Update Hoku Marketing Site

[mcassid3]

Less than 10% of students from Waianae graduate from a 4-year college within 5 years. Unaccepting of this reality, two teachers decided to upend it in January 2012. They sought to flip the equation and aim for 90% of Waianae students to become college ready. This is how the idea for the Hoku Scholars program, formerly known as the Waianae Coast Scholarship Fund, was born.

Hoku Scholars is a college preparatory program that guides college-aspiring students from 9th to 12th grade using a set of university-aligned program requirements and curriculum, merit-based scholarship accumulation, long-term planning, and student mentoring. It supports students in 5 critical development areas throughout high school: • Academic Proficiency o Our students take rigorous courses and average a 3.83 GPA • Extracurricular Leadership o 95% of our students are involved in afterschool programs, with over 60% of them holding leadership positions • Community Involvement o Our students average 32 hours of community service each year, most of which occur in Waianae • College Prep Information & Skills o Students and parents attend 1-2 workshops a semester focusing on college application steps, scholarship applications, and financial aid • Test Preparation o Students complete test prep assignments and practice ACTs beginning in 9th grade

The program has grown from 15 students in 1 cohort in 2012 to 60 students across 4 cohorts in 2014. It has also expanded from Waianae High School to Kamaile Academy in an effort to expand its programmatic reach throughout Waianae.

The vision for Hoku Scholars is to perpetually root itself into the Waianae community as an effective college support program that sends over 90% of its students to college ready to succeed. More broadly, we seek to build the next generation of Waianae leaders from within Waianae.

[mcassid3]

[mcassid3]

[neelbhat88]

@mcassid3 - Are we only keeping the text related to Waianae - no Chicago references? If that's the case (actually regardless of that) I think we'll want to provide some more details and backstory into why Waianae, what's it like there, how the kids started out, where we are now (more than just that one small paragraph on the cohort size going from 15 to 60 - and we should explain there that our focus is on quality more than quantity). We already basically have that huge second paragraph of how the program is structured on the site - what's more important now is to have info and pictures that will make someone from Chicago or anywhere outside of Oahu want to donate money to this cause. Maybe highlighting one of our kids' stories or something along those lines might be good. I think it would be cool also to put in some of the quotes from our kids from the recent survey. Things that show people that this is a living, breathing organization that is making an impact on these kids' lives is what we want more of.

Here's one idea of what I'm thinking in terms of sections (titles and stuff can be different but here's the gist of it): Where it began - explain the TFA roots, demographics of Waianae, if we want to keep things general for any Chicago expansions, etc we can say how those demographics are similar in the majority of cities across the US Years 1 and 2 - WCSF, starting with nothing, small cohort and small successes. I think the Seth Godin success curve and stuff from your presentation in Hawaii would be cool here so people don't see us as a massive org but more human and real. We are now Hoku Scholars - Learning from our mistakes we continually improve the program and what we're doing - talk about how far we've come so far, staff numbers, volunteers, quotes from kids, etc The Future - Our vision and goal with this

I think we'll benefit more on the Hoku site having more text/pictures and coming off as actual humans trying to solve a problem than a normal short and sweet marketing site - we're not selling a product, we want people to believe in our mission and feel the need to support the cause.

[ttapers]

I think it shows good forward progress for Hoku to say something about expanding into more schools (e.g. Julien), and tying them together with a quick explanation of demographics (as Neel suggested).

Any mention of Imua, or how Imua ties into HokuScholars? It might sound cool to mention that we've scraped together many months of donated time from several individuals to construct a custom web tool that helps facilitate success throughout the HokuScholars program. Maybe touching base on how it's gaining traction across many other non-for-profit organizations similar to Hoku, and that we're beginning to have more of a widespread impact through that.

However, I could see how Imua could confuse people and maybe put them off if it sounds too much like a business - it would have to be worded/structured very carefully. I get the feeling that a lot of people are more willing to donate when it's super simple, e.g. "The money you donate is going to kids in underprivileged areas as a scholarship incentive". We all know that's not directly true, but it essentially is.

At the same time, maybe some mogul would be impressed with the effort going into Imua and give us a huge lump sum donation.

Long story short, I think it's beneficial to show all the hard work, time, and growth, that's being put into Hoku so people get the idea that the charity is really healthy (and that they should feel really bad for not donating all of their money), but we have to be careful in the way we present the information so that it's clear what people are donating into.

Probably too much to fit in for this holiday season, but we should maybe consider sitting down and talking about potentially revamping the donation/information side of our site. Might have to do some research to estimate the returns we might get on something like that. Dan would probably be able to help us out with wording and structuring for all of this stuff (also grant writing, he says he does a lot of grant writing).

[mcassid3]

All fantastic ideas - many of which I mentally ran through while putting that together and some that I even had written and cropped out.

