The Literacy Council

of Tyler Research

Purple Team
 Table of Contents

History of the LCOT ..................................3

Social Media.................................................5

Focus Publics.................................................8

Internship..............................................13
 The Literacy Council

Began in 1968 and was started by a group of women who wanted to serve the
community by volunteering their time to help adults.

Funding

Literacy councils are funded by national and state grants, as well as donors.

Services

Literacy councils offer services to better educate people. Typically, they offer
reading classes, writing classes, GED classes, and cater to those whose first
language is not English.

Their main mission is to strengthen communities by providing these services.

Literacy Council of Tyler

Mission Statement

“Literacy Council of Tyler believes that education is powerful and can unlock
potential.” (Literacy Council of Tyler). They are also a firm believer that everyone
should have an opportunity to be educated, no matter what stage of life they are
in.”

History
Started in 1990
Originally a basic adult literacy program but grew past that as they began to work
with other area agencies and offer ESL classes.
In 2001 Tyler Junior college subcontracted their Texas Education Agency adult
education program to the Literacy Council.
 Services
In 2020 tbey had a staff of 44 people, more than 200
volunteers and provided services to a little over 2,000
students. They “have programs in three counties that draw
from a seven-county region, however the majority of our
services are provided in Smith County” (Literacy Council of
Tyler). They provide their services for $500 per student per
year. The national average is $814.

Awards
They have received the Model Program award from the Texas
Education Agency. The award is only given to 25% of the
programs in Texas.
Previous Events

They have several events where they provide Free ESL

Tutor Training, as well as GED Volunteer Tutor Training. They
have an annual spelling bee, where ten teams from local
businesses compete. They have special themes at these
spelling bees and everyone comes in costume. The spelling
bee is where they start their annual fund campaign. In 2021
they “raised over $65,000 to support their various programs.”
(Literacy Council of Tyler).
 Social Media

Facebook
Over their last ten Facebook posts, they have
averaged 25 likes per post. They post visual
content in every post, which is good. Many of
their posts are shared two to four times and
may have one or two comments. They have
3,005 likes on Facebook. On their Facebook
page, they include a link to their website, their
phone number, and their address.
 Instagram
Their Instagram @literacy.council.tyler has 238
followers. Their Instagram is hard to search for
because of the periods in-between the words.
Over their last 10 posts, they have averaged
about 5 likes per post, with one comment on
two of the posts. They do not have their website
linked in their bio, but they do have their
address linked, as well as their contact
information. They do not have any reels on their
page. They have a total of 263 posts in all, with
six of these being videos. Their posts are mostly
the same as their Facebook posts, consisting of
pictures taken of students and some nice
informational graphics.
 Twitter
Their twitter account does not appear to be
in active use, seeing that their last tweet was
Mar 18, 2020. Their tweets average about 1-2
likes, but they do have 400 followers.

