Young Consultants Train AAPI Organizations in Digital Advocacy

by Suchi Rudra

A term like “online organizing” may not have been around for long, but in a time where social media is king (and can make or break a business), Olivia Chow and her colleagues–Rohan Grover, Deepa Kunapuli and Vincent Paolo Villano–are driven to grow this niche from within the AAPI community. Unofficially formed in the fall of 2012, The Brain Trust is more than a pet project–for the four Washington, DC-based, first and second generation Asian Americans who run the firm on the side of full-time jobs, it’s turned into a way of life.

Chow and her co-founders, range in age from 24 to 27 and have experience in online organizing across different spaces, from political campaigns to health advocacy, transgender equality to Asian American civic engagement. The four repeatedly ran into each other at progressive technology events, receptions and trainings.

“We knew each other as thought leaders and practitioners in organizing with online technology, hungry for social justice for all and knew that AAPIs were included in that ‘all.’ We got together to figure out why there weren’t more online organizers like us and how we could help make AAPI organizing more effective. We wanted AAPI organizing to be loud, to win the ground game and win the Internet,” Chow explains.

Although the AAPI community is well represented online, with a current boom of AAPI representation on YouTube and other online mediums, Chow says they were not seeing measurable impact and power of this online presence. Part of the frustration that fueled the establishment of The Brain Trust came from noticing countless offenses of public anti-Asian remarks and the “reactionary organizing” that went into eliciting an apology. But to transform the world and make sure these offenses are not repeated, Chow says, “we need visionary organizing, not reactionary.”

The group effort began as a labor of love through discussions of how they each saw the progressive movement and where they viewed AAPI organizing in that model. The Brain Trust defines itself as the vehicle to bring AAPI organizing to a new frontier. Currently, the firm’s goal is to partner with AAPI organizations that are engaging in civil rights advocacy with a base of grassroots supporters.

The Brain Trust’s service is to “Test. Build. Train.” organizations to implement effective and targeted campaigns. Chow explains that the first step is to run diagnostic assessments of an organization’s current digital assets, like its website, Facebook page, Twitter account and email program. By measuring the usage and impact of each platform, the firm creates a customized digital consultancy package that gets to the heart of the organization’s need to run successful, sustainable programming. The Brain Trust also offers personalized trainings to meet advocates where they are with online technology and organizing, helps oversee the lift of building online organizing infrastructure and provides analytic reports to track progress to goal.

“You know what they say about giving a fish vs. teaching how to fish? We are teaching organizations to fish for their members through online organizing. The Brain Trust’s goal is to build and support established organizations doing great advocacy work by integrating digital technology and online organizing into their programming. By doing so organizations will be able to build their campaigns to a scale that is recognized, measures impact and wins,” Chow says.

Chow has come to define one of her personal philosophies, and motivations, as an “immigrant hustle”, recognizing the strength and drive that her parents had to build a sustainable life in a new foreign country.

“My parents do not consider themselves organizers, but I have seen them build community because that’s what I grew up in. My parents built a community to share information and resources as a matter of self-preservation. Growing up I hated being compared to all the other Chinese kids at the same piano recitals, SAT classes and soccer practices but it helped me learn. I learned how to assess situations, notice what was missing and to work hard to fill those gaps. I see The Brain Trust as the next phase in building community, to fill a need that our communities are desperately seeking, for effective policy advocacy.”

Having now worked in the area of online organizing for four years, Chow notes the many friends she has seen come to D.C. fired up to advocate for the AAPI community nationally but leave after getting burned out from all the work. With this in mind, she established The Brain Trust with her colleagues as a way to help AAPI organizations have measurable impact and have their work recognized.

“It’s a dream to be able to support organizations doing great work. We are in love with the good that these organizations are doing in the community, and we want others to fall in love with it too,” Chow says.

See our interview with co-founder Rohan Grover here: http://www.asianfortunenews.com/?p=19435