Marketing executive to direct Catholic schools
Holy Spirit prodded Chuck Allison to ‘take challenge’

By Sam Lucero, Catholic Herald Staff

RACINE — As a marketing and business development director for SC Johnson, Charles “Chuck” Allison IV oversaw the growth and creation of many household products worldwide.

Allison’s marketing and business acumen accelerated his movement up the corporate ladder, from an area sales representative in 1976 to director of worldwide and business development in 1995. He resigned his post on Dec. 31, 1994 to begin a consulting firm, InnaVision – Global Marketing Consultants.

On March 1, Allison will begin applying what he learned leading and consulting Fortune 500 companies to the management of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, as Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan has hired him for the newly-created position of director for Catholic schools. Allison’s primary function will be to provide visionary leadership and direction to the Archdiocesan Office for Schools and to manage the Office for Schools.

In addition to his business credentials, Allison brings a familiarity with church service and Catholic education. A member of St. Rita Parish, Allison serves on his parish’s pastoral council and is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion. He and his wife, Beth, serve as facilitators for their parish’s Lenten Bible study program.

Allison, 52, also served on the communications-public relations committee for the Racine Task Force for Catholic Education, formed in 2006 to study the feasibility of Catholic schools in Racine and Sturtevant.

A product of Catholic schools, Allison was raised in the suburbs of Chicago. His family moved to England when he was 10. While his father directed the London office of Booz, Allen & Hamilton, a management consulting firm, Allison attended St. George’s College, an all-boys’ Jesuit school.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Colorado College in 1976, and a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, in 1980. He and Beth met at Northwestern while they were studying for their MBAs. They have four children: Mike, 27, Jeff, 23, Lisa, 20 and John, 17.

Although he sees a learning curve ahead in his new job, Allison said it was a change he was called to make.

“To be honest, I have so much to learn,” he said in an interview with your Catholic Herald. “I haven’t worked in an academic field. I don’t know the standards. I don’t know some of the history. But I’ve been gifted with the opportunity and I feel the Holy Spirit has led me to take on this challenge and hopefully grow … and learn from other people.”

He believes his marketing background can be applied to promoting Catholic education.

“I’ve been in a fortunate position to be able to help companies grow their business,” said Allison. “But in the latter part of my career here, I asked myself, ‘Would I get more satisfaction giving back (to the community)?’ and, ‘How can I apply my marketing skills, strategic planning skills and interpersonal skills within the Catholic community, which I cherish and love?’”

According to Allison, Catholic school enrollment is one area to which marketing strategies can be applied.

“The lifeblood of our Catholic school system is to bring new students, new families in,” he said. “I’m sure that will be a high priority within this position. The other thing, I think, is to really take a step back and understand what are the critical issues facing the growth of enrollment, or the growth of our faith in general, and be a change agent to make that growth happen.

“That, I think, will require a fair amount of strategic analytics, understanding the different segmentations in terms of demographics and psychographics, and all the different tools and techniques that we would apply in the business world,” he added. “I’m hopeful that I can bring some different techniques and approaches to understanding how do you grow, what are the issues that are precluding you from growing, what are the kinds of resources required to grow at the pace we want to.”

While words like “demographics” and “psychographics” were part of Allison’s marketing lexicon, faith and spirituality were not. A desire to express his faith in the marketplace was one reason why Allison, along with wife Beth, started InnaVision - Global Marketing Consultants.

As marketing consultants, the Allisons publicly promoted their “Passion Principles.”

“We see God as our boss!” is the preamble to the Passion Principles, which are found on the company’s Web site, .

One of Allison’s responsibilities as director of Catholic schools will be to follow Archbishop Dolan’s pastoral directive: “Strengthening of Catholic education and faith formation.” This directive, one of six pastoral priorities outlined by the archbishop in 2004, calls for developing strategies that promote and enhance quality Catholic education.

Allison said that for Catholic education to be successful, people must have faith in the mission and identity of Catholic schools.

“In the business context, I’ve had challenge upon challenge to generate millions and millions of dollars,” he said. “When I look back and reflect on why have some of the successes happened in generating and building funds, oftentimes it fundamentally starts with, ‘Do people believe and own the principles, the values, the positive contributions you’re trying to sell? Is it going to make a difference and are they going to be proud to be part of that?’”

While it’s too soon to offer specifics on developing strategies, Allison said he has “a very high degree of confidence” in succeeding.

“When you get a group of inspired people together and you get them passionate about it, it amazes me, time and time again, how people can come up with the most incredible ideas,” he said. “But first and foremost, do they believe in the vision and have passion for where you’re trying to go?”

Financing Catholic schools is another challenge facing Allison. He sees the general public as a target for fund-raising.

“If you sell a common ownership toward core values, the moral values of Catholic education, you can go to anybody,” he said. “They don’t necessarily need to be part of the Catholic community.

“I think one of the first steps would be to say, ‘Are we pushing hard enough and building ties with the external, non-Catholic community to contribute?’” said Allison. “I believe that it’s oftentimes the non-users who are the lowest hanging fruit. We need to look at that hard and then cluster and segment and group those various non-users to a point where we’re talking to them in their language.”

Whether it’s building enrollment or raising funds, Allison said his primary objective is serving children.

“At the end of the day, my role, the schools office role and the role of Catholics, is to really serve the children. That’s got to be a group effort,” he added. “That’s where I hope I can be a catalyst to that enthusiasm — to be a visionary, along with the archbishop and the rest of the staff in the archdiocese.”

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