NOLS Board of Trustees February Meeting

I am writing from Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico where I am attending the NOLS Board meeting. We have 100% attendance from this high-achieving, talented group of volunteers.

Today started off with Board committee meetings. I attended the Alumni and Development Committee meeting and, of course, the Marketing Committee. In the Alumni and Development Committee we discussed the plans for completing the International Base Camp Initiative by the end of the year. A bit more than two million dollars is needed to complete this ten million dollar campaign. Much of the meeting was devoted to polishing the language in the school’s Gift Acceptance Guidelines. It is impressive the amount of the thought that goes into fund-raising and how NOLS wants to do it.

In the marketing committee we covered a lot of ground. Much of the focus was on the admission and marketing department’s efforts to decrease the number of students who apply for a course, but then cancel. We also had a wide ranging discussion about the NOLS brand focusing on the issue by looking at positioning, product, pricing and promotion. It was felt by the committee that the NOLS brand is a strong one, but that we are not widely known. We are better known than just a few years ago and we are very well-known within the outdoor community.

In the afternoon the full board met and heard reports from the various board committees. A wide variety of topics were flying around the table, from marketing studies , to compensation, to polar bears on Baffin Island.

NOLS is blessed with great board who give very willingly their time and talents.

Tomorrow we head to the NOLS Mexico facility on Coyote Bay where the board meeting will continue followed by a pig roast on the beach. Then most of the board will hit the water in sea kayaks and sailboats while most of the staff head back to what I hear is snow-covered Lander, Wyoming.

Signing off!

Bruce Palmer, NOLS marketing director