPTION

Becky Meyer, Executive Director, Academy for Science & Agriculture (BM): I never looked at selling receivables previously. Once I understood what it was and how we were going to guarantee our money, then it became a pretty easy process.
Paul Okaiteye, Director of Business Services, New Design Charter Schools (PO): It’s helped us to stay afloat, to be able to stay in business for our teachers and all the employees to have the confidence that when I go to work I can give my all and know that by the end of the period when I’m supposed to get my check, they will come on time.
DJB: They pay us the money up front and then we have the money to pay our teachers, to buy our textbooks, to keep the place clean, and to keep the whole school running.
Sandro Lanni, Founder & President, Charter School Management Corp. (SL): And there isn’t all the legal compliance once a receivable is sold, it’s sold and that’s it. So, it’s just much simpler, cleaner process and a lot of the other options.
Skip Hansen, Senior Vice President, Learn4Life (SH): Unless somebody is going to create vehicles in order for charter schools to really grow and have access to cash, then I’m going to open my arms up to any investors in any business that is going to make greater opportunities for kids to have more schools, have more books, hire teachers and all the things that we want to do.
DBS: The amount of time you have to spend convincing a skittish banker that you are worth taking the risk, is time you don’t spend focusing on your real needs. And that to me is fundamentally one of the structural values of financing by the sale of receivables. That’s a wonderful model.

A STEADY RELATIONSHIP

Sabrina Bow, Executive Director, New City Public Schools (SB): I view them as a close partner. It’s never been a doubt for me that Charter School Capital is deeply concerned, deeply interested in the well-being of schools.
RM: You’ve been working with charter school capital now for four years. They’ve been flexible, and they’ve been very professional, and they’ve allowed us to stay focused on our students.
Joanna Koenig, Engagement Director, Clifton/Larsen/Allen (JK): The knowledge that it’s a partnership long-term was very, very important. I don’t know how you can run a school when you never know if next year I’ll get that funding or not.
Xavier Reyes, Executive Director, Academia Moderna (XR): They want schools to be healthy financially and otherwise because at the end of the day, who they serve and who we serve are the same people.
PO: They’re very professional. They want to get you what you need.
BM: They spent a lot of time at our school. They got to know staff members. They got to know students and they worked with us. They seem to be proud of our accomplishments as any one of the members of our community would be.
Eric Mahmoud, Founder/CEO, BEST Academy (EM): It was more than just writing us a check. We had a very good relationship during the years that we’ve been using Charter School Capital.

BUILDING ON SOLID GROUND

JK: If we weren’t able to find an organization like charter school capital who was willing and able to provide the funding that we needed, I can’t imagine we would have survived.
PO: They have been a lifeline because they have come through for us at times when we needed it the most. And they have done things in the setting of timing that other institutions have not been able to do.
DJB: We need them. We need them desperately. And I could see where any charter school under these conditions would need Charter School Capital to keep their school alive.
EM: Now, I think it was a good business decision and as a result, we’ve been able to move our children where they need to be academically.
XR: If it wasn’t for charter school capital, we would not be here today. We would not be serving those kids that need it really bad.
SH: I think we’ve served another 2000 students in the last two years because of the availability of cashflow financing. Those are 2000 kids that could on to cure cancer or do something really great in our society.
BM: I think they’re interested in making sure that charter schools are successful and that’s an important piece to me.
EM: Based on all the options that were available to us, Charter school capital was the best option.
Sandro Lanni, Founder & President, Charter School Management Corp.: In the end, that is why we’re all here and the bottom line is if this option was not around, there’d be a lot of kids that would not be able to participate in their local charter school because their local charter school would not be open.

Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on charter school capital funding since the company’s inception in 2007. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to make a difference to students, schools, and communities across the country. Ask us how we can help your school.

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Charter School Capital: Why Partner With Us

At Charter School Capital, we believe in the power of charter schools and their leaders to deliver quality education to families across the country. And we’re proud to provide the reliability and stability charter leaders require as they walk their journey to better educate more students today—and in the future.

MISSION DRIVEN

Charter School Capital is 100% dedicated to the charter school space and we measure our success by the number of students we serve. Our ultimate goal is to help the charter school movement grow and flourish, and be able to serve more students. We take pride in the social impact that we’re supporting by helping charter schools succeed.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS

We find innovative solutions to your financing challenges and pride ourselves on having the ability to be as creative, flexible, and innovative as possible to meet your specific needs – when you need the support. We take on all the administrative pieces of your financing, so you can focus on your mission—educating students.

