The Expanded Learning Growth Framework: Turning Marketing Into Measurable Program Impact

Expanded Learning leaders are being asked to solve a lot at once.

And increasingly, report the data that proves programs are actually reaching and serving students.

Marketing cannot solve all of those problems.

But it can either help move them or create more activity around them.

That distinction matters.

Because one of the easiest ways to waste a campaign is to start with the deliverable.

Maybe.

But those are downstream decisions.

The better first question is:

What actually needs to move?

For an Expanded Learning program, that may be:

• Staff recruitment.
• Enrollment.
• Participation.
• Retention.
• Partnerships.
• Funding.

Those are not marketing outputs.

They are organizational and program priorities.

And once the priority is clear, the campaign becomes much easier to build.

That thinking led me to a framework I’ve been developing for Expanded Learning leaders:

Priority → People → Message → Action → Outcome

The framework is simple by design.

Start with what the organization needs to change.

Identify the people who can help move it.

Clarify what those people need to understand or believe.

Make the next action clear.

Then measure whether anything meaningful actually happened.

Because the campaign is not finished when people see it.

The work should create measurable movement for the program.

1. Priority

Start with the thing the program actually needs to improve.

The first question should not be: What campaign should we run?

Start with: What program or organizational priority are we trying to improve?

That matters because a staffing problem requires a very different campaign from an enrollment problem.

A partnership campaign requires a different audience, message, and action from a funding campaign.

And the operating pressures are real.

California’s 2025 Expanded Learning report found that ASES, 21st CCLC, and ASSETs programs operated across 4,260 sites and served 769,228 students during the 2022–23 school year. But average participation across grantee schools was 32.9%.

That is an important distinction.

Access matters.

Enrollment matters.

But participation matters too.

A campaign that generates interest without helping move students and families toward actual participation has not finished the job.

The priority has to come first.

2. People

Who actually has to move for the priority to improve?

Once the priority is clear, define the people.

For staffing, that might be qualified applicants.

For enrollment and participation, it may be parents, caregivers, students, or school-site communities.

For partnerships, it may be district leaders, community-based organizations, employers, civic leaders, funders, or other organizations.

For funding, it may be decision-makers who need a clearer understanding of the need, evidence, impact, and opportunity.

This is where channel-first thinking often gets organizations in trouble.

Maybe.

But first: Who are we trying to reach?

And: What has to happen when we reach them?

Only then should we decide which channels make sense.

That channel decision fits into a larger journey. I explain how to keep the audience, promise and next action connected in the full-funnel growth system.

3. Message

What does that audience need to understand, believe, or feel?

Getting in front of someone is not enough.

The campaign needs to reduce the distance between attention and action.

Take staffing.

Afterschool Alliance’s 2026 provider research found that 77% of providers remained concerned about finding staff or staffing shortages, and 42% said hiring and/or retaining staff was somewhat or very difficult. Programs experiencing staffing challenges reported consequences including increased staff stress, reduced ability to serve more students, lower morale, and effects on program quality.

That means a staffing campaign is not simply a job announcement.

The message may need to answer:

• Why should someone want to work here?
• What will the experience actually be like?
• Why does the work matter?
• What support will they receive?
• What makes this opportunity different from the other options competing for their time?

If the organizational priority is stronger staffing capacity, the campaign message has to help the right people see a reason to act.

The same principle applies to families.

A parent may need to understand:

• What will my child experience?
• Is the program safe?
• Will my child belong?
• Will this help my family?
• Is it easy to participate?
• What do I need to do next?

The message should come from the decision the audience needs to make.

4. Action

What do we actually want people to do?

Every campaign should lead toward a defined action.

Apply. Register. Enroll. Attend. Return. Schedule a conversation. Partner. Give. Refer.

The action matters because it gives the campaign something concrete to measure.

But even here, I would be careful about declaring victory too early.

A completed enrollment form is useful.

It is not the same as participation.

An applicant is useful.

It is not the same as a filled position.

A partnership inquiry is useful.

It is not the same as an active partnership.

Marketing metrics should tell us whether people are moving.

Program and operational metrics tell us whether that movement actually changed the priority.

5. Outcome

This is the part I care about most.

The campaign result is rarely the final result.

Take staffing.

A recruitment campaign might generate more qualified applicants.

Good.

But keep going.

Campaign activity → qualified applicants → positions filled → stronger staffing capacity → more consistent program delivery → ability to serve students well

Now marketing activity is connected to something the organization actually cares about.

The same logic applies to enrollment.

Campaign activity → family interest → registration → enrollment → participation → continued engagement

And California is increasingly measuring that distinction.

Beginning with the 2025–26 reporting cycle, LEAs are certifying Expanded Learning participant counts and total program participation days through CALPADS.

