How America’s Automotive Trust Shifted Their Communication Efforts Into High Gear

For America’s Automotive Trust, cars are more than machines. They are memories, traditions, careers, and connections passed down from one generation to the next. 

“Everybody’s got a story,” said Jake Welk, Marketing Communications Director for America’s Automotive Trust. “People walk through this museum and they see the 1969 Camaro. They’re like, ‘that was my car in high school.’ Or ‘I grew up in the back of that car that my parents drove me around in.’”

Founded in 2015, America’s Automotive Trust is a national nonprofit dedicated to preserving and advancing automotive culture and education. It brings together multiple brands, including the LeMay – America’s Car Museum, Club Auto, the RPM Foundation, and others, under one umbrella to serve this mission together. But for Jake and his team, the work they do is about more than just nostalgia.

“We’re in kind of a gap right now where we’re losing interest in trades,” Jake said. “You have these craftsmen and these really skilled mechanics … and they have nobody, no apprentices to pass this knowledge and the skill set down to.”

That challenge drives the organization’s work every day. Through museum programming, educational workshops, apprenticeships, and nationwide collaborations, the Trust is working to keep automotive craftsmanship alive. From young students to aspiring mechanics, they’re trying to reach people at every stage of life.

“We are all about creating opportunities for future generations so the car world does not die.”

Building a better system

Before Constant Contact Teams, Jake’s team struggled with a lot of manual, time-consuming work just to get emails out the door. Managing contact lists and campaigns kept getting harder. Their biggest challenge, however, was the disconnect between the organization’s database in Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge and their previous email platform, ActiveCampaign.

 “Our database was not talking to our email system,” Jake said. 

Every time they wanted to send an email campaign, the team had to create lists, tag contacts, and organize information manually. “Adding lists and uploading new contacts was so painful,” said Jake. 

Over time, the process became increasingly disorganized and hard to manage. Even simple tasks, like handling unsubscribe requests, meant going in and manually searching for contacts and removing them one by one. This not only caused confusion and errors but also wasted significant time for both Jake and his staff. 

“[With Constant Contact] that bridge has now been created … which has just created leaps and bounds for us in terms of what we’re able to accomplish with our email marketing,” explains Jake. “It cut down significantly on the amount of manpower on the back end. Integrating new contacts now is a lot more simple.”

Empowering teams across the organization

America’s Automotive Trust oversees several distinct brands, each serving a different purpose. The LeMay Museum offers exhibits, events, education, and rentals. The RPM Foundation focuses on education and workforce development through scholarships and apprenticeships. 

On the membership side, Club Auto is like a social driving club, geared toward enthusiasts, while the Concours club is a more exclusive group of high-level supporters and donors. Additionally, each of these brands has its own internal departments, such as education, events, volunteers, and membership.

With multiple brands and departments operating under the trust (including museum programming, educational initiatives, membership groups, and volunteer coordination), they needed a way to manage these communications without losing brand consistency.

Before, almost every email request went through the marketing team. “We didn’t really have anyone accessing email like we do now in Constant Contact,” said Jake. “It was kind of like this Wizard of Oz behind-the-scenes thing.” 

Now, departments can actually communicate directly with their audiences using customized, brand-controlled templates and role-based access. “[Constant Contact] really unlocked the ability for other departments to be collaborating with us.”

That shift has taken a lot of pressure off the marketing team. “Now it’s not all on me and my team as the marketing team to carry the weight of the email for the entire organization.”

It also made things easier and more comfortable for non-marketing staff. With templates in place, they feel more confident creating and sending emails on their own. 

“There are now department heads in different areas who can now own [their email sends] themselves, which not only creates more collaboration but also makes them feel like they’re a part of the messaging as well.”

Making the most out of limited resources

Like most nonprofits, Jake and his team are doing a lot with a little. With a small advertising budget, small team, and multiple brands, audiences, and programs to maintain, they rely heavily on their owned channels (website, social media, and email) to stay connected with people and promote events or programs. 

That outreach supports some of the organization’s biggest goals: driving museum traffic, promoting events, growing memberships, and keeping supporters informed. “We’re doing everything that we can and taking on everything that we can with the small amount of resources we have and trying to make the biggest impact possible.” 

Email alone makes up a big chunk of that effort, and it’s instrumental in turning their audience into ticket buyers. While results vary by campaign, Jake said they typically see “anywhere from a 20-35% increase in attendance at events based on our RSVPs from emails.”

One recent example was an event in March that set a new attendance record. “Outside of web and social, it was our email through Constant Contact that was generating clicks to our ticket page for the event.” 

Internally, the team’s day-to-day communication efforts have gotten much smoother. Before, Jake managed nearly every mass email request for the entire organization. Now, eight additional staff members across departments like education, volunteer recruitment, development, and private events can now manage their own email outreach. That’s made their campaigns more direct, targeted, and way less bottlenecked, which “has greatly enhanced our back-and-forth communication to our external audience.” 

For Jake, the value is clear: “If you look at it very black and white, the amount of money we spend subscribing to Constant Contact is significantly small compared to the amount of revenue we create and generate.”

Supporting growth for the future

Since switching to Constant Contact’s Teams solution earlier this year, America’s Automotive Trust has noticed a real difference in the way they communicate both internally and with their audience. Campaigns go out faster, branding remains consistent, processes are easier to manage, and engagement feels more responsive across the board.

“[Constant Contact] is an efficient tool that allows our team to talk and communicate together in a way that we never have before. And it has created a real night and day difference for us on the back end and also on the user end. It’s a double whammy for us.”

As America’s Automotive Trust keeps growing its reach and expanding educational opportunities for future generations, staying connected to its community is still a big part of that effort. Constant Contact has made it easier to keep students, families, supporters, and members in the loop while also helping internal teams work together more smoothly.  

“It’s been a huge difference-maker.”