Overview
Asian American Leadership, Empowerment, and Development for Youth and Families (AALEAD) is a bridge between several worlds. It links Asian and American culture, and is a bridge that connects Asian youth and their elders.
AALEAD was founded in 1998 by a young woman whose family fled Vietnam and lived in refugee camps for several years before coming to the United States. While she longed for a place to call home, she grieved what was lost and left behind in her homeland. In starting AALEAD, Sandy Dang turned her losses into gains for many Asian children in Washington, DC. “I want to help Asian American children who are struggling like I did to realize that they can become successful citizens. Through education, they can make their dreams come true.” AALEAD is a place of discovery. It is a place where children are tutored and supported so they can succeed in school. It is also a place where Asian parents and their children learn to build a community based on shared values and common goals. And it is where Asian Americans discover that they have the power to improve both their own lives, and the lives of the people around them. AALEAD Website
Investment Fact Sheet
AALEAD
http://www.aalead.org
1323 Girard Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-884-0322
Founded in 1998
Executive Director: Rosetta Lai
Board Chair: Smita Dutta
Mission and History
AALEAD promotes the well-being of Asian American youth and families through education, leadership, and community-building.
AALEAD was founded in 1998 by Sandy Dang, a young Vietnamese woman whose family fled their homeland in the 1970s. The family lived in several refugee camps before coming to the United States. Dang was a survivor. She did well in school, won a scholarship to Duke University, and earned a graduate degree from Catholic University. But she never forgot what she and so many others had left behind in their homelands. Dang began AALEAD to help Asian children and their families bridge cultural divides and develop a strong community of people based on shared values, tradition, and history.
The organization is located in Columbia Heights and also operates in Montgomery County.
Services
AALEAD serves children ranging in age from 6 to 18. The organization has developed a holistic and multifaceted approach to helping students achieve academic success and go on to college. The organization delivers educational enrichment through four programs:
- Elementary After School Academic Enrichment Program - AALEAD provides academic enrichment, homework support, arts classes, and recreational activities to elementary school students each weekday. Youth also participate in group projects and field trips. The program continues into the summer through a six week Summer Enrichment Program.
- Family Strengthening Program - The Family Strengthening Program provides case management services to families to increase their access to services, manage family crises, and increase parents' knowledge and use of appropriate parenting practices. AALEAD uses educational advocacy to increase parental involvement in their children’s education and to increase parents’ awareness of available school choices. Activities include informing parents about the American educational system, teaching them to understand report cards and standardized test scores, and helping them apply to out of boundary, charter, and private schools on behalf of their children.
- Mentoring Program - The Mentoring Program recruits, selects, matches, and trains adult volunteers to mentor students one-on-one, helping them to develop the academic and life skills necessary to succeed in school. Each mentor receives a detailed handbook, undergoes a two-day orientation, and is supervised regularly by the Volunteer Coordinator.
- Academic, Leadership and Resiliency Secondary School Program - AALEAD offers multimedia projects, one-on-one tutoring, English as a second language (ESL) and SAT/college preparation classes, community service, recreational and leadership building activities, guidance, and homework support to middle and high school students. Additionally, high school seniors receive individual assistance in completing college and scholarship applications, financial aid forms, and fee waiver requests. In the summer, AALEAD provides employment opportunities for youth through the District of Columbia Summer Youth Employment Program. This program is not school specific.
- Tutoring Program - AALEAD elementary youth are invited to participate in their Tutoring Program, held at participating schools in conjuntion with the ASAE Program. This For Love of Children (FLOC) designed program has been proven to significantly improve students’ ability to master grade appropriate math and reading skills.
Leadership
AALEAD Founder and Executive Director Rosetta Lai spent twenty years in the corporate sector in organizational development with global corporations, such as Motorola, NCS/Pearson and SRA/IBM. Prior to joining the corporate world, Rosetta spent eight years in education, where she was Dean of Women at Lake Forest Academy in Chicago, and Academic Dean at St. Mary’s Academy in South Bend, IN. Throughout her adult life, Rosetta has been active in Asian American non-profit organizations. She served as the President of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), Chicago Chapter in the 1980s and is the current National President of the Organization of Chinese American Women (OCAW). Rosetta received a B.A. in History from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN and a Masters in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame.
