1. Implementing a Content Strategy
During a Brand Refresh:
Teach For America Case Study
MIMA Summit, October 12, 2011

2. Who I Am
Contact info:
kristin.hodgson@teachforamerica.org
@kristinhodgson 2

3. About Teach For America
By the Numbers
2011-
2011-2012 School Year
• 48,000 applicants to the
corps
• 9,000 corps members
• 2,600 schools
• 600,000 students reached
Since 1990
• 3 million students taught
• 24,000 alumni
3

4. Teach For America – Twin Cities: Local Impact
4

5. Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
5

6. Web Presence: 2010
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7. Wake Up Call
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8. Our Homework
Preparing to redesign the website involved a lot of research and thought partnership, and
required establishing a clear vision.
Assessing the Website’s “Achievement Gap”
• Evaluating the current site and thinking about its limitations
• Stakeholder interviews with ~50 people across the organization
• “Insights” market research work
• Further usability testing
• Identifying peer websites we admired, connecting with those teams
Three Guiding Principles
* The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools, McKinsey & Company Social sector Office, 2009 8

9. Three Guiding Principles
• The site should showcase the diversity and vibrancy of the
community focused on solving educational inequity
Community • Foreground the multiple voices and perspectives of people who
make up that community
& Conversation
• Encourage and enable communication among community
members
Warmth • The site should lead the way in refocusing and repositioning the
brand, projecting more personality, authenticity, and passion
& Emotion • Use people’s stories to “show” rather than “tell”
Balanced • Streamline the site and strike the right balance between text,
images, graphics, and multimedia
Content Mix • Go beyond an online TFA brochure
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10. Timeline
The web team was focused on the website redesign, but other events and discussions in
the organization could not be ignored.
(Oct-
Q1 (Oct-Dec) (Jan-
Q2 (Jan-Mar) (Apr-
Q3 (Apr-Jun) Q4 (July)
Website Kickoff, Sitemap, Defining key
Redesign Writing CMS entry Launch
Research, Wireframes messages and asset
Strategy creation
Internal
Events New core New book TFA marks Marketing New CMO
values by CEO, 20 years team re-org begins
announced Founder begins
Ongoing Voice
Brand
Discussions Brand Personality
Visual Signal
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11. Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
11

12. Our New Voice
With all that was in flux – core values, visual signal, brand personality – and
all that we wanted to accomplish – more inspiration, warmth, and emotion –
establishing a new voice was critical.
Working with the many writers on this project, I focused our attention in two
areas:
Mechanics Tone and Substance
• Writing for the Web • Inspiring
• Clear, direct • Engaging
• Plainspoken • Warm and welcoming
• Conversational • Humble
• Focused on our mission
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13. Before and After
Original
The prevailing notion is that children growing up in low-income communities
cannot overcome the massive obstacles they face, and therefore the
investments in solving these problems are futile. These beliefs prevent us from
addressing the challenges of poverty and discrimination, and from building the
capacity of our schools and school systems.
Revised
“This is the hardest work on the planet. It’s also the most important. We can
never forget that the unit of change for an individual kid’s life is school. It starts
in pre-K and goes straight through college. We need the broader systemic
changes and then we need as many committed, talented, and revolutionary
teachers as this nation can produce.” –Dave Levin
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14. Balanced Content Mix
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15. Balanced Content Mix: Why Teach For America?
March – Defining May – Displaying July – Site content
communication near-final content staged for launch
objectives page by page in a WF like layout
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16. Brand Personality
Our brand personality is a set of human characteristics associated with the
Teach For America brand.
If Teach For America were a person, what would s/he be like?
It is the driver of emotional associations that people create with Teach For
America.
…If a brand personality is a set of human characteristics
associated with a brand,
and ours is “TBD,”
why don’t we put some of our real humans on display?
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17. Profile Collection
We collected over 400 profiles from corps members, alumni, and supporters
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back – it was a treasure trove – well

18. Evolving Visual Signal
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19. Website Design
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20. Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
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21. The Qualitative/Fuzzy Math Wins
• Streamlined site, with fewer pages
• Reduction in word count by approximately 45%
• Defined messaging architecture for the site
• Simplified language
• Infusion of inspiration
• A platform that allows for frequent site updates and a distributed publishing
model
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22. Quantitative Wins
We set out to create a website that inspires and engages, and metrics
confirm we’ve gone a long way toward that goal.
• Our engagement metrics show we are Metric Change – YOY
encouraging quality time on site Visits/Visitor 20%
• Engagement metrics look even better
when we isolate the time right before Pages/Visit 56%
an application deadline
• Over the coming year, we have grand Time on Site 83%
plans to iterate
Bounce Rate -35%
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23. Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. What We Achieved
IV. The Digital Decade
V. Questions?
23

24. Content Strategy in 2010-2011
• The site should showcase the diversity and vibrancy of the
community focused on solving educational inequity
Community • Foreground the multiple voices and perspectives of people who
make up that community
& Conversation
• Encourage and enable communication among community
members
Warmth • The site should lead the way in refocusing and repositioning the
brand, projecting more personality, authenticity, and passion
& Emotion • Use people’s stories to “show” rather than “tell”
Balanced • Streamline the site and strike the right balance between text,
images, graphics, and multimedia
Content Mix • Go beyond an online TFA brochure
24

25. Authenticity: The Value of the Moment
“Authenticity seems to be the
value of the moment,
rolling off the tongues of
politicians, celebrities, Web
gurus, college admissions
advisers, reality television stars.”
Source: New York Times, 9/9/11 25

26. Storytelling as Buzzword
“Storytelling is a buzzword with
lots of different interpretations.
Either the internet is killing
stories, or it’s the best thing to
happen to them since the printing
press.”
Source: A List Apart, 8/23/11 26

27. Agenda
I. Background
II. Organizational Moment
III. “The Digital Decade”
IV. What We Achieved
V. Questions?
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