For many growing nonprofits, there comes a moment where it’s time to turn years of steady advancement to a single giant leap. When the Asian American Professional Association reached that point, it called on Jericho Road Pasadena for help.
AAPA began as a grassroots mentoring program by Dr. John Hwang and Dr. Philip Chen aimed at maximizing the potential of Asian American professionals in corporate America. In 2003, it became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Today, more than twenty years later, the organization’s powerful tools include Mentorship and Board Leadership programs, a thriving Toastmasters Club, a thought-provoking series of videos and podcasts by influential Asian Americans, and more.
JRP invited some high-powered expertise to the table to help guide its next steps. It introduced AAPA Executive Director Karen Loong to Deborah (Deb) Braidic, a noted Decision Coach and Behavioral Science Advisor with two decades of experience as Vice President of Special Projects and Chief Strategic Communications Officer at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Together, Deb and Karen plunged into an in-depth review of AAPA’s current marketing picture, including its strategic plan, upcoming year-end campaign, website, social media, fundraising approaches, key successes and missed opportunities. Deb then set out to identify a few feasible, sustainable ways the organization could rev up its marketing program.
Among them were some strategic recommendations to simplify the email newsletter significantly by reducing the reading needed for Call to Action buttons, sending single-topic emails for important Calls to Action, and adjusting the boilerplate language.
Deb also created an invaluable Stakeholder Map that clearly defined AAPA’s various stakeholder groups, their value propositions, the best forms of engagement for each, and some effective targeted messaging for each one. Applying some of these ideas has produced a whopping 62% increase in unique website visits in the last 90 days and a 27% increase in unique page visits over the last 30 days.
“My hope,” Deb says, “is that my recommendations translate into a more engaged set of stakeholders who rev up efforts that lead to greater success for AAPA’s marketing and fundraising efforts overall.”
Thanks to volunteer Linda Taubenreuther for writing JRP social media posts!