Client: FMC
Project/product:Capability Brochure

The project
For more than a decade, First Marblehead has been a leader and innovator in the private education loan business. But figuring out how to represent themselves to the world was one of their least favorite activities. They invited us to help, and our first step was their first-ever capabilities brochure.

Excerpt:
Listening and acting
The dilemma of higher education is real. The need to respond is pressing. First Marblehead listens to schools, and then helps them act.

We work closely with each of our institutional clients to develop innovative supplemental loan products that reflect that school's students, its budget, and the central tenets of its educational mission. These products--known collectively as "GATE" (Guaranteed Access to Education) loans--are flexible tools for problem solving.

Our products are used in many ways. Some colleges and universities use them as a complement to existing Stafford/Perkins loan programs. Other schools build our products into their first-and-best offer to students ­ that is, as part of the overall mix of financial aid. And because the funding mechanisms we have invented are extremely flexible, institutions are crafting new ways to use them almost every month.

Our process is simple and efficient. We first meet with the school's designated representatives--most often a financial aid officer or a business manager--and listen carefully to how that school defines its needs. In many cases, the school broadens the circle of participants to include representatives from all interested groups.

We are familiar and comfortable with the processes whereby schools make decisions. We "speak the language" of all the constituencies within a given school. We are eager to discuss educational philosophies with educators ­ and numbers with numbers people.

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