Lumen Christi Families Reduce Tuition All Summer Long

One key to being a successful scrip coordinator is to set goals for your program. Goals can include how many families are participating, how many orders you want to place in a year, or how much money you want to raise. Marguerite, the coordinator at Lumen Christi Catholic School in Jackson, Michigan, sets her mind on tuition reduction. “My goal each and every day is to help families earn credit toward their school tuition! If I can help them in any way possible, then I have made my job worthwhile.”

For Marguerite, the best way to achieve this goal is to keep their program running all year long. What might sound like a tall order for an organization that has more than 45% of families participating Marguerite has down to a science. “It's a very smooth transition from the school year into summer,” she said. “I find that being open throughout the summer is good for all of us because we stay on track using the program and stay tuned in, and still make purchases.”

Marguerite makes it easy for families to stay on track by keeping the TRIP (Tuition Reduction Incentive Program) store open in the summer for practically the same hours as the school year. “Families are so used to us being open I think it's a natural transition,” Marguerite said. “Plus, I always remind families that I am here all summer. I’ll always plug for more business, and I never pass up a sale!”

Additionally, she opens the doors to families from two of the Jackson elementary schools that feed into the 7th-12th grade Lumen Christi. These schools participate in scrip during the school year, but their programs close for the summer. Allowing these families to join Lumen Christi TRIP over the summer keeps them earning credits toward their child’s enrollment at Lumen Christi.

It could be a challenge keeping these families’ credits organized, but Marguerite manages it all with the help of Scripware™. With Scripware, Marguerite can track credits for these future family accounts, easily keep tabs on the TRIP inventory, and balance families’ online ordering.

For a program that’s actively participated in scrip since 1996, embracing Scripware and online ordering was a big push for Marguerite when she became the coordinator eight years ago. “Online ordering was absolutely not in place before I became coordinator,” Marguerite said. “In fact, we had an old system we used called Scrip2000, and it would just die from time to time. Then voila! Scripware! It was a huge thing to change and also to go online.”

The switch to online ordering and Scripware didn’t come without pause, though. “I was worried about the changeover, and now I like to tell others it really was no problem- it was fear of change for sure,” Marguerite said. She continued, “Online ordering back in 2014 was the wave of the future for me, and I knew our program had to get with the times!”

Marguerite decided to try out online ordering for herself first, and after a few trials, she was sold, and the program hasn’t looked back. “Each month, about 40% of our sales are online sales. I enjoy seeing that number increase as time goes by,” she said. “To me, online ordering is the ticket! Take the time to get families set up for online use. Teach them the simplicity of using the online program.”

In adding online ordering to Lumen Christi TRIP, Marguerite wanted to ensure that it’s the best option for families. “Now, I really love to see all of my families, and it's not that I don't want to see them face-to-face in my office anymore, but it ends up being so much better for them if they participate online because they actually can earn more credits with the 24/7 use.” 

To encourage families to order online, Marguerite shows them the scrip experience. “I like to give them a demonstration right in my office where I’m actually signing in on my iPad and showing them how easy it is to put ScripNow® vendors in the cart, check out, and within a minute or less you have a barcode ready to submit to the store,” she said.

In addition to the demonstration, and an information page on the school website, Marguerite will send out weekly emails telling families about bonuses and how private school fundraising with gift cards can help them save on tuition. And that’s the goal that it all boils down to, as Marguerite said, “When you choose to send your students to Catholic schools and have tuition to pay year round, then you do whatever you can to lower that cost. It's all worth it, and I am truly honored and humbled to be a part of helping all of these great families!”