THE STORY OF SAINT TIKHON’S SEMINARY
“What do we need to bring students in?” one of the board members wondered aloud, “our reputation for turning out excellent scholars and priests is unrivaled!”
He was right.Saint Tikhon’s Seminary is the oldest Eastern Orthodox school in the country, connected to the oldest Orthodox monastery in the country. Now canonized saints once walked and taught there. And some of the foremost Orthodox scholars and priests studied there.
But no new students were applying. And no one knew why.
That’s why they flew me in for consultation – that trip resulted in a series of ten videos, variously filmed and edited for the sake of recruiting. When the campaign went live, and the videos were posted to social media, applications began flying in. And that year, their total year-end donation yield doubled.
Today, years later, 85–90% of the student body points towards the recruiting videos as the determining factor in their decision to move across the country to attend Saint Tikhon’s.
