�ݺ�ߣ

Editor's Notes

1. The organization I’ll be talking about today is called 826. 826 is a writing center of sorts geared toward increasing writing skills in childhood, particularly in areas that don’t have the best school systems. These include the Colombia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston, among others.
2. 826 was started in Valencia, California by author Dave Eggers in 2002. Shortly after renting a space to open a youth writing center, Eggers discovered the location was zoned for retail. This meant they had to sell something, even though the point of 826 is to be a free writing resource for children.
3. o solve this problem, Eggers and his staff decided to start selling pirate-themed trinkets. This inadvertently created the 826 model of purchasing storefronts, creating ridiculous shops, and holding writing services in-store (though the organization also holds outreach programs in local schools). The original location became known as the Pirate Supply Store.
4. 1. Here are some of their other locations: Washington DC has the Museum of Unnatural History, Brooklyn has the Superhero Supply Company, Ann Arbor has Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair, Chicago has The Boring Store (which sells spy equipment), LA has the Time Travel Mart, and Boston has the Bigfoot Research Institute of Greater Boston.
5. The services offered by 826 vary by location and age group. All locations offer tutoring in their stores, but other services include school outreach programs, writing seminars for adults hosted by famous authors and titled How To Write Like I Do, field trips, and writing workshops for kids (such as “Whining Effectively; Or, How to Persuade your Parents).
6. 1. So to sum all that up, 826 consists of these centers across the country. They all do pretty much the same thing, which is provide writing instruction for kids who might not get it otherwise. And, this I can’t stress enough, they run pirate, robot, and superhero supply stores to fund their practices.
7. So turning to their operations, 826 really nails the whole internet presence thing in general. Let’s start with the main website of the organization. To avoid confusion, this one is called 826 National. The others are labeled 826 (city name). This is sort of the go-to website for information about the overall aims of the program.
8. This website links out to each of the storefronts across the country. The main feature on the page is this scrolling set of stories offering information about program aims, reaching out for volunteers, and generally showing adorable kids getting involved with reading and writing. It also includes a blurb about 826’s aims and links to social media.
9. If we scroll down a bit on the site, we see this lovely map of the US with each 826 center identified. We also see some of the most important bits of data from the past year with a link to the annual report. You can get more information by clicking here (LEFT BUTTON) to see an overview, or here (RIGHT BUTTON) to download the whole annual report.
10. Although the full annual report is packed with information and infographics, I want to focus here on the overview. So here we have a bit more information about just how many students and teachers are being served by 826. They’ve found that students become more confident when working with 826 and they also become better writers.
11. To turn briefly to the annual report, I want to draw attention to just how wonderful the visuals are. The layout is really quite beautiful, but more importantly, almost every page has some sort of graphic. Tons of these are pictures of the students with the books they helped write. Others are spotlights on the cool new things each branch did in the past year.
12. Another great thing about the annual report is the growth initiative page. Up here, it’s linking the mission to research on the achievement gap and noting why 826 has such power to fix that. On this side, it’s talking about exactly how 826 plans on expanding its services through new locations, fundraising, web access, international programs, storefront expansions, and more professional development.
13. The annual report also spells out specifically how they’re going to evaluate their practices. In their case, this meant reaching out to consulting partners (this is where the data from the earlier infographics came from). This page is talking about exactly how they figured out what to evaluate and how they went about doing so (on the top and left). It also lists a few of their main findings (on the bottom right).
14. 1. I’m not going to run through each of the chapter websites, but I wanted to use the Washington DC one as an example. So here we have links along the side of the page for the main ways 826 DC reaches students- tutoring, field trips, workshops, in-school programs, and reading all-stars. I also want to highlight this button over here (100 100).
15. This is a way for 826 to give back to some of their bigger donors. Basically what they’ve done is use their social capital with famous authors to offer up 100 signed books to 100 donors who give $100 or more to the chapter. Authors include Lemony Snicket and Dinaw Mengestu. I thought this was a great way to encourage sizeable but affordable donations.
16. Now we’re going to head over to the social media side of things. All of the chapters (along with 826 National) are very active on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, instagram. The updates shared on the 826 National page are typically about cool things going on in the chapters, excerpts from new publications, and reading- and writing-focused news stories. They also post job openings and employee profiles.
17. If we take a look at one of the chapter facebook pages (here’s 826NYC and the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company), we see a lot more devoted specifically to the happenings of that chapter. Here we have profiles on the folks who run the chapter, notifications and recaps of events, and some really awesome writing from kids who attend that location.
18. One of the most effective things they do with their Facebook pages is make 826 seem like a really awesome place to volunteer. This is an advertisement for the volunteer program in New York City. They’ve branded their program the “league of superhumans” to match the Superhero Supply storefront, and they’ve got this wonderful ad to recruit new superhumans.
19. 826 stays unified in their mission and the first part of their name, but each chapter has cultivated its own identity through branding and storefronts. They all maintain the same lighthearted appreciation of writing and reading, but the model allows each chapter to really develop its own personality.
20. 1. 826 stretches across the country, but they’ve been able to achieve a great balance of unification and individuality. Through partnerships with donors and famous authors (including their founder), they’ve been able to raise money to support the writing and publishing of kids in underserved areas.