The question is how much do you want to add at the expense of simplicity? I was thinking that we were adding one Our Story page for now. And I just tried to keep the content high level and simple. I do think we need the complete story on the site, but I think how we break it up onto different subpages will be important. Having a 10 paragraph essay on one page seemed overwhelming.

In short, including your suggested content is as essential as making sure it does burden the reader.

View what I put up as a starting point. Ball is rolling - now let's add, edit, and beautify.

Message was sent from a mobile phone. Please excuse the brevity.

On Dec 24, 2014, at 10:22 AM, neelbhat88 notifications@github.com wrote:

@mcassid3 - Are we only keeping the text related to Waianae - no Chicago references? If that's the case (actually regardless of that) I think we'll want to provide some more details and backstory into why Waianae, what's it like there, how the kids started out, where we are now (more than just that one small paragraph on the cohort size going from 15 to 60 - and we should explain there that our focus is on quality more than quantity). We already basically have that huge second paragraph of how the program is structured on the site - what's more important now is to have info and pictures that will make someone from Chicago or anywhere outside of Oahu want to donate money to this cause. Maybe highlighting one of our kids' stories or something along those lines might be good. I think it would be cool also to put in some of the quotes from our kids from the recent survey. Things that show people that this is a livi ng, brea thing organization that is making an impact on these kids' lives is what we want more of.

Here's one idea of what I'm thinking in terms of sections (titles and stuff can be different but here's the gist of it): Where it began - explain the TFA roots, demographics of Waianae, if we want to keep things general for any Chicago expansions, etc we can say how those demographics are similar in the majority of cities across the US Years 1 and 2 - WCSF, starting with nothing, small cohort and small successes. I think the Seth Godin success curve and stuff from your presentation in Hawaii would be cool here so people don't see us as a massive org but more human and real. We are now Hoku Scholars - Learning from our mistakes we continually improve the program and what we're doing - talk about how far we've come so far, staff numbers, volunteers, quotes from kids, etc The Future - Our vision and goal with this

I think we'll benefit more on the Hoku site having more text/pictures and coming off as actual humans trying to solve a problem than a normal short and sweet marketing site - we're not selling a product, we want people to believe in our mission and feel the need to support the cause.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[mcassid3]

When people think of charities and the work that they do, it paints a colorful picture, full of difference-making and passion-fueled work. To think only along this dimension, though, leaves the majority of the Hoku story untold. Founding Hoku has been a story of trial and error, uncertainty, and most importantly persistence.

In 2012, 6 months before completing my Teach for America commitment in Hawai`i, I --- Mark Cassidy --- approached my colleague Dane Carlson with an idea. I was unsettled by the fact that my 8th graders that I worked tirelessly to educate could fall victim to the statistics of a struggling high school.

In Waianae, Hawaii, less than 10% of students graduate from a 4-year college within 5 years; the high school dropout rate is 4 times the national average; and nearly three quarters of the students’ families find themselves in economic hardship.

Dane and I decided to establish a program that would hold Waianae students to higher expectations, provide mentorship, and award scholarships. In January 2012, we incorporated the Waianae Coast Scholarship Fund with a vision of upending the statistics in Waianae by aiming for 90% of our students to attend and graduate college.

There was one major problem, though. I was leaving the island in May. Other nonprofit leaders that we met with bluntly described us as “hopeless” and that we would need “a decade” to get our program operational. But we only had 5 months.

My take was simple: getting something started would be better than doing nothing at all. So with no money, no staff, and a fledgling idea of what the program would offer we began our work. By summer, we had designed a skeleton of a program, admitted 15 students, and corralled a team of volunteer teachers who would help get the wheels moving.

However, Year 1 was a mess. Our volunteers and students had little guidance on what they should be doing. We had no revenue outside in-kind donations from friends and family. And somehow, we even botched our application process by admitting a cohort of 90% female students.

You live, learn, and move on, though. By the 4th quarter of that year, we had successfully organized our first service events, college prep workshops, and even managed to raise $15,000 for scholarships.

It remained positive until Year 2. The program doubled in size to support 32 students, and more than half of our volunteers left the island. We were back to square one with a bigger problem, less resources, and larger budget to fill.

This is when we invented the Occasion for Education, an annual benefit in Chicago that would help raise a funding base for Hoku. Within 2 years, the benefit brought 1,800 attendees through its doors, was supported by 175 volunteers, and raised over $55,000. The city of Chicago had literally propped up our Waianae program to live another day.

Hence in Year 3, we came back invigorated. We hired 6 part-time staff members, expanded to another high school and 30 more students, and had thousands of pro bono hours donated from professional software engineers and designers to revamp our website.