DEDICATED & RESPONSIBLE PARTNER

Our in-depth process and procedures ensure that we finance charter schools ethically and responsibly. And, our near-zero percent default rate is a testament to our fiscal responsibility. Our knowledgeable, dedicated team of finance professionals will work together with you to find sustainable solutions to ensure that your school succeeds now—and as you grow.

YOUR SUCCESS IS OUR SUCCESS

When you no longer need Charter School Capital, that means we’ve done our job and your school has become financially stable, successful, and set up for future growth. We want your school to be healthy and your operations sustainable so you can continue to serve more and more students.

Want to see what some of our school partners have to say about working with us? Watch this short video.

To download the Why Partner with Us PDF, click here.

Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, please contact us. We’d love to work with you!
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Sharing Charter School Capital’s Values: Accountability

Sharing our Values

At Charter School Capital (CSC), accountability is key. We hold each other accountable to core company values as the driving force and foundation of what we do. These values are our guiding principles as we work together to more effectively support the growth and development of our charter school partners. And, as a result, Charter School Capital is a proven catalyst for charter school growth. In CSC’s ten years, we very proud to say that we’ve helped finance the education of more than 800,000 students in over 600 charter schools across the United States.
We measure everything we do by these core values:
• Best-in-Class
• Empowerment
• Innovation
• Teamwork
• Accountability
In this blog series, we wanted to spotlight how all of us at CSC work to exemplify these core values. For this, the final post of the series, we’ll dive deeper into what accountability means to us and how we embody and reflect this goal both internally and what that means for our charter school partners.
To get some expert insight into how we strive to live up to the value of accountability, I was looking forward to sitting down with Matt Percin, Manager of Financial Analysis and Risk here at Charter School Capital. Matt is part of our finance team who are responsible for two key things:

Building out valuation models
Financial analyses

For each school we’re working with, our team looks at their entire financial situation in order to provide the tailored support they need. If we find any potential issues or gaps in their cash flow where they may need support, we then help those schools figure out exactly where the problems are—and even build out plans for them—to show them how to support their stability and growth.
Matt– selected by CSC leadership as the embodiment of the value of accountability here at CSC – has been with Charter School Capital for five years, starting as a Financial Analyst, then moving up to Sr. Financial Analyst, and most recently he’s been promoted to be the manager for the Finance and Risk team.
Sitting down with Matt I was curious to know:
• How having accountability adds value to our teams
• How accountability helps us directly support our clients
• How our culture of accountability builds trust
• If accountability helps us be more invested in our mission

How does having accountability add value to our organization?

In this series about Charter School Capital’s values, we’ve spoken about empowerment, being best-in-class, teamwork, and innovation. All of those values seemed pretty straight-forward as to how they impact our daily work and add value to our company. I’m not sure why, but accountability seemed a little more nebulous to me. I directly asked Matt that question. Why is accountability one of our values and how does he think it impacts our organization?
“Accountability is important as an internal value here. We’re trying to serve a specific population in the education space. And, a lot of what we do in the financial realm is pretty technical. So we’d definitely have to hold each other accountable for all things—both the good things and even the mistakes.
You have to own your own work because, like with any organization, everything you’re producing always flows to somebody else. So always being able to take accountability for whatever you’re producing is very important… it’s actually vital to hold yourself accountable or even hold somebody else accountable—even though sometimes it’s difficult.
That’s how people actually learn. And there’s always some type of coaching or learning moment that comes out of a mistake. There are always things here that pop up – and it might be one little thing that nobody would notice. But if you can figure it out and then share it with the people around you (that have a similar role) everybody benefits.“

It’s all about our clients

If it seems like a broken record, apologies, but the fact remains—we care about the success of our school partners. In other words, we take accountability for their sustainability, growth, and longevity. I asked Matt his thoughts on how we best serve our clients and support their mission.
“We’re always going above and beyond, but I think accountability is also about being creative and figuring out new strategies to help clients. There’s a lot of schools that have very unique situations. We understand the intricacies of the charter school movement and over time, have gained a lot of experience. We continually strive to get better at being able to adapt quickly for new problems.
Sometimes clients come to us asking for something we’ve never done before and so we may not even know what that solution is when first approached. But all of a sudden, we get a team of people that just start researching and trying to figure out how to solve the problem. Figuring out how to accelerate the most capital possible for clients while they’re growing adds a lot of value because they can keep ramping up and serving more kids in the community and building out their mission.”

