Lifelong Learning Program Assessment Tool: How Does Your Program Measure Up?

Winning lifelong learning programs evaluate their performance yearly and work on improving areas of weakness. LERN’s Lifelong Learning Program Assessment Tool covers key lifelong learning areas such as finances, marketing, data, and much more.
You should answer each of the following questions. Yes means you meet or surpass the benchmark or perform the noted task. Partial means you do not meet the benchmark or are fully performing the task, but efforts are being made. No means you do not meet the benchmark or perform the noted task. Unknown means you do not know if your program meets the benchmark or performs the noted task.
If you are unclear about the questions being asked, hover over the for additional information.
LERN’s Lifelong Learning Program Assessment Tool totals your score and allows you to compare your score to LERN’s rating.
If your lifelong learning program does contract sales, sometimes called contract or customized training, there is an additional section to fill out.

Lifelong Learning Program Assessment Tool

LERN’s Lifelong Learning Program Assessment Tool totals your score and allows you to compare your score to LERN’s rating.

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Course/Event Programming

Do you offer 20% to 30% new activities each year?

Is your cancellation rate for all activities 20% or less?

Is your go/no-go number determined by dividing activity production costs by activity price?

Do less than half of your activities have prices clustered within a 15% range?

Do you follow a process to determine the number of activities to offer to reach your income goal?

Instructional Support

Do teachers (presenters, instructors) rate their experience with your program at 4+ out of 5?

Do you have a teacher handbook and provide teacher orientation or other training and support?

Do participants fill out teacher evaluations and the evaluations are used to help teachers improve?

Do you have a policy not allowing teachers to sell their services during the activity?

Do you have resources available to help teachers develop online and hybrid courses?

Customer Service

Do you offer at least 3 different ways to register and one of them is online registration?

Is your customer service experience score by participants at 4+ out of 5?

Is your refund policy stated in writing using positive language?

Can your customer service frontline staff answer at least 80% of the questions customers ask?

Do you consistently follow up on questions, requests, and problems in 24 hours or less?

Marketing & Market Research

Have you identified your Unique Selling Proposition and do you proactively promote it?

Do your website, printed promotions, and descriptions follow the AIDA Principle?

Do you collect two or more demographics on each participant and one of the demographics is birth year?

Do you know your primary market segments?

Do you have a marketing plan (that could be included in the one-year business plan) detailing promotion campaigns for the year?

Structure

Do you centralize operations tasks?

Are staff responsible for revenue generation relieved of administrative and operational responsibilities so they can focus on revenue generation?

Is at least one person assigned to managing marketing?

Does course/event programming operate separately from contract sales?

Do you have lifelong learning leadership team (sometimes called a management team) responsible for addressing and keeping the program on-track?

Promotion

Is 10-15% of your budget spent on promotion - print, website, eMarketing, social media?

Do you have an in-house past participant mailing list you can target by demographics, purchasing history, and recency?

Do you know your promotion: registration ratios (response rates) for the various ways you promote activities?

Are you spending at least 25% of your promotion budget on non-printed promotion methods?

Do you use at least 3 promotion methods when promoting an individual or group of activities?

Finances

Do you report on your finances using the LERN Financial Format (Income, Promotion, Production, Direct Costs, Operating Margin, Administration & Net) so you can compare your performance to industry benchmarks?

Are you financially self-sufficient or at least meeting your cost recovery goals?

Do you spend less than 50% of your income on production costs (instructor, materials, food, and other non-administration delivery costs)?

Are you able to evaluate your financial performance by program area, market segment, and delivery method?

Does no one program area, market segment, or delivery method generate more than 30% of your revenue?

Staff Development

Do you have staff training plans focused on improving individual staff and your overall program?

Is there a written procedures manual outlining all core processes?

Besides face-to-face meetings, do you provide a format, for example a virtual office, where staff provide updates and can communicate with each other?

Is each staff person evaluated annually and checked-in with each quarter?

Do you have a mission statement all staff understand and follow?

Management

Do you have a software system providing online registration and built to support lifelong learning programs?

Do you have job descriptions stated in terms of responsibility and accountability, not in terms of duties and tasks?

Is your staff productivity number (revenue divided by fulltime equivalent staff) at $125,000 or higher?

Do staff evaluate the work environment at 4+ out of 5?

Does the leader of your program spend time generating new opportunities?

Evaluation

Is your activity quality score by participants at 4+ out of 5?

Does your program’s leadership understand your program’s strengths?

Does your program’s leadership understand your program’s weaknesses?

Is your activity repeat rate (the percentage of people repeating from one period time to another period of time as a percentage of the first period of time) over 30%?

Do you do a program assessment each year?

Planning

Do you have a one-year business plan?

Do you have a two- to five-year strategic plan?

Each year do you review your program’s closest competitors?

Do you have a process for determining new initiatives/revenue streams?

Do you have an internal marketing plan?

Your Program is a Winner

You have scored 46-55, so you are doing most things right and would be considered a model program.

Your Program is Positioned for Success

You have scored 36-45, so you are doing a good job and by focusing on areas where your score is less than 2.5, you can become a model program.

There is Work Needed

You have scored 26-35 so you have some changes you need to make, especially in areas you have scored less than 2.5, to be positioned for success or you may be at risk.

Your Program is at Risk

You have scored 16-25 so you have significant changes to make, especially in areas you have scored less than 2.5 if you are going to remain a viable program.

Your Program is Off Track

You have scored 15 or less so your program most likely will not survive without making significant changes across the board.

Contract Sales

Fill out this section only if your program offers contract sales or contract training services.

Do you have at least one person who spends 75%+ of his/her time selling?

Do you have at least one person responsible for contract content development and contract delivery?

Is your Lead:Contract ratio 4:1 or less?

Are 50% of your clients repeat from the previous year?

In addition to training do you sell solutions, such as consulting?

Your Program is a Winner

You have scored 49-60, so you are doing most things right and would be considered a model program.

Your Program is Positioned for Success

You have scored 39-48, so you are doing a good job and by focusing on areas where your score is less than 2.5, you can become a model program.

There is Work Needed

You have scored 28-38 so you have some changes you need to make, especially in areas you have scored less than 2.5, to be positioned for success or you may be at risk.

Your Program is At Risk

You have scored 17-27 so you have significant changes to make, especially in areas you have scored less than 2.5 if you are going to remain a viable program.

Your Program is Off Track

You have scored 16 or less so your program most likely will not survive without making significant changes across the board.

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