Touching Base with Melissa Brickey of Paraquad

It’s been many years since 1970 — how has Paraquad evolved?

We were founded as a grassroots advocacy organization — that was our focus for many years.Then we recognized that not only do we need to be advocating for people with disabilities, we also need to develop programming that supports them as they are trying to gain independence.

Paraquad has evolved from an advocacy organization to an organization that still focuses on advocacy but also offers programs that directly impact people with disabilities and the community as a whole.

How do you measure the impact of your programs and services?

Like every nonprofit, we have quantitative and qualitative measurements. Quantitatively, it’s certainly by the number of people participating in the programs. However, we also ask our participants in whatever program they engage with what their goals are for engagement within that program. The qualitative measurement is whether or not they’ve reached the goal that they put out for themselves. 

We believe in the idea of self-determination — an individual’s sense of what they want or what they need in their life. So, it’s both the number of people, but also whether or not they’ve met their goals.

Before working with Paradigm, what were some of the challenges your organization faced?

Our primary challenges were consistent messaging, community branding and just basic analytics around anything that we do as it relates to marketing.

We felt the Paraquad brand was limited to people with disabilities. From conversations and qualitative data, we found that people really didn’t know what Paraquad was unless they had a family member or they themselves were a person with a disability. 

We wanted to be more of a community brand people saw as part of the fabric of St. Louis. Many people may experience disability at some point in their lives, even if at the moment they aren’t experiencing it. We wanted to make sure that people knew who we are when and if they needed to take advantage of our services.

Why did Paraquad choose to partner with Paradigm?

In my own experience in the nonprofit sector, I knew Paradigm was well respected. I met Michael and some other colleagues many years ago while I was in another organization searching for some marketing support. 

I was left with such a positive feeling from the conversations that I had. Since then, a future partnership has always been at the front of my mind. I knew at the time I wanted to someday be able to work with Michael and his team.

How would you characterize your ongoing partnership with us?

It’s been wonderful! Every single person we’ve worked with has been focused on building relationships, understanding what our organization needs and challenging us to see beyond. 

To be able to market and brand a mission, you have to be able to feel it — beyond what’s on a piece of paper. That mission focus is imperative for a nonprofit, so I have really appreciated Paradigm’s commitment to embracing it.

How have we helped you address marketing challenges through campaign work?

Brand cohesion across our organization has been incredibly impactful for us. Now, we’re unified around a shared message and understanding of who we are as an organization.

Also, the monthly and quarterly analytics are supporting our desire to make decisions based on data. Prior to having the analytics, we were making decisions based on gut — data-driven decision-making has really elevated our organization’s professionalism.

Finally, regular social media and blog content have brought more people to Paraquad. We’ve seen website traffic, blog traffic and Facebook traffic increase. It’s not necessarily people who are going to be utilizing our services, but people who are going to be supporting us as we support people with disabilities, which has been awesome.

What motivated you to take the leap on SEO?

We had to do something to hit people outside of our community. For example, a goal for one of our programs, the Stephen A. Orthwein Center is to be a regional, if not national, destination. Many people might not need our facilities right now — but we want to get the word out and be in the national conversation about adaptive and accessible gyms.

What’s one piece of wisdom you’ve gained from our partnership?

Consistency in your messaging is invaluable. Keep it simple and mission-focused — doing that over and over again will bring results. 

Partner with Paradigm 

Paradigm has been in the marketing game for nearly 30 years — in that time, we’ve crafted advertising campaigns for nearly every purpose. From awareness to conversions, we use our interdisciplinary expertise to craft custom solutions that drive real results. 

Have a project for us? Contact our team to open a new chapter for your organization.