Accountability=Trust

Our clients trust us to go the extra mile. At CSC all arrows point to the fact that we take the time and care to build relationships with our school partners. Every team member on each account feels responsible for the school’s success and ownership for their part of the equation. By having this team of dedicated professionals who connect with school leaders in this way, trust is a natural – and happy – consequence. I asked Matt about what trust means both internally and externally with our clients and how that ties into being accountable.
“I think there’s a lot of trust in our organization. And it stems from the top down. Everything needs to start with the leadership for everyone below the leadership to feel empowered to do whatever their job or their role is. Because if the leadership trusts all the people they’ve hired and mentor, it flows to everybody else.”
But of course, accountability is about more than trust within the organization, right? I asked Matt how trust plays a role in his client relationships.
“There are some clients I’ve been working with for years now and there’s definitely a very strong connection and mutual trust that has been built. We’ll be asked things that normally we wouldn’t have been asked because the relationship is so strong. They may come to us and say, ‘Here’s something we’ve been working on, can you add your insight and expertise to it?’ That relationship adds up to you being accountable to them and feeling that connection.”

Accountable Accounting

Because everyone here is so mission driven, we are truly motivated by how many students we serve. And we know that by helping our schools be successful, we are helping them serve even more students. Matt’s team of comprehensive and caring finance professionals seems to always go above and beyond with our clients to do everything in their power to ensure that they succeed and grow. I asked Matt if he had any specific examples of how our culture of accountability directly impacted our school partners as it related to his work.
“There are several examples where we have found unique ways of looking at things and have helped clients tremendously beyond where they normally think we would help them. There was actually an error made at one state’s Department of Education with the amount of money that was sent to one of our school partners. We did some math and looked at our value models and said to them that we think you’re actually owed a substantial amount of additional funding from the state. After sending over our calculations, the issue was escalated it to the county (or whoever ended up looking at our math) and then the state realized ‘you guys are right, we didn’t do that correctly’. And then they sent the school a wire for the amount they deserved.”
Now that’s some accountable accounting. (Apologies, I couldn’t resist.)

Motivated by the Mission

At CSC, our ultimate goal is to help the charter school movement grow and flourish, and as mentioned (repeatedly), serve more students. Because we take pride in the social impact that we’re supporting by helping charter schools succeed, I asked Matt how that mission helps direct and motivate his work – and how that ties back to being accountable to the success of our clients.
“I think the charter school movement is a powerful movement. I’m on the financial side of the role and am looking at numbers a lot. But, over the past couple of years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet, interact, and engage with the clients I’ve worked with in person. Remembering the powerful things that schools are doing and actually seeing the kids inside the school reminds you that what you’re doing in [the office] is actually benefiting somebody and it makes it all tangible.
Some of the clients that I work with rely on us for extra assistance and guidance. Sometimes, just being face to face makes that interaction much more successful, especially if you have to overcome a difficult obstacle together. It helps our clients realize that we actually are their partner. That is a pretty unique thing, that type of relationship. ”

Conclusion

So did that nebulous concept of accountability become more clear to me after speaking with Matt? Absolutely. Here’s what I now know:
Being accountable, or having accountability means;
• we’re responsible for our client’s success,
• we own our work,
• accept and learn from our mistakes, and
• earn the trust of our co-workers as well as our school partners.
And, it means that when we see a need – beyond what’s right in front of us – we go the extra mile to help us achieve our mission and even more important, help our school partners achieve theirs.

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SHARING OUR VALUES: TEAMWORK

At Charter School Capital, we hold each other accountable to core company values as the driving force and foundation of what we do. These values are our guiding principles as we work together to more effectively support the growth and development of our charter school partners. And, as a result, Charter School Capital is a proven catalyst for charter school growth. In CSC’s ten years, we very proud to say that we’ve helped finance the education of more than 800,000 students in over 600 charter schools across the United States.
We measure everything we do by these core values:
• Best-in-Class
• Empowerment
• Innovation
• Teamwork
• Accountability
In this blog series, we wanted to spotlight how all of us at CSC work to exemplify these core values. For this, the third post of the series, we’ll dive deeper into what teamwork means to us and how we embody and reflect this goal both internally and what that means for our charter school partners.
Teamwork seems to be at the core of everything we do here at CSC. Each team relies on each other to support our charter school partners in their success.

