Washington English Center

1. Unleash the capped potential of prospective evening students through targeted location-based and incentivizing deliverables.

• Example Key Message: Washington English Center offers English literacy education and workforce preparation programs to adult immigrants from across the greater Washington area—come on over to learn how to access all the services you need to achieve your goals.

2. Attract previously undiscovered demographics of volunteers—whether those be teachers, tutors, or administrative staff—through higher education partnerships offering university students course credit or similar incentives for volunteering.

• Example Key Message: At Washington English Center, no stone is left unturned—there’s a volunteer opportunity for everyone, centered in their commitment to community engagement.

• Example Key Message: Integrating yourself into the larger D.C. community is an important part of living and learning as a local college student, and at Washington English Center, you can make an immediate impact.

3. Emphasize Washington English Center’s corporation culture to inspire greater involvement through deliverables that focus on the brand’s values of recognizing and celebrating diversity and inclusion.

• Example Key Message: Through buying into Washington English Center’s offerings, you are buying into their community culture.

4. Align Washington English Center’s social media content with their offerings, opportunities, and community engagement through strategic, innovative storytelling and thematic content to better illuminate what they do for their audiences.

• Example Key Message: Washington English Center’s brand is grounded in their commitment to unambiguous and direct messaging so every community member can find their niche.

Target Audience Overview

1. Current Students

2. Prospective/Future Students

3. Volunteers

4. Corporate & Non-Profit Partners

5. Donors

Notes from Washington English Center

1. WEC’s Wish List

• More followers and engagement on TikTok; currently, they are at 86 followers and 767 total likes.

• More Instagram Reels; they suggested examples such as showing classes in action, short lessons, and practical tips. Currently, their Instagram is at 2,933 followers, with their Reels receiving anywhere from 700 to 5,000k views, with a few high outliers. Their highlights are very outdated.

• Increased registration for online classes.

2. What’s Worked Well

• Pictures and profiles of their community members

• Instagram Reels

• Social media contests, especially among their students

3. Other Notes

• Their morning volunteers are primarily retirees or people with non-traditional work schedules.

• Their evening volunteers are primarily young professionals.

• Their question: how do they market to all audiences, or should they focus on one over the other?

• One person does their social media (only part of her job, not full-time social media manager)

• They have an $800 max on paid media (already done for Summer and Fall).

Proposed Deliverables

BRAND DEVELOPMENT: Metro Promotion (Objective #1)

Overall Idea

Strategically place an eye-capturing poster at the Metro Center station, located right across the street from the new Washington English Center location, to indicate the convenient location. This deliverable should include a call to action and a way to learn more information, such as a QR code. Additionally, the poster should have visually appealing elements, colorful graphics, and catchy phrases to capture passerby’s attention. Depending on the requirements from the Metro, the poster may have to be adapted to fit the Metrobuses versus the Metrorail.

• Metrobuses: Advertising displays are available on the sides, backs, and interiors.

• Metrorail: Backlighted advertising displays and two-sheet poster displays are available in Metro stations. Advertising space is also available inside rail cars.

Target Audience: Prospective Students

The placement of WEC advertisements on the Metro system is intended to target evening commuters who might not otherwise be aware of their offerings, relating to Objective #1.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: Volunteer and Community Engagement (Objective #2)

Overall Idea: Allow Academic Credit for Volunteers

• Introduce a new program through Washington English Center that allows college and university students to become engaged with the nonprofit through volunteer or internship opportunities. Relating to Objective #2, WEC can appeal to college and university students seeking an intersection between community service and course credit towards their graduation to bolster their volunteer and community engagement base.

• Option One: Create internship positions within WEC for college and university students to apply for. The position would be unpaid, however it would be able to be used for course credit towards graduation. Internship positions could be for social media creation, event planning, teaching, tutoring, etc.

