SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT
Grapevine Faith Christian School
A Redesign for Results, Retention, and the Full Family Journey
Grapevine Faith Christian School already had the heart, story, and community families loved: strong academics, competitive athletics, vibrant creative arts, and a faith-centered community known for its family feel.
But for the Texan school, the challenge was helping families understand the full story sooner.
“We were basically a staff of two,” shared marketing and communications lead Tammy Peden, who had been using Blackbaud before moving the school’s site to WordPress for a little over a year.
The site looked fine, but it wasn’t helping the team gain any traction or guide families through the process in the way they needed. “It looked similar,” Tammy said, but “it didn’t have the whole package that we realized we needed.”
At a Glance
Grapevine Faith Christian School offers a welcoming and inspiring environment for families seeking a Christ-centered education. Its campus is home to a vibrant PreK-12th grade community of 840 students.
The Challenge: A Strong Story That Needed a Stronger System
Grapevine Faith knew who it was, but one of the most important priorities was helping prospective families understand the school’s covenant identity earlier in the admissions process—some parents were inquiring without a clear sense of whether GFCS was the right fit.
“We weren’t being fair to those prospective families, not because of their students, but because we’re a covenant school,” Tammy said, clarifying that Grapevine Faith requires families to commit to supporting the school’s Christian values.
“So we went through and really looked at what we needed to communicate, what was important, where we were missing the mark, and then asked ourselves, ‘how do we say that in just a few words?’”
Meanwhile, current parents needed a better experience, too. Important information lived in too many places, communications were handled through standalone emails, and admissions outreach consumed the time meant for meeting with families. For a small staff, every extra task added up.
The school needed a connected system that could support the full family journey.
The Turning Point: Seeing the Work as a Journey
Tammy’s mindset began to shift after attending a Finalsite marketing and admissions workshop and a conference led by Finalsite instructors. “I walked away understanding the mindset that Finalsite has for its product,” she said. “I had never thought of what I do as a ‘journey’ for people, and that idea was such a big mind shift for me.”
That shift gave a website project a larger purpose. It became a strategic investment in how families would experience Grapevine Faith at every stage, from the first website visit and inquiry to admissions events, enrollment, current parent communication, and alumni and advancement engagement.
A new vice president of finance and operations helped reinforce that thinking. When others questioned why the school was investing in a new website, his response was clear: “This is not where we cut money; the current site is not stewarding what we have to offer families.”
“This has been a game changer for our admissions team. The amount of time the system has saved is amazing. It’s giving them more time to be in front of people.”
TAMMY PEDEN
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
The Solution: A Foundation First, then a Full Platform Strategy
“We started with the website, and that was a phenomenal experience,” Tammy said about Finalsite’s strategic marketing services, Advantage. Looking back, Tammy says she would recommend that partnership from the beginning.
“After dealing with Blackbaud and then a small firm for WordPress, the detail and the team that supported us through that process … you don’t feel like you’re alone," she said. “It was nice to have that team behind us to build.”
After discovery meetings and even a campus visit to conduct focus groups with students and stakeholders, the Finalsite Advantage team helped Tammy and Grapevine Faith sharpen and simplify their content and better organize the story for families.
“They took what was already great and taught us how to make it even better, how to condense our words, how to really tell our story,” Tammy said.
Clear, Concise, and Covenant
Through the redesign, Grapevine Faith focused on the prospective family experience, prioritizing key information, differentiators, standout stats, and mission-based storytelling with sections like “Why Choose GFCS” and “Is GFCS a Fit for Your Family?”
“One of our biggest opportunities is what people always say about Grapevine Faith, and that it’s the family feel that brings and keeps people here,” Tammy said.
The mission was to say the right things clearly and make it easier for families to understand, all while adhering to their brand and the “family feel.”
The school brought that feeling into the content, structure, and design, and thought carefully about language, such as changing “events” to “traditions” to better reflect how the community talks about itself.
A Website That Works Around the Clock
The redesigned site quickly became an active extension of the marketing department.
“I feel like our website is a member of our team,” she said. “I feel like we have four people on this marketing and communications team now because it’s working 24 hours a day for us, and the numbers are showing that.”
The site now helps families understand who Grapevine Faith is well before they reach out to admissions. It also communicates the school’s covenant identity, supports families with clearer information, and allows the admissions team to spend more time with families who are already better aligned.
“I feel like our candidates are better,” Tammy added. “We’re more in line with who we need to be reaching out to. I feel like the website is doing that for us so efficiently.”
35%
Increase in
open house & preview event averages
185%
Increase in
accepted students
500
Family members in
admission workflows
A Big Impact (Without the Price Tag)
Grapevine Faith’s story also speaks to schools watching their budgets carefully. Tammy noted that the school selected a modest website package level, but the results still deliver.
