I have been fortunate to have met many good people working for DC non-profits recently and some of them work in communications, marketing or development departments at their respective non-profits. As I talk to them about the work they do, it makes me realize the unfortunate state of adult education programs in DC.
People who work in communications departments for non-profits do very important work; they help to promote their non-profit to the public and let potential supporters know about how their organization helps people. Recently, many organizations in DC have started to use social media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter to let the public know about what they do, the needs of their organization and their clients, and to make more intimate and stronger connections with their supporters.
Some organizations such as WEAVE (Women Empowered Against Violence) and Bread for the City have used social media and email recently to conduct campaigns to maintain their services. WEAVE ran a successful campaign called Save WEAVE that brought in enough money ($85,000)to keep their organization going and over the summer, Bread for the City received over $10,000 in donations to save their food pantry. Bread for the City also spearheaded the city’s Save the Safety Net campaign in which they set up a website and used video to get over 1500 signatures to take to DC Council to save important social services from being cut. Programs such as Miriam’s Kitchen use Twitter to build relationships with the public and they were this year’s recipient of DC’s Twestival, a fundraiser for non-profits which use Twitter, which brought them $10,000 in donations.
So, even though the economy is suffering and the budgets of DC non-profits are being cut, the communications and development staff at some non-profits are able to still make people aware of these cuts and rescue vital services. With DC adult education programs, however, the situation is pretty grim. Many of these programs do not have the money to have communications or development staff. A good percentage of them are small and typically have an executive director, a program and/or volunteer coordinator and a teacher or a few teachers, on staff. Typically the executive director does most of the fundraising in addition to running the program and often does not have time to publicize their services to prospective donors. These programs often have barely enough staff to perform their mission of educating adults. So while these programs are struggling, there hasn’t been a way for them to communicate their needs.
This is one of the reasons that we at the Adult Literacy Resource Center of the DC Public Library and DC LEARNs have started to use social media, such as this blog, to highlight these programs and let you know about the important work that they do. In the coming weeks, we will be focusing on the specific adult education programs, the services they provide and stories about what they do. This week, we will be profiling Catholic Charities which has an adult education program in Downtown Northwest DC. Stay tuned!
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