A culture of teamwork

To get some expert insight into how we strive to live up to the value of teamwork, I was pleased to sit down with Marci Phee, Client Services Director here at Charter School Capital. Once a school comes on board with us, Marci’s team ensures that the funding is working for the school in the way that they want it to; that they’re getting their funding, assistance, and support on time; and that our team is available to help the school with whatever needs they may have.
Marci – selected by CSC leadership as the embodiment of the value of teamwork here at CSC – has been with Charter School Capital for three years, and has been key in building our team culture. One of her early missions was to help her team build a deep but practical understanding of the value gained from partnering with other teams across the organization and how working as a team would help us better achieve our goals.
Sitting down with Marci, I was curious to know:
• How one goes about building a high-performing team
• How teamwork helps us directly support our clients
• How being passionate about our mission plays into our value of teamwork
• What actionable things that we do to support teamwork

A shared vision

I began our conversation by asking Marci how the team stays on course to do what is in the best interest of the company and our schools. And her immediate response was all about the shared vision – or the collective understanding of the direction we’re all headed—and it’s all about how we serve our customers.
“For our team to work well together, the first step is for everyone to understand where we’re all going. That means when we bring a school on board and commit to funding that school, we’re all in. Everyone knows that the goal is not just to deliver funding, it’s to deliver what each school needs or wants, whether that is a renovated gym or some operational help to get through the end of the school year.
When we commit and say, ‘yes, we’ll provide that funding,’ what we’re really saying is, ‘yes, we will get you where you want to go.’ And every member of our team—whether it’s underwriting or finance or the executives or the account managers—knows what the end goal is. That’s where we’re going. A common goal makes it much easier to work together as a team.”

A dedicated team

One of the things I’ve come to understand in my few months here at CSC– that perhaps makes us a bit different than others in our industry – is the comprehensive team of finance professionals we put in place to work with every single one of our school partners. This knowledgeable, dedicated team works together with our schools to find sustainable solutions to ensure that they succeed in the near term and as they grow. I wanted to ask Marci to clarify how that team is assembled and how they create the framework that helps them work together in the best interest of our school partners.
“Every school in our portfolio has essentially three charter school capital members who are assigned to their account and know it very well. Very, very well. There’s always a primary point of contact who will be the dedicated account manager. That is the one person you can always call. That’s just part of a core, client-facing team that includes the account manager, a financial analyst, and an underwriter. If something comes up and the school needs a different financing option, or they have questions regarding corporate structure or education, they know that their team will support them. This is the case throughout the life of our clients, even as their financial needs change.”

The three C’s

Marci shares, more specifically, how this multi-faceted team structure works so effectively. It comes down to three words: Cooperation, Collaboration, and Communication – the three C’s.
“Because there’s an assigned team that is responsible for knowing the school, it just makes it easier to cooperate. Everyone knows who their partner is cross-functionally. And, from a collaboration standpoint, everybody has the same goal and everybody’s willing to help and have open lines of communication. People here show up to meetings, are responsive to emails, have informal text messages, just walk by and say, ‘Hey, I need your help.’ We share at water cooler conversations, joint coffee runs, and chats riding up in the elevator—and all of that pieces together to deliver the best product in partnership to the school.”

Grit, Creativity, Partnership

Marci has built a high-performing team of people who are dedicated, hard-working, and are master collaborators. I wanted to know what characteristics she looks for when building a team, and what qualities she thinks makes a great team player.
And, her first, out-of-the-gate response was “Grit. It’s that ‘never die’ mentality. There has to be a solution. There has to be a way. There’s always a way. I need that creativity and creative problem solving in each of my team members.”
This immediately reminded me of our interview with John Caughie on the value of innovation here at CSC and how it’s one of the reasons we’re different. We see solutions where other financial institutions may see red flags. We pride ourselves on supporting team members to find those innovative, creative solutions our schools need to be successful and sustainable.
And, in addition to grit and creativity, Marci was clear that having an “inclination towards partnership” was also key. I asked her to explain what she meant by that.
“It’s really important that our dedicated account managers partner with the school’s business, with the school’s goals. If I stop an account manager in the hallway and ask, ‘What is the objective for X, Y, Z charter school for the year?’ they need to be able to articulate exactly what it is. This is not about money, this is about partnering with the school to understand what they’re trying to achieve. And then it’s our job to provide the tools and resources to help them get there. But you can only do that through a true partnership. You have to establish trust and work as a team, with the client. So, I need that inclination towards partnership to really stand alongside our school leaders and decision makers and get them where they want to go, day in and day out.