• Option Two: American University’s Center for Leadership and Community Engagement offers Community-Based Learning & Research Courses that offer undergraduate students the opportunity to experience service-learning as part of an existing course. Students complete 20 hours of community service or a service project related to their course content and facilitated by the faculty member. Washington English Center could be proposed as a client to a CB course, such as Public Relations Portfolio.

• Option Three: The Center for Leadership and Community Engagement also offers their Community Service-Learning Program (CSLP), which provides an opportunity for undergraduates to work with a community organization, such as a non-profit, while earning an additional credit towards graduation. Washington English Center can be registered on GivePulse, where students who are also registered complete a 40-hour service-learning experience with a community partner of their choice for course credit.

Target Audience: Volunteers

In any of these options, Washington English Center will provide a new incentive for university and college students to become involved, as WEC is looking to increase the number of volunteers they have.

CREATIVE: Community Calendar (Objective #3 and #4)

Overall Idea: Create a Washington English Center Community Calendar

• Create an in-website Community Calendar that has themes for each month that recognizes and celebrates the importance of diverse identities and cultures. Each month, the Washington English Center will have a theme—for instance,

• February is Black History Month, March is Women’s History Month, April is Celebrate Diversity Month (with World Health Day and Earth Day), and so on (Foundation List). *The creative team is not expected to schedule the entire year’s specific activities; rather, they should create a mockup of ideas and coordinating social media posts for each theme.

• Within this calendar, there would be themed events, contests, giveaways, activities, and social media posts recognizing the coordinating month’s DEI celebrations and observations. Currently, WEC already does this: Halloween Costume Party Contest, Virtual Trivia Night, WEC Community Happy Hour, and more.

• Through this community calendar, two objectives intersect: centering these themed monthly celebrations and observations emphasizes WEC’s values of recognizing and celebrating diversity and inclusion (Objective #3), while also providing social media content that aligns with their offerings, opportunities, and community engagement (Objective #4).

Target Audience: Current Students, Future Students, Volunteers, & Donors

This deliverable appeals to an intersection of WEC’s target audiences—the themed months’ activities engage current students, incentivise future students, involve current volunteers, affirm current donors’ contributions, and demonstrate WEC’s attractive potential to future donors.

Research, Innovations, and Operations Analysts: Revamping the Class Registration Process (Objective #3 and #4)

Overall Idea: Redesign the Class Registration Process

• Make the Washington English Center website’s Student page, where the information for interested students to register for classes is found, more intriguing and engaging. While the information within the page is helpful for interested students, the design of the page is lackluster and visually unappealing. Also, the step-by-step information WEC has on the page could potentially seem too complicated or overwhelming to web visitors.

• Additionally, highlight the option for online classes so that it is more front and center. WEC expressed that they’d like to increase the number of enrollment for their online classes, and as of right now, there is only one mention of that option on the page.

• Introduce fun incentives for prospective students to register for classes and create coordinating social media post mockups. One option would be to launch a “bring a buddy” program where current students can bring a friend or family member to one class as a “free trial.” Another option could be to have an open house event once a month where interested students can come to meet teachers and volunteers, mingle with other current and interested students, and learn about WEC—the event could feature quick lessons or activities with attendees to engage them and show them what WEC is all about.

• Through this revamp, two objectives are related. With the fun incentives targeted at prospective students, WEC adds a new element to their corporation culture that would inspire greater involvement (Objective #3). Additionally, with the coordinating social media post mockups, WEC’s social media content would promote their offerings, opportunities, and community engagement (Objective #4). Beyond the objectives, this deliverable would help fulfill WEC’s wish list item of increasing the number of online students.

Target Audience: Current Students & Future Students

• Through streamlining the information to be more organized, updating the writing to be more exciting, and introducing eye-catching and engaging graphics, future students will be more incentivized to sign up for classes.

• Current students also visit this page to sign up for the next term of classes. Thus, the page improvement will also appeal to this audience as well, and potentially inform them on other class options they might otherwise have been unaware of.