“Finalsite was very strategic in, ‘let’s figure out how we can give you the most bang for your buck with your enhancements,’” Tammy said, noting that the edge came from strategy, content, support, and knowing how to use Finalsite’s platform well, like selecting enhancements that added design flair, warmth, and function without overspending.
“We’ve even won an award,” she added, referring to Grapevine Faith’s dotCOMM award, an international competition honoring excellence in web creativity and digital communication.
Workflows That Protect the Personal Touch
After the website launch, Finalsite Workflows added even more value. The automated email workflows the school built for inquiries, post-admissions events, and accepted families who had not yet enrolled nurtured families from the first click. Admissions still follows up personally, but the workflow keeps families connected and cared for between conversations.
“The workflows are huge,” Tammy said, noting that they’ve created an inquiry workflow featuring parent quotes, reasons families love the school, and ways to get involved. Tammy said the team had about 500 people in that inquiry workflow, and families weren’t opting out.
“This has been a game changer for our admissions team,” Tammy said. “The amount of time the system has saved is amazing.”
The workflows haven’t made the process less personal, though. It gave the admissions team more space for connection. “It’s giving them more time to be in front of people,” Tammy said. That peace of mind gave the admissions team the freedom to take the time they needed for families, and they quickly realized, "We’re never going to leave anyone behind."
Parent Zone, the Mobile App, and a Better Experience for Current Families
For the next phase of the journey, Grapevine Faith turned its attention to the current parent experience.
The parent-focused redesign centered on easy access to frequently referenced information, including a forward-facing, sortable calendar, a curriculum guide, current news, and page pops for key events and news articles.
The Parent Zone, which placed important resources outside a login for families, has made a major difference for parent retention and communication, Tammy shared.
“The feedback we’ve gotten has been amazing. Parents can get what they need quickly, and being able to focus on what the parents need and what they told us they wanted has made all the difference in the world,” Tammy said. “And then we added the mobile app, so they also have access to it, and it’s been incredible.”
Scattered Messages to a Stronger Communication
Grapevine Faith also migrated its communications from a mass email marketing system to Finalsite Messages. That shift gave the school a cleaner, more consistent way to communicate with families.
“We were using Constant Contact, and we’ve shifted it over to Finalsite Messages,” Tammy said. “My associate and I have been working on streamlining and building that engagement.”
Tammy shared that engagement has been strong, and they’ve been consistently seeing open rates in the eighties after restructuring their weekly communication into an announcements-focused format. Those announcements are in Finalsite’s Posts module, so families can see them in the app, receive notifications, and sort by event or division.
“We’re not having two or three standalone ad hoc emails going out a day to the same audience,” Tammy said, noting that the team moved division communications into Finalsite, so messages have a more consistent look and sending schedule.
Storytelling for Alumni, Advancement, and Community Pride
Finalsite has also helped Grapevine Faith separate logistical information from its celebration stories:
-
Instead of putting every item into its weekly announcements, Faith Weekly, Grapevine created Roar & Rejoice specifically for good news and gratitude.
- The school also added a quarterly athletics newsletter, a semester creative arts report, an annual report, and Lion Share, an advancement-focused communication that shares projects and the impact of donor support.
- Each news piece on the website appears automatically in the mobile app, simplifying access for parents while improving search visibility for faith- and subject-related content.
“This is where we kind of brag,” Tammy said, and that shift opened stronger communication with alumni, too. “An alum would’ve never looked through Faith Weekly to see if tennis won state,” Tammy admitted. “But they will look at Roar and Rejoice and read about it.”
“Finalsite took our strategic plan and has helped us understand how we can make it happen. Our website is a member of our team.”
TAMMY PEDEN
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
The Results: More Momentum, Better Alignment, and Time Back
The results of Grapevine Faith’s efforts show how the full platform came together:
- After launch, open houses and preview events reached the highest attendance in GFCS history, with a 35% increase over the four-year average.
- The school also reported an 185% increase in accepted students, attracting more families aligned with GFCS and its acceptance requirements.
Tammy said the boost likely came from several connected pieces working together. “It’s a combination of the messaging, the workflows, and also the candidate. I really feel that we are doing 100x better at communicating the type of school we are.”
A Platform Built for the Journey Ahead
The Finalsite platform helped Grapevine Faith rethink how prospective families learn, how accepted families stay engaged, how current parents find information, and how alumni stay connected. And behind all that, how a small team keeps moving.
“Finalsite took our strategic plan and has helped us understand how we can make it happen,” Tammy said.
That partnership continues to shape what comes next. Grapevine Faith’s roadmap includes Chat, Athletics, ongoing website optimization, and expanded admissions workflows.
But the heart of the story is already clear: Grapevine Faith’s digital experience now feels more like the school that it is: personal, warm, and grounded in mission.
Or as Tammy put it, “Our website is a member of our team.”
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