It’s all about the students

A shared vision, a dedicated team of professionals, and student focus are all vital to our embodiment of the teamwork value. But all that would mean nothing if we didn’t truly love partnering with our schools and the students they’re educating.
Marci explains, “In the three years I’ve done this, our efforts have always tied to a student outcome in some way. When you understand student success as an organization, and your team understands that student success is the heartbeat of our organization, and we partner with the school and they understand how we feel about student success, and everybody’s on the same page, it’s just more efficient. There’s a lot more trust, and honestly, it’s a lot more fun!
One of our favorite things to do is to go to the school. You are just very happy to see the client and it’s even better when you get to tour the schools and meet the students and see what our funding has done to help them move forward. Or you’re standing there with the school leaders on a big plot of land and they’re saying ‘This is going to be a performing arts center,’ you get to stand there with them and say, ‘yeah, that’s going to be so great.’”

Teamwork does make the dream work

So, it’s clear that we have a mission-driven dedicated team, who cooperate, collaborate, and communicate, but I must conclude this post with the one single thing that is the heart and soul of everything we do—the students.
“One of our driving metrics of students served. I haven’t encountered a single school relationship where the ask for the funding or the need for the funding was not somehow tied to better serving their existing students or to serve more students in the community. Our focus is always on the needs of the school and we will adjust our product based on that need—and that need is always tied to a student. Always.” shares Marci.
What I’ve really taken away from my energizing chat with Marci, is that teamwork really does make the dream work here. I know, such a cliché. But it’s true! Because of our internal investment in teamwork and a shared vision – where we always have the students at the forefront – we’re able to support schools when and how they need it, and work as a team with charter school leaders to make their dreams for their schools happen.

Conclusion

The positivity and chemistry of the entire CSC team is both motivational and inspirational. I love that I have the honor to be part – even a small one – of such a mission-driven, team-focused group of professionals.

Sharing Charter School Capital’s Values: Innovation

Sharing Our Values

At Charter School Capital, we hold each other accountable to core company values as the driving force and foundation of what we do. These values are our guiding principles as we work together to more effectively support the growth and development of our charter school partners. And, as a result, Charter School Capital is a proven catalyst for charter school growth. In CSC’s ten years, we very proud to say that we’ve helped finance the education of more than 800,000 students in over 600 charter schools across the United States.
We measure everything we do by these core values:
” Best-in-Class
” Empowerment
” Innovation
” Teamwork
” Accountability
In this blog series, we wanted to spotlight how all of us at CSC work to exemplify these core values. For this, the third post of the series, we’ll dive deeper into what innovation means to us and how we embody and reflect this goal both internally and what that means for our charter school partners.
What I’m finding, after doing several of these posts, and interviewing some amazing members of our team, is that these values are so deeply intertwined, that you actually can’t speak about one without simultaneously touching on the others. They’re proving to be beautifully interdependent values that drive everything we do here.

Technology and Innovation

To get some expert insight into how we strive to live up to the value of Innovation, who better to speak with than John Caugie, IT Manager here at Charter School Capital (CSC)? John has been with Charter School Capital for six years, so he’s seen quite a bit of change and been instrumental in our technological innovations. He was selected by CSC leadership as the embodiment of the Innovation value here at CSC, so I was really looking forward to learning more about his role here-and as he hails from bonny Scotland, I have no shame in saying that I was excited to sit and listen to his charming accent.
Sitting down with John, I was curious to know:

how he thinks we support our employees with new technology
how we go about making innovative changes with our technology
how thinking outside the box with our technology solutions is inherently innovative; and
how that all translates to putting our customers first.

John’s role has undergone quite a change since he started here six years ago having come onboard as a Financial Analyst, then transitioned to our Salesforce Administrator, and was most recently promoted to IT Manager. But, from his perspective, these changes in title were simply a shift in focus – and much of that has to do with the decision to change our main technology platform.
Several years ago, he along with our executive team, realized that FileMaker Pro (then, a basic database software system reliant on a cumbersome Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection) was no longer serving our purposes, and wouldn’t help us to continue to grow and serve more clients. It was time for a change.

Trusting a vision

Knowing that being restrained by FileMaker Pro – and dialing into a VPN server – would not be able to effectively support our team (that was beginning to spread out across geographies), the next step had to be a move to a platform that only requires internet access rather than the more cumbersome and limiting VPN connectivity to our internal network. It was time for a major shift to cloud-based Salesforce, providing better access to our remote teams, and better service to our clients.
When we switched to Salesforce, it wasn’t nearly advanced as it is today, but they had a solid roadmap for their product, and we trusted in the belief that their vision would propel us forward. “People in our company had the vision that to see some sort of platform that everyone could use beneficially. Every department, not just sales, but underwriting, client services, facilities, and finance. So we shared the vision and were willing to take the risk to get this into one platform. Being able to think about the future is also innovation,” shares John.

