ZOOM Blog

The Point for a Non-Profit

For several years ZOOM has been a sponsor of EPATT, named for the East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring program. EPATT was founded in 1988 by Jeff Aarons, a Stanford tennis star who wanted to make a difference in the lives East Palo Alto kids (at that time, EPA was the murder capital of the nation) by getting them off the streets and onto the tennis courts.

I was honored when I was asked to join EPATT’s board and apply the ZOOM methodology to their positioning. It raised questions we had not considered before, including how The Point That Matters might apply to a nonprofit, and how an all-volunteer Board of Directors might differ from a tech firm’s executive team.

Out of the gate, we encountered a familiar situation: EPATT did not own a hill, and competition was increasing. There are many similar programs focusing on athletics, academics and life skills, and frankly their messages all sound the same.

But EPATT really is different! It was the first to offer tennis and one-on-one tutoring and to partner with a university (Stanford, no less). And EPATT is the program others turn to see how it’s done. Representatives from 20 similar programs have come from Florida, Tennessee, Portland, Utah and Harvard to learn how EPATT works its magic. EPATT, we realized, is the benchmark for how to run a tennis and tutoring program.

And thus we had EPATT’s hill: The benchmark program for after-school tennis and tutoring. That’s a hill EPATT can own…no other program is as imitated and respected as EPATT.

Now onto EPATT’s Point That Matters.

As Dave Higaki, EPATT’s Executive Director is fond of saying, EPATT is not a service, “we’re here to provide impact.” The difference between a service-driven program and an impact-driven program is accountability. EPATT demands accountability from its students and parents. Some examples:

• Students must enroll in EPATT, it’s not a drop in program
• Students can’t miss more than three days at EPATT per quarter
• EPATT has its own report card that requires a 3.0 score across all four EPATT components (academics, athletics, attitude and parental involvement)
• Parents must attend quarterly parent meetings
• Parents must meet with their kid’s teachers and stay involved in their school

The impact of EPATT hit home for me when I spoke with one its students, a 14 year old boy whose mom made him join EPATT and he hated it. At first. That was six months ago. Recently, I asked him “What was your attitude about life before EPATT?” He said “That homework was dumb and I didn’t want to do it.” And now? “If you want to go to college, do your homework. And when you’re done, it’s going to come out great for you.”

EPATT has been a game changer in this boy’s life. We decided “Game Changer” is a more sporting and colloquial, way to say impact. And thus we hit on EPATT’s Point That Matters: Game changer for at risk kids in athletics, academics, attitude and parental involvement.

We always look for a metric to bring home a clients Point and EPATT is no different. 95% of EPATT students graduate high school compared to 35% from their community who don’t attend EPATT. Positioning accomplished.

The board applauded our recommendations and I was so grateful to have found a way to capture what’s special about EPATT. Also, I didn’t want to let down legendary Stanford Tennis Director Dick Gould, who had some nice things to say about our work, as shown below.

If EPATT’s story touched your heart, find out more by going to their web site (www.epatt.org), or better yet, come to their annual charity dinner on May 5 at the Circus Club in Menlo Park. Details are on their web site under “Giving”.