Board Chair Smita Dutta is a Principal at IBM Global Services in Bethesda, MD, leading projects that integrate acquisitions into IBM. She has nearly 10 years of consulting and project management experience through her work at IBM and previously UBS, AG in Switzerland. Prior to attending business school, she was a researcher and project manager at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Ms. Dutta graduated from the University of Dallas cum laude with a B.S. in Biochemistry and a B.A. in History, and has an M.A. in History of Science from the Johns Hopkins University and received her M.B.A. from Yale University's School of Management.
Investment Summary
Please note: this Investment Summary represents VPP's perspective at the time of the investment agreement, October, 2004.
In October, 2004, VPP entered into a continued investment partnership with the Asian American Leadership, Empowerment, and Development for Youth and Families (AALEAD), a young and impressive organization that provides academic enrichment, mentoring, and family strengthening services to Asian refugee families in the Columbia Heights/Mount Pleasant area of Washington, DC. These refugees are survivors of war, famine, and severe discrimination who have resettled in a difficult urban environment.
This investment is a departure for VPP in that this organization is still in the early stages of its development, and we are co-investing with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF). EMCF has an investment philosophy that is similar to VPP's, is a national leader in working with youth organizations, and is particularly known for its focus on outcomes and its efforts to increase the effectiveness of grantmaking. Through this investment in AALEAD, VPP and EMCF hope to learn how to best support early-stage organizations that appear to have great potential. Through this co-investment by EMCF and VPP, we hope to develop a model for other co-investment relationships and increase the amount of capital and non-financial support for community-based organizations here in the National Capital region.
VPP and EMCF first invested in AALEAD in October of 2004 with support to increase its benefit to children, to position it for greater sustainability, and to prepare it for more significant investment from funders in the future. AALEAD is now at a critical juncture in determining its growth strategy for the future—facing challenging questions regarding its target population, program delivery, and financing. VPP and EMCF's continued investment partnership with AALEAD will provide the financial resources and strategic assistance necessary to support the organization as it navigates through this next phase of its organizational growth—better clarifying AALEAD's aspirations and strategy for growth—and ultimately having a greater impact on the Asian youth and families of this region.
The investment partnership with AALEAD represents a combined total investment of up to $700,000 and strategic assistance commencing in October of this year. VPP will provide up to $250,000 to support business planning as well as selected elements of strategy implementation, while EMCF will provide up to $450,000 to underwrite a significant portion of AALEAD's organizational development. This brings VPP's investment in AALEAD up to $425,000 as the pre-planning investment was $225,000.
OPPORTUNITY
This investment is providing funding and non-financial support to help grow and strengthen AALEAD to increase its benefit to children, to position it for greater sustainability, and to prepare it for more significant investment from funders in the future.
INVESTMENT RATIONALE
Key factors that provide the basis for a co-investment in AALEAD include:
Leadership – Sandy Dang is a young, dynamic leader that has moved Asian American LEAD from formation to serving 150 families annually in six years. She is deliberate about program quality, and is open to advice and change that will improve outcomes for youth. Sandy’s determined, focused style has allowed AALEAD to perform well against the milestones that were set for the first investment period. While Sandy has faced challenges transitioning as the sole founder/CEO to integrating new talent into the mix, she has grown and matured as a leader.
Commitment to Outcomes – Starting at the top, AALEAD has a solid commitment to quality programming and evaluation. They have made their work on outcomes a priority for the organization, dedicating internal resources, forming an advisory committee, and training program staff to begin a process to ensure organizational accountability around outcomes for youth. EMCF identified this commitment early on in their due diligence work and noted “we were impressed with the intensity of AALEAD’s service model, the quality of its executive director, and the organization’s commitment to systematically track performance outcomes and build its evaluation capacity. Though AALEAD is quite small, we believed the organization had significant promise to deliver effective outcomes for Vietnamese youth.”