Innovation to support our team and our customers

I wondered what John thought about how innovating (by changing our technology) has had an impact on both our team internally as well as on our customers. “As far as our team goes, that’s the whole idea … to try and get more of our people in the platform and help them get trained to make us a more productive company. We can use Salesforce to see when someone logs in, what state they’re in, what client they represent, and we’ll know their history, so we can tailor messaging and contact that’s perfect for that individual at that time. Every department can interact and find more opportunities to support our clients from start to finish. It’s all about the client, the customer is number one,” says John.
We went on to talk about a few of the innovations on the horizon and John shared, “One of our main goals is to use Salesforce Communities to get our external clients engaged with the platform as well so that they can log in and see where they are at every stage in the funding process. For example, if we have a 10-stage process, they can log in and see ‘hey, we’re at stage seven so I still have to upload these documents.’ This helps them get more visibility, clarity, and control over the entire process with a single source of shared information.” John also spoke of his plan for moving our files to the cloud, for the same reason we moved from FileMaker Pro to Salesforce. So that more people on our team, in more geographies, have more access to our information so they can better do their jobs and serve our customers.

Risk vs Reward

Such a dramatic shift in a company’s core technology can be fraught with risks. I asked John about innovation and risk…and how they play together when making decisions.
“With innovation in technology, there’s always a degree of risk. Because technology changes so rapidly, there are two schools of thought, you either keep up with the latest and greatest or you stick with what you’ve got and if it works, then why change it.
I think we’re sort of somewhere in between. I do want to try to keep up-to-date with the newest functionality. The problem is that it may break something else. But, if you stick with what you’ve got that you know works, you stagnate, and you might miss out on something that helps propel the business forward. If we had stayed with FileMaker Pro just because it works, we wouldn’t be where we are today, and we wouldn’t be looking into moving into Salesforce Communities to give clients access.
You always have to weigh the pros and cons of short-term pain, but there’s the long-term gain to consider. So, I think the communities project we’re considering will have that long-term gain -and the benefits should be tremendous.”

Innovating Together

Taking on such a huge company-wide technology shift can be a scary endeavor. I asked John how he went about getting this project underway, and no surprise to me, teamwork (one of our core values) came up. John explains how collective experience comes together for the benefit of the vision, “One of the initial phases of this project was putting together a cross-functional team – this integrated unit – and we all work together to say ‘Hey, what about this, what about that? Does this sound like a good idea that would support our clients? What wouldn’t work?’ I think it makes the whole process a lot easier because you’re involving everyone in innovation as opposed to just one or two people sitting in a dark room saying. This is a good idea. Why don’t we do this?
When you just have one person’s point of view, you tend to put your blinders on and just focus on one thing, but when everyone has a look at it – bringing their past experiences, interactions with different people, and platforms – it all comes together to help us be visionary collectively rather than individually.”

Innovative=Industrious=Inquisitive

It’s fantastic to work as a team to find solutions, but I wanted to know how John takes personal responsibility for being innovative individually as well. “Having Experience is great, but there’s also inquisitiveness and industriousness. If you only rely on your experiences, then you’re limited. You have to google it. Google’s a great place for looking things up. ‘How do people do this? What’s the platform that other people use?’ I do it on a regular basis because that’s where a lot of answers are. No doubt people have come across a lot of these issues before – maybe for something completely unrelated to finance or charter schools – but a solution they’re using in the health industry may actually work for us. Being visionary or innovative is not just coming up with something that’s remarkable that you and only you have done. It’s also about seeing what other people are doing and incorporating that into your processes to make your resource investments better.”
(It’s good to know that even the most technical people google things, right?)

Conclusion

I conclude our conversation by asking John if there is actually danger in not innovating … of being complacent? And, in his very captivating accent, John eloquently (but with conviction) ends our conversation by saying, “You will never grow. You will always be who you are both personally and as a company. We always have to look at what will make things better for us. What will make it better for the clients especially, and how we can propel things forward so that life is just easier for everyone.”
I’ve learned from John, that in order to be innovative, you have to take risks, involve a team of experienced collaborators, do your homework, and have the right goals in mind. Our spirit of innovation at Charter School Capital is always guided by one question – will it help us serve our customers better? And that’s a goal this mission-driven gal can get behind.

