Campaign for Northwest Alabama Reading Aides

Research

Literacy is a means for personal development and growth. Northwest Alabama Reading Aides is a nonprofit organization that provides tutoring in basic literacy and English language to adults. The organization is battling illiteracy in the North Alabama area, working to publicize their organization, and increase their exposure in the Florence community. They are confronted with the challenge of reaching the illiterate adult population in the community. In addition, the lack of transportation for their students is another complicating factor. Gaining awareness will help the organization recruit supporters, volunteers, students and possible staff members. Targeting additional resources would enable them to reach more people in need of their services.
NARA is a volunteer literacy program, originally created to provide free and confidential tutoring to non-readers in north Alabama. The program was started locally in 1976 by a group of Lutheran Church women as a non-profit, non-denominational organization. The program was operated by all volunteers, since 1987 they have created one staff position. The organization is financially supported by United Way of the Shoals, Dollar General, Junior League of the Shoals, Trinity, and First United Methodist area churches, and private contributors.

Past events that have worked well for Northwest Alabama Reading Aides, are public speaking, presentations, fairs, and fundraisers. They have representatives speak at Florence City schools ESL parent involvement night. This method was most successful in getting students and their parents into the organization to learn English together. NARA has also been successful doing presentations at First Methodist Church, Social Security office and the Department of Public Transport as part of United Ways Annual Campaign. They’ve participated in the Shoals Care fair, the Corporate / Community Spelling Bee, book sale during Handy Fest, Pancake Breakfast at Applebee’s, and Belk’s Charity Sale.

I researched Big Brothers Big Sisters to see how their organization gained awareness and exposure. BBBS like NARA has partnerships with churches, employers, and colleges. BBBS has a new strategic plan that has been modified from “What We Do” to “What We Achieve.” Their website shows the viewer how they implement their plans, evaluate them, and the impact they have made. I think they are well organized and prove to be very effective with their target audiences. NARA could benefit from creating a website and a more formal organizational structure enabling them to achieve the desired growth.
According to the National Institute for Literacy also stated, “Nationally fewer than 10 percent of adults who could benefit from literacy programs are currently being used.” The National Institute for literacy in 1998 recorded “The NALS found a total of 21- 23 % or 41-44 million of 91 million American Adults (defined as age 16 or older) at level 1, the lowest literacy level.” A level 1 means they showed difficulty in the literacy skills needed for everyday life. In Alabama an estimated 25% of the adult population was at level 1 literacy skills, and estimated 19% in Lauderdale County.

Specific goals Northwest Alabama Reading Aides has for the upcoming year is to offer their students basic computer classes, and to hire a part time instructor to coordinate small group computer literacy classes. Another goal NARA could approach is getting free bus passes for their students, to help with the transportation problem. A direction NARA could advance in would be working to get additional funding and developing a formalized internal structure to help achieve objectives and goals.

Action

The intent of Northwest Alabama Reading Aides (NARA) is simple – creating a center that will serve the lifelong needs of those who suffer from illiteracy in our community. Explaining this concept to various audiences is uncomplicated task. NARA message needs to reach multiple, diverse audiences and encourage them to explore and embrace this organization as an asset in the community. Persuading others to join this cause is rewarding but complex task. NARA is implementing a comprehensive public relations plan to reach all target audiences. (I was having trouble with this paragraph and understanding it so I re worded it a little bit if you don’t like it change whatever)

The public relations (PR) Plan identified five overall goals to increase public awareness and reach new volunteers for NARA:

1. Achieve public awareness of NARA’s location, mission, and vision, among the general public.
2. Encourage target public audiences and potential volunteers to explore, use and feel welcome at NARA.
3. Highlight the partnerships NARA has with community organizations, as well as, what NARA has to offer.
4. NARA is viewed as a valuable asset to the community. ( This one didn’t make sense to me and I thought it would be easier to measure how valuable people think NARA is. I think Pride is hard to realistically measure.)
5. Enhance the image of NARA, as an organization that wants to increase the quality of life through learning to read and speak English.

Quantifiable objectives included attracting 150 guests to the website launch and 50 prospective volunteers to the volunteer breakfast. Ultimately, the PR campaign goals are to increase overall community exposure of NARA, reach individuals that are in need of help, and entice people in the community to become volunteers.

Each aspect of this PR plan involved strategic campaign efforts in which we all hope to gain widespread community exposure, gain prospective students and new volunteers. (I think we needed to incorporate more on gaining clients/ students who need help because that is what Liz had said she wanted to work on)

Communication

In order to inspire community pride in Northwest Alabama Reading Aides, the overall theme of the PR campaign will be sports. The vision of this campaign is to bring the community together as a team to build, develop and improve literacy in our community.

Events of the PR campaign:
· Go NARA!
In efforts to gain community exposure we will produce and disperse of bumper stickers, information cards, bill boards, banners, buttons, pens/pencils, t-shirts, and hats that will all read Go NARA! with our website information attached.
· Website Launch Pep Rally
NARA will host a pep rally for the unveiling of the new website in December 2009. The website will go live during the pep rally. During that time, we will have sports team members from local high schools and colleges to help with supporting our pep rally.
· Breakfast of Champions
NARA will host the Breakfast of Champions at the NARA campus. Attendees will include past and current board members, our supporting organizations, and prospective contributors and volunteers. All guests will be served breakfast and given a tour the NARA facilities. The breakfast will serve to thank all of our supporter’s prospective supporters. ( I added some to this because I also thought we should have this to thank our supporters)
· Go NARA! Media Kit
A media kit will be sent out to all media outlets in the northwest Alabama area to insure that NARA receives promotion and recognition.

· A “Team Day”
A “team Day” will allow NARA volunteers and board members to support their favorite team. It will be during office hours to and volunteers and board members can wear their team’s colors and logos. During lunch hour a tailgating party will be held and volunteers and board members will be asked to bring in their favorite snack to pass around. “Team Day” will thank all our volunteers and board members for their hard work and dedication. ( I added this because I thought we needed to show how NARA would work on the campaign internally, like within the volunteers and board members, getting them involved.)

Evaluation

In order to measure the effectiveness of NARA campaign we will look at the main five goals and how successful they were. To see how successful the goals were you should send out a evaluation survey to the three target audiences. They will include NARA’s clients/ students, partners/ financial contributors, and volunteers. The survey should ask questions such as what does NARA provide for the community, did you attend any of the events hosted by NARA during the campaign, do you consider NARA a valuable asset to the community. Other question you should include are what has NARA done to help you achieve success, do you feel comfortable at NARA’s office, and do you support NARA’s mission and vision.

After the campaign has ended during the following six months you should keep track of three things to determine if NARA has achieved awareness. First keep a record of how many new people call the office. Our first year after the campaign we would expect to see a 25% increase in new students and volunteers calling the NARA office. Second, record how many new volunteers or prospective students come into the office. The next year after the campaign we would expect to see a 20% increase in new volunteers and prospective students come into the NARA office. Lastly, review how many people visited the web site. A year after the campaign we would expect to see 100 visits to the website. A good question to ask new comers is how they heard of you, it will show you what communication areas proved to be the strongest.

Keeping track of how many people participated in the campaign will help measure the success as well. Record how many of our partners and financial supporters came to the “Breakfast of Champions”, how many volunteers and board members participated in the “Team Day,” and how many people came to the website “Pep Rally.”

We expect to have 150 guests at the website launch “Pep Rally” and 50 prospective volunteers at the “Breakfast of Champions.” We will track how many people actually participate and review the findings to see if we met our expectations. NARA should look at the number of new volunteers and students in the following six months and compare it with number from previous years during the same time frame.