LinkedIn
Their LinkedIn account has 141 followers, btu
they do not post on this platform. They do
have a good bio, and an overview of their
history and mission in the about section.
 Potential donors - They have a page on their website for people to
donate. Every contribution is “tax deductible to the extent allowed by
law.” (Literacy Council of Tyler). The Literacy Council of Tyler is a
registered non profit organization with Federal Tax ID 75-2359704. They
acknowledge the donations publicly, but they also give people the
option to donate anonymously. They provide awards for people who
donate certain amounts of money. For those that donate $750,000 they
will put a bronze plaque with your name and a tribute to you and attach
it to a bronze statue of a mother reading to her child. Also, the portion
of their “endowment designated for our Adult GED and Basic Literacy
Programs will bear the donor’s name in perpetuity as the counterpart
to the Louis and Peaches Owen Endowment for English as a Second
Language.” (Literacy Council of Tyler). For those donors that give
$500,000 a bronze plaque with your name and tribute will be added to
the bronze statue of the two kids reading. For those that donate
$100,000 a plaque will be built into the stones surrounding their oak
tree called the Tree of Wisdom. For those that donate $50,000 a plaque
with your name will be added to the statue of a boy carrying a high pile
of books. For those that donate $25,000 you can choose one of their
Trees of Perseverance for your plaque to be added to. These trees are
redbud and chinese pistachio trees. For those that donate $10,000
their name will be etched into a stone that is attached to a bench called
The Bench of Visionaries. For those that donate $5,000 their name will
be etched into a stone that is attached to a bench called the Bench of
Memories. All of these people who donate any one of these amounts
and receive these awards will be known as a Legend of Literacy by the
Literacy Council of Tyler.
 Potential students - There’s a page on their website for
people to make an appointment to enroll as a student.
Student enrollments are done in a group. GED enrollment
is a 2 day process offered every Monday and Wednesday.
Potential students must participate both days to complete
the enrollment process. The sessions are available both
morning and evening. Once they are enrolled, GED
students must attend a course in the study lab 4-6 hours a
week until a face to face class becomes available. GED
students are placed in face to face classes at the beginning
of each month. However, there is also distance learning
available. ESL classes have “2 enrollments monthly, one
daytime enrollment which takes place from 9AM to 12 on
Wednesday and Thursday, and one nighttime enrollment
which takes place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
from 6:00 PM to 7:45 PM.” (Literacy Council of Tyler).
Potential students must be present the entire time. In
2020, they had more than 2,000 students. Their students
range from the age of 18 to ESL students who are in their
80s.
 Potential volunteers - There’s a page on their
website for people to submit a volunteer form.
They can choose what they are interested in
volunteering to help out in. Their options are:
GED Reading/Language Tutoring, GED Math
Tutoring, ESL Tutoring, Basic Literacy (Reading)
Tutoring, Office/Clerical, Virtual Tutoring, and
Other. Their volunteers can also help with their
special events or book programs. Most of their
volunteers hear about them from word of
mouth, but some hear about them from social
media such as Facebook. A majority of their
volunteers are older people who are retired or
close to. In 2020, they had a little over 200
volunteers.
 The community - The community at large is either
unaware of them or has a different idea of what
they do. A lot of people think that they work with the
children’s library. They provide things to get the
community involved with them, such as the Annual
Corporate Spelling Bee which gets 10 local
businesses to compete to raise money for the
Literacy Council of Tyler. Last year the 10 local
businesses helped raise $65,000. They also give
people in the community the option to hold a book
drive for them to support their Bill’s Bookshelf
program. These used books would be displayed in
area offices and clinics that under-served families
frequently go to. “On average, 61% of low-income
families have no children's books in their home.”
(Literacy Council of Tyler).
 Young people on social media - They want to reach out
to more younger people who frequent social media.
They want to both increase their students and
volunteers with younger people, because they are
getting less and less volunteers because they tend to be
older people who quit volunteering at a certain age. As
of right now they have 242 followers on Instagram and
3,287 followers on Facebook. Those are the two that
they frequently use, their Twitter hasn’t been posted on
in 2 years and on Twitter they have 400 followers.
 We thought that a good way for the literacy council to
be able to be more active on social media would be
for them to start an internship program at their
organization. They could start out by hiring a social
media intern, and if they wanted, they could expand
the program later on to other positions such as a
public relations intern.
To start an internship program, they would first need
to determine what type of tasks the intern could do.
This needs to be balanced between what tasks the
organization needs someone to do (e.g. filing,
paperwork, scheduling) and things that will give the
intern the experience they are looking for (posting on
the social media, designing graphics, engaging with
the social media community.) Another important step
in creating an internship program is to determine who
in the company will supervise the intern. This person
should be in charge of advertising the open positions
and signing any forms the intern needs signed for
school credit.
 Their internship program could consist of unpaid
internships that students can receive college credit
from. The coordinator of the program would need
to encourage applicants to check with their
academic advisors to make sure they are eligible to
receive credit through an internship before
applying. Once hired, the student would need to
communicate to the internship coordinator at the
LCOT if they needed any papers signed for their
advisor.
To comply with the Federal Labor Standards laws, if
the internship is unpaid, that must be specified to
applicants. The internship also needs to line align
with school semesters (think fall, spring, and
summer internships.) As mentioned previously, the
internship needs to benefit the intern academically,
so they should be learning skills that align with their
major. The internship should also be part-time
(probably 10-15 hours a week) and allow for flexible
scheduling so students can work around their
classes.