Charter School Capital’s Values: Empowerment

Sharing our Values

Best-in-Class
Empowerment
Innovation
Teamwork
Accountability

In this blog series, we wanted to spotlight how all of us at CSC work to exemplify these core values. For this, the second post of the series, we’ll dive deeper into what empowerment means to us and how we embody and reflect this goal both internally and with our charter school partners.
After over one month here as a member of the Charter School Capital team, it’s already become clear to me—and quite refreshing—that our values are, indeed, a way of life here. They’re simply woven into the fabric of daily life at the office. It’s so refreshing to be a part of such a healthy non-siloed environment where there’s a shared passion and mission infusing every action. The claps and cheers reverberate through our all-hands meeting as our President and CEO (co-founder), Stuart Ellis shares our goal to reach one million students served this year.

Empowered as Individuals

To get some expert insight into how we strive to live up to the value of Empowerment, I sat down with Corey Brock, Senior Paralegal for Charter School Capital (CSC). Corey has been with Charter School Capital for five years so has seen our rapid growth and been instrumental in being a part of our cultural development. He was selected by CSC leadership as the embodiment of the Empowerment value here at CSC, so I was really looking forward to getting to know him better—and learn why he was chosen as our representative for this value. And, after meeting with him, as it did with Nancy Edmiston in our Best-In-Class values post, it became clear.
When I sat down with Corey, I really wanted to understand what he thinks CSC means when we talk about empowerment—and how our company not only empowers its employees to be their best, but how we empower the schools we work with to achieve and even exceed their goals.
So, I began by simply asking how he feels he’s empowered here, in his own job, at Charter School Capital. “I’m allowed by the leadership members that I work with to constantly be thinking outside the box and find creative solutions … if you see something that needs doing, you just go do it. And then if you see a need that we have, by all means, take it, run with it and make it your own. Empowerment here actually equals creativity and flexibility,” Corey explained.
He recognizes that this spirit of empowerment has a broad effect on the entire CSC team as he seen coworker after coworker “not only growing their careers but growing as people.” He’s seen so many people move up in the organization because, in large part, they’re empowered to “think outside the box they were put in.”

“Empowerment here actually equals creativity and flexibility.” ~Corey Brock

Empowered to Face Challenges

I asked Corey how he felt CSC’s spirit of empowerment plays a part in helping employees overcome any challenges they may face. He was unhesitant in his response. “The leadership has empowered me to take on challenges, and this shows me that they trust my work and that, in turn, fosters trust. They don’t give you work you can’t handle—and there’s no fail here. Yes, there are times that maybe things didn’t go as planned, but the thing that I’ve always been impressed with is, when that happens, you’re not viewed as though you’ve failed. It’s like, OK, this is an opportunity to grow, and then … how do we move on from here?”
“I’m also empowered to speak up. I feel more empowered to raise my hand when I see something going off the rails or something’s just not working. This is one of the few places that I’ve ever worked at that I actually have a voice.”

Empowering Charter Schools

After feeling inspired and ready to conquer the world based on Corey’s explanations of how our leaders empower employees here to be creative and innovative without fear, I really wanted to understand how he thinks all of this translates to our customers. How do we empower our charter school partners in the same way we inspire that spirit internally?

“I’m so comfortable with everyone I work with, especially leadership, and I feel like that comes from the empowerment that they have given to me. The spirit of CSC is that whatever you do, whatever your role is, whatever you are brought in to do you, you are part of the success. I truly feel that they have my back, and that is extremely inspiring.” ~Corey Brock

“One of our mottos is ‘We’re here to help,’ and we are. Our schools are not static, cookie-cutter organizations. They have a plan or a mission, and sometimes they need a little assistance reaching their goals. We’re empowered to help them to do that. We as a company, and we as employees have to be able to be as creative and flexible as possible to meet their specific needs at specific times, help them improve their financial health, or just help them grow … and we empower our schools by giving them the stability that they may need,” shares Corey.
“Our founders and employees are incredibly passionate about charter schools. I’m excited to be a part of a mission-driven company where everybody really is here to support the birth of these charter schools and help them be successful.”
He goes on to explain that we partner with our schools to balance each other’s’ strengths. “We’re saying, you don’t need to worry about x, y, and z. You can focus on what you’re really trying to accomplish. Let us worry about this part of for you.” To me, that feels empowering. By doing what we do best, we enable school leaders to focus on their true goals—educating students.

Conclusion

I feel like the best leaders I’ve ever had were those who saw my strengths and enabled me to find and implement creative, innovative solutions to challenges without fear of failure. And what I’ve learned from Corey, is Charter School Capital understands that by empowering each team member in this way, we’re ultimately empowering the success and growth of the charter schools we serve—and the charter movement as a whole. These words, these values, are not just lip service here at CSC, “Words like best-in-class, and empowerment … they are in our daily, our hourly lexicon,” says Corey. “They are just part of our culture now.”