This new website quickly became the fulcrum of facilitating our program, mentoring our students, and managing program data. It was so robust that other organizations were willing to pay to use it. Finally, we had an idea for a revenue model to help sustain Hoku.

Hoku today supports 60 students, and 92% of them are on pace to being college ready. Hoku Scholars average a 3.83 GPA and complete 32 hours of service each year. 95% are involved in extracurricular activities with more than half in leadership roles. All students complete ongoing test prep, attend college workshops, and apply for scholarships and financial aid.

In 2015, we will bring Hoku to our second city – Chicago. We plan to hire our first full-time CEO and establish a Board of Directors. As we continue to solidify our foundation, we will expand our program resources to support earlier grades and more vulnerable student demographics.

If we have demonstrated anything over the years, it is that we are here to stay. We know the work that we do matters and that it is putting more underserved students on a track to college.

We thank all those that have believed in us. We hope our story has proven to you that we are moving forward and that we will find a way to achieve our vision of more than 90% of our students being prepared to succeed in college.

[ttapers]

Hence in Year 3, we came back invigorated. We hired 6 part-time staff members, expanded to another high school and 30 more students, and had thousands of pro bono hours donated from professional software engineers and designers to revamp our website. This new website quickly became the fulcrum of facilitating our program, mentoring our students, and managing program data. It was so robust that other organizations were willing to pay to use it. Finally, we had an idea for a revenue model to help sustain Hoku.

Starting to think it should be cut even more (I hate the mention of money here - and I don't think we want to give the idea that we're "sustained"):

Hence in Year 3, we came back invigorated. We hired 6 part-time staff members, expanded to another high school and 30 more students, and had thousands of pro bono hours donated from professional software engineers and designers to revamp our website and create a web tool that helps students track their progress throughout the program (to learn more about the Imua web tool, an integral part in how we facilitate the Hoku program, click HERE).

[neelbhat88]

Updating Hoku Marketing site is going to be VERY important for the O4E - we should do this very soon because we'll want to use this site to tell people about Hoku as we go out looking for corporate sponsors, silent auction items, and just general marketing.

[neelbhat88]

@kylegracey will need your help here for sure to give us a quick design for the new pages, etc and we can have Will help out with getting this done soon so we can send this out for O4E purposes

[kylegracey]

No worries. It's already in progress.

[kylegracey]

I haven't had a chance to finish it up, but theres an 'intermediate' state of the website (I know you guys like those haha) that's much more focused, with pictures of the kids as well. It's in the Hoku Scholars google drive folder.

If someone has time to connect the links back up and finish a few things I missed it'd be great. I spent some time on responsive styles too, so it should break better.

PS it needs to run on a localhost server for the fonts to load.

[neelbhat88]

Awesome Kyle, thanks. Yeah I'll take care of connecting the stuff and finishing the things off

Neel Bhat

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 12:14 PM, Kyle Gracey notifications@github.com wrote:

I haven't had a chance to finish it up, but theres an 'intermediate' state of the website (I know you guys like those haha) that's much more focused, with pictures of the kids as well. It's in the Hoku Scholars google drive folder.

[image: screen shot 2015-01-08 at 1 02 22 pm] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/3719539/5684726/e7b7cf10-97f8-11e4-8fea-0160a4b181c4.png

If someone has time to connect the links back up and finish a few things I missed it'd be great. I spent some time on responsive styles too, so it should break better.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/neelbhat88/imuadev/issues/665#issuecomment-69374347.

[neelbhat88]

Alright, new Hoku marketing changes are up. @kylegracey, @mcassid3 take a look www.hokuscholars.org.

Here's things I think we need to add to the marketing site very soon especially as O4E planning starts. As we start sending out links, emails, and informational material out to get people to come to the O4E, having a solid marketing site for what Hoku is, our impact, etc is going to be so important.

• Actual nav bar with links to different pages on the site - the donate now, get involved can probably move to being links on a separate page
• Pages for: Our Story, Our Team, Get Involved (something along those lines)
• We should put more stats and info on the main page with how many schools we're in, where the schools are, how many students, how many volunteers, GPAs, Service Hours (I know these are there but still listing them), etc. This is basically Our Impact and if its on the main page we won't need to put it on a separate page.

@kylegracey any chance you'll have time to throw more stuff together for this? We have the Our Story text here, and I can get you more pictures or just update any placeholder pictures you want to put with pictures of kids and stuff from our program.

Also just added you guys as collaborators to the Hoku github. Kyle it'll be way easier if you can pull the code and then create a branch as usual for any updates. The google drive approach worked, but is tedious.

[neelbhat88]

@mcassid3 maybe you can put some numbers that you think we should highlight for an "Our Impact" type section - things like since 2012 we are now in 3 schools, serving 70 students, $x of scholarship money raised so far, x number of volunteers, etc,