That matters.

Because it reinforces an important principle:

Enrollment is not always the end of the measurement chain.

Participation matters.

And participation can have consequences beyond the program itself.

California’s 2025 Expanded Learning report found that participating students demonstrated increased school-day attendance, resulting in nearly $95 million in additional financial resources for schools. The report also identified positive academic and college/career-readiness outcomes among participating students.

That is the kind of connection I think marketing leaders and program leaders should care about.

Not: “How many impressions did we get?”

But: What did the campaign help move, and what did that movement make possible?

A better way to measure Expanded Learning campaigns

I like to think about measurement in four levels.

Campaign metric

What happened directly because people encountered the campaign?

Examples: Qualified applicants, inquiries, registrations, event attendance, partner conversations, funding inquiries.

Operational metric

Did that action improve something the organization needs to operate?

Examples: Positions filled, staffing capacity, enrollment, participation days, partner activation.

Program metric

Did the operational improvement strengthen the program?

Examples: Consistent program delivery, retention, student and family engagement, program quality, access.

Financial or mission impact

What did that ultimately make possible?

Examples: More students served, improved student outcomes, funding protected or better utilized, expanded program access, sustainable growth.

So the measurement chain becomes:

Campaign Activity → Measurable Action → Operational Result → Program Result → Financial / Mission Impact

Not every campaign will make it all the way through that chain immediately.

And marketing should not claim sole responsibility for outcomes created by program quality, operations, staff, school partners, families, and many other factors.

The point is not to inflate attribution.

The point is to understand contribution.

What this looks like across five common priorities

Staff recruitment

The goal is not simply more applicants.

It is enough of the right applicants to strengthen staffing capacity.

If the campaign generates 300 applications but very few people are qualified, available, or interested after learning more, applicant volume alone is not success.

Enrollment and participation

The goal should not stop at awareness.

Can the campaign help the right families understand the opportunity?

Can they navigate the enrollment process?

Do students actually begin participating?

Do they continue participating?

California’s move toward participant counts and participation-day reporting makes that progression increasingly important.

Retention

Retention is largely a program experience issue.

But communication still has a role.

Families and students need to understand what is happening, what is available, why continued participation matters, and what comes next.

Good communication cannot compensate for a poor experience.

It can help a strong experience remain visible and understood.

Partnerships

The goal is not partnership “awareness.”

It is meaningful relationships that create resources, expertise, access, reach, or opportunities the program would not have had alone.

That means partnership marketing should start with value exchange.

Not only: What do we need from them?

But: Why should this relationship matter to them too?

Funding

Funding pressure is significant across the sector.

In Afterschool Alliance’s latest national provider research, 88% of providers expressed concern about long-term funding and their program’s future, while 77% were concerned about losing funding.

That makes communication around impact even more important.

A strong funding story connects:

Need + evidence + impact + opportunity + action

Not simply: “We need support.”

Leaders, funders, partners, and communities should be able to understand what resources make possible.

How I build around the priority

When I approach a campaign, I think about the work in four stages.

1. Clarify

Define: The organizational or program priority. The audience. The action. The success metric. The operational, financial, or mission outcome the work should support.

2. Build

Develop: Campaign strategy. Audience messaging. Creative direction. Conversion path. Audience experience.

3. Activate

Select the channels that make sense for the audience and campaign.

That might include: Email. Social. Paid media. Partnerships. Landing pages. Events. Direct outreach.

The channel follows the strategy.

Not the other way around.

4. Measure

Track what happened.

Identify what is and is not working.

Optimize the campaign.

And connect the results back to the original priority.

The question I want the campaign to eventually answer is simple:

Did this work move the thing we said mattered?

A real example from education

I’ve seen the value of this approach in education marketing.

Across approximately four years, Preview Day campaigns directly sourced students who later matriculated, representing more than $63 million in attributable enrollment revenue.

The language matters.

The campaign did not independently cause every dollar.

There were many factors involved in a student ultimately choosing to enroll.

But we could trace a meaningful pathway:

Preview Day campaign → event attendance → matriculation → attributable enrollment revenue

That gives us something much more useful than an isolated campaign metric.

It shows how marketing activity can contribute to a larger organizational outcome.

That is the standard I want to keep pushing toward.

Marketing isn’t the goal

Expanded Learning leaders already have enough activity competing for their attention.

The answer is not automatically: More content. More ads. More emails. More channels.

Sometimes the better starting point is clarity.

What actually needs to move?

Then build backward:

Priority → People → Message → Action → Outcome

Because if the marketing gets attention but nothing meaningful changes for the program, we haven’t finished the job.

The campaign isn’t finished when people see it.

It’s finished when the work creates measurable movement for the program.