SHARING OUR VALUES

Best-in-Class
Empowerment
Innovation
Teamwork
Accountability

In this blog series, we wanted to spotlight how all of us at CSC work to exemplify these core values. For this, the first post of the series, we’ll dive deeper into what best-in-class means to us and how we strive to meet such an aspirational goal.
As the newest member of the Charter School Capital team, it’s already become clear to me—and quite refreshing—that best-in-class is indeed a way of life here. I see it in the way everyone interacts with each other on a daily basis, I see it in the support and encouragement I’ve received since day one – from everyone – regardless of their department, and I see it in how individuals and teams coach and enable each other to succeed by helping schools succeed in educating more and more students each day.

BEST-IN-CLASS

To get some expert insight into how we strive to be best-in-class, I sat down with Nancy Edmiston, Assistant General Counsel for Charter School Capital (CSC). Nancy was selected as the embodiment of the Best-in-Class value here at CSC, so I was really looking forward to getting to know her better—and learn why leadership had chosen her as their representative on this value. And, after meeting with her, it became clear.
Nancy has been with CSC for a little over three years now and been an integral part of CSC’s continued growth and the development of the CSC corporate culture. Because it’s such a lofty subject, we broke down our discussion into several topics that embody “best-in-class” attributes and how CSC sets about living up to those values.
We deliver. According to Nancy, what’s best for our clients is for us to develop and deliver a dependable and reliable financing product to our customer. “There’s a lot of pride in ownership in the delivery of such a high-quality product,” she said.
“Best in class for us is being able to provide products that are tailored to serve the needs of charter schools and the teachers out there who are providing educations to all of their students. And there’s a certain reliability when you’re best in class, you’re accountable, you empower your employees both individually and as a team to develop it all—and in the end, it benefits the customer.”
For all of at CSC, best-in-class means “when our clients succeed, we succeed.” But I wanted to get Nancy’s take…
“We put our schools’ success at the forefront, working with them beyond just helping them finance their growth or facility. We help them when things might get tough as well and help figure out why it is that everything’s upside down, and what we have to do to right the ship again to get them back on course. We’re providing a lot of value-added guidance, services and advice to help right those upside-down schools. Because their success is our success.
And, as a function of us having provided financing, we’ve actually helped a lot of schools become stronger over the long run. Because, as we’re providing finances and we’re seeing some early signals that there may be problems on the horizons, we can start proactively working with them to help. We can help them better understand that they may need to trim expenses so that they’re not in the red or even introduce them to back office providers who might be able to provide a service that would help them with their bookkeeping and other administrative support.
Being best in class means continually asking, are you best at serving the needs of your client? Does this help our client? Are we beneficially serving the charter school movement and the charter schools that we work with? Because our mission is to help the charter schools—and be able to deliver all of the products and provide services that fulfill the needs of the charter school movement, as a whole,” says Nancy.

CONCLUSION

After my inspiring chat with Nancy Edmiston, I can easily say that I was even more enthusiastic about being a part of the CSC team. And, I was able to glean the heart of CSC’s motivation behind achieving this aspirational “best-in-class” goal: Everything we do at Charter School Capital is in service to the mission, in service to our clients, and service to the charter school movement.

Happy New Year!
At Charter School Capital, we provide charter schools growth capital and facilities financing nationwide, and we’re always keeping an eye out to add great talent to our team. We look for prospective team members with qualities that fit our core values – empowerment, teamwork, innovation, accountability, and best-in-class. With 2018 now upon us—and continued growth across the organization after another successful year—we’re excited to announce that we’re hiring!
The Finance and Risk team has an immediate opening for a Real Estate Analyst to join our group. This position will play an instrumental role in helping CSC analyze and value real estate opportunities and charter schools with a finance perspective, as well as work cross-functionally within the greater organization. Please head to the job posting on our careers page for a more detailed understanding of the role and responsibilities of this position.
And, as we continue to grow and expand into more states, we’re also looking for some exceptional talent to be a part of our Client Services team! Our newest openings for Client Services Representative (CSR) will be primarily responsible for expanding Charter School Capital (CSC) Services within the Northeast and the Southeast regions of the United States. The CSR will understand the strategic growth initiatives of Charter Schools and position CSC as a key partner to achieve these goals, negotiating and closing new business agreements of CSC services. Additionally, the CSR will increase brand awareness of CSC throughout the assigned territory.
If you’re interested in these roles or if you know a candidate who you think would be a good fit for our team, please contact us at careers@charterschoolcapital.com please visit our Careers page!
Come grow with us!