Filling a critical need - With a 48% population increase in just 10 years, the Asian Pacific American population is the second fastest growing immigrant population in the United States. The Washington-Baltimore region is no exception. More than 450,000 Asian Pacific Americans live in the Washington-Baltimore region, making it the fifth largest Asian Pacific American population of any metropolitan area. AALEAD aspires to act as a stabilizing force for Asian American refugees and immigrants in the region, and help them integrate into American society while preserving their ethnic identity.
USE OF FUNDS
A VPP/EMCF continued partnership will provide financial resources to:
1) Fund a planning process;
2) Provide continued capacity support; and
3) Fund key elements of strategy implementation.
Financial Commitment
▪ VPP: VPP’s financial investment will be used to fund a focused planning effort that engages the leadership of the organization in a process that helps them define their strategy for the future and provides additional follow-on support to begin strategy implementation.
▪ EMCF: The EMCF investment will provide the operational support AALEAD needs to continue its organizational capacity building efforts, as well as funds to begin implementing its growth plan for the future.
Synopsis
Asian American LEAD (AALEAD) is a stronger organization than it was in 2002. They have expanded into Montgomery County, Maryland as planned, and the organization's overall effectiveness has improved; however, it is too early to determine their overall sustainability until recurring funding for Maryland expansion is secured.
Key Accomplishments
AALEAD built a stronger senior management team, board, and robust measurement system to ensure outcomes accountability and performance. Other noteworthy accomplishments that contributed to improved capacity and increased effectiveness include:
- Planning and Focus: Completed business planning in May 2005, facilitated by Monitor Group, resulting in a well-defined expansion plan for growth in new DC and MD communities, based on detailed data of regional demographic shifts.
- Human Capital - Board and Management: Recruited and integrated Deputy Director and Director of Development positions. Added six new board members with needed expertise, shifting composition of board from founding board to a board with diverse professional areas of expertise, providing stewardship and governance.
- Capitalization/Revenue: Secured recurring source of revenue totaling $200 thousand from local public funding source (OECD) and qualified for an additional continuing source of per student funding through the Supplemental Education Services program in DC and Maryland. Increased capacity to secure public funding, resulting in $250 thousand for 2005.
- Outcomes Assessment: With support and expertise in the form of a co-investment with VPP from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, AALEAD developed a system of outcomes and performance assessment and management, and implemented in all program areas.
- Raised Expectations for Talent: Founder Sandy Dang deepened knowledge and understanding of resources and time necessary to recruit and secure leadership talent and increased her ability to work with senior talent like the Deputy Director and outside consultants.
Key Information
- Date, years, and stage of VPP Investment:
- November 2002; 4 years (complete)
- Capital committed and disbursed by VPP:
- $425,000 committed and funded
- Revenue increase & % budget growth:
- $750 thousand to $1.2 million — 60% in four years
- Leveraged funding:
- $1.1 million
Case Study
Preparing for Growth
Founded in 1998 by Sandy Dang, AALEAD works to promote the wellbeing of low-income Asian American youth and families through education, leadership development, and community-building. Beginning with a small space located at the back of a police substation, the organization has grown to serve 300 youth and families annually from its headquarters in Columbia Heights and office in Wheaton, Maryland, as well as through programs it runs in a number of DC and Maryland public schools.
While the organization historically focused on the Vietnamese, Amerasian, and Chinese immigrant and refugee communities, it now serves a more diverse community to respond to the changing needs and demographics in Columbia Heights as well as in suburban Maryland. Currently, the organization serves young people representing more than 12 different Asian ethnicities.
For much of the organization’s history, Sandy Dang was AALEAD. Although she had a young, energetic staff who assisted her, Dang handled the bulk of the operations, from program design to fundraising to general business functions. She knew the children and families involved in AALEAD intimately. In the early 2000s, Dang was seeing what many organizations were seeing: her core population was moving out of AALEAD’s neighborhood to other parts of the city and into the suburbs. These families were finding that there were no other services that catered to their needs and began asking Dang to find ways to help them. She was also seeing that the Asian American population she was serving—originally Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants—was growing more diverse, to include Thais, Filipinos, Cambodians, Koreans, and South Asians, who all had different languages, cultures, and needs. Dang knew that to keep up with the needs of the changing Asian American community, she would need to grow the organization—and that would mean a different way of operating. She needed help figuring out how to expand and how to build an organization that could support that growth.
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