It’s not enough for a school to be good if it can’t get the word out. Nor is it enough to remember to place an ad the day before the open day to generate interest. Communicating is important in every sector, and the school sector is no exception: not only to have a say in an already rather competitive market, but also to give visibility to all those projects – often costing effort, time and resources – that deserve to be known.

From a certain point of view, today the brand of Jesuit schools is lucky enough to be able to speak for itself: thanks to its history of over five centuries, certainly, but also – at this historical moment – to the presence on the throne of Peter of a Jesuit Pope with extraordinary communication skills.

On the other hand, however, the schools are living stones, they are a story in continuous evolution, which needs to be told and enhanced: both in individual projects, which each college makes known independently, and in the network projects, which the Foundation also supports with a special communication structure.

In recent years, the mass media have covered several of our schools’ projects: from didactics to spirituality, passing through internationalization and new technologies, the Jesuit colleges have shown the public opinion that they are much more than places for the formation of future leaders. Following the example of St. Ignatius – and the invitation of Pope Francis to “seek new forms of unconventional education, according to the needs of places, times and people” – they have been characterized by a constant search for innovation (without ever losing sight of their charism) that has often offered food for thought to public opinion.

To offer a coordinated communication among the different schools on some common and characterizing themes is important to build the network identity. Even in communication there is a “style” and a “way of proceeding” that characterizes and identifies us, both as a network of “Jesuit Education” and as an apostolic entity of the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus.

In addition, it often happens that, thanks to the credibility that the Ignatian network enjoys, we are also asked for an opinion on very topical themes in the field of education: in these cases, the Foundation normally deals with the relations with the press, choosing from time to time the most suitable profiles to respond to the media requests.

There is then the whole chapter of internal communication, which is not secondary: to feel more and more networked, in fact, we need to cultivate our ties, exchange ideas, projects and best practices. And we need to find each other, even if physically distant, several times a year: this is what happened for a long time with our hangouts, a tool that we used (well before the hard experience of Covid made it a tool of daily use) to find each other, to reflect together in sacred occasions (Christmas, Easter) and to have fun in secular ones (the music competition Diamoci un tono, which until 2013 was only of the Social Institute of Turin and now sees the participation of all our schools).

But communication, among the various areas, is one of those that evolve most rapidly: that’s why, following the guidelines developed a few years ago by the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus, the Foundation accompanies schools to organize and manage their communication in a coordinated manner, following guidelines and styles that strengthen the identity, including visual.

In short, even from the communication point of view, those who enter our Foundation end up being part of a real network that does not leave them alone.