Association of Aquatic Professionals

aka AOAP   |   Liberty Hill, TX   |  https://aquaticpros.org/

Mission

The Association of Aquatic Professionals is a domestic 501(c)3 Non-Profit Corporation and is run by an all volunteer Board of Directors and a full-time Executive Director/CEO that exclusively promotes and advocates policies, practices and procedures that contribute to safer and improved aquatic education, aquatic recreation activities, programs, and facilities; provides and supports quality aquatic education opportunities; coordinates and conducts research in the field of aquatic management and safety; promotes coordination and cooperation between established aquatic associations responsible for all aspects of aquatic programming, aquatic management, aquatic operation and maintenance and aquatic facility design. Provides Life Jackets and Swim Lesson Grants. https://aquaticpros.org/about/

Notes from the nonprofit

We strive to collaborate and partner with any aquatic organization to enhance our ability to promote drowning prevention and aquatic education to anyone and everyone.

Ruling year info

2011

Executive Director/CEO

2628949772 Juliene Hefter

Main address

PO Box 1041

Liberty Hill, TX 78642 USA

Show more contact info

EIN

27-4879025

NTEE code info

Alliance/Advocacy Organizations (W01)

Safety Education (M40)

Alliance/Advocacy Organizations (G01)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

Sign in or create an account to view Form(s) 990 for 2019, 2018 and 2017.
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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Our main goal is drowning prevention education. We developed a FREE drowning prevention program that has 3 parts: A portion for caregivers (we were the first organization to do this), a portion for children that both have a presentation as well as an instructor guide. We also have PSA's, a video, pamphlets and flyers in both english and spanish. We have Rowdy Gaines working on re-doing our PSA's currently. We provide a one stop shop for all aquatic professionals and partner and collaborate with any and all organizations that work towards the mission of drowning prevention. Our conference provides educational opportunities for all aquatic professionals in any facet of aquatics to ensure that they are up to date on the pool codes, risk management, liability, and safe practices at their facilities. We provide webinars and FREE newsletter each week to promote any and all aquatic safety groups and messages.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

AOAP Annual Conference & Exposition

The Association of Aquatic Professionals provides an Annual Conference and Exposition along with Diversity in Aquatics Convention. Our goals are to offer you the best educational and networking experience available at the most reasonable cost to you and your organization. You have a number of choices to register for the conference and trade show. https://aquaticpros.org/conference-exposition/

Population(s) Served
Adults

Where we work

Videos

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of groups brought together in a coalition/alliance/partnership

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

2020 we became a member of the aquatics coalition http://www.aquatics-coalition.org

Number of donations made by board members

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

AOAP Annual Conference & Exposition

Type of Metric

Other - describing something else

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Board members contribute to the silent auction, the cork pull and various other annual activities

Number of return website visitors

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Our google analytics continue to climb annually.

Number of rallies/events/conferences/lectures held to further mission

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Our conference continues to offer additional pre and post conference workshops as well as more sessions annually. With going virtual for most things in 2020 we offered many more webinars.

Number of clients participating in educational programs

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Our participation numbers continue to rise annually for our webinars. Virtual options made participation easier for 2020

Average number of days taken to respond to customers

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

We have a policy to respond either immediately, if possible, however, within 24 hours at the maximum. The only way this does not happen is if the ED is abroad internationally.

Number of donors retained

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

AOAP Annual Conference & Exposition

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

We continually find sponsors to assist us with providing the best educational offerings and our grant programs and all of our board members give as well as other members and non members

Number of clients reporting increased knowledge after educational programs

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

We have conference attendees fill out session evaluations on site and then send out an overall conference evaluation. We also have participants evaluate the webinars that they take.

Number of volunteers

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

We have volunteers on our board of directors, conference committee and various other AOAP Committees throughout the year.

Number of organizational partners

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

We partner with various aquatic organizations throughout the year and at the conference

Total number of organization members

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

We continually are growing our membership by providing membership benefits that they are interested in. We are continually looking at how we can add benefits to our members.

Number of participants attending course/session/workshop

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Economically disadvantaged people

Related Program

AOAP Annual Conference & Exposition

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Went Virtual with our conference in 2021

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

We provide life jackets and swim lesson grants to communities to help support the drowning prevention message. Our main goal in everything that we do is to educate professionals and the public on safe practices in and around water.

We strive to educate professionals and the public on drowning prevention education and how to run and operate facilities in a safe fashion. Also, to educate the public on water safety in general. Our overall goal is safety in and around the water. Water meaning and body of water from pools, rivers, open water, ponds, rivers, streams, home water sources such as buckets of water, bathrooms, bathtubs, basically any and all water sources.

A. Mission Statement

“We believe in promoting and supporting the aquatic profession through advocacy, research, and education on aquatic issues and to provide a common forum for members, educators, and aquatic suppliers that contributes to their professional advancement.”


B. Vision Statement:
Description – The vision statement is given in two layers. The first layer is a general statement of vision. The second layer provides more detail on the components of the vision based on the core businesses of the Association.
Level One –
“The AOAP will be the leading organization representing aquatic professionals in advocacy, education, research, and professional collaboration.”
Level Two –
The AOAP will be the leading organization representing aquatic professionals in advocacy, education, research, and professional collaboration. This means that the AOAP will promote:
Advocacy – by getting ahead of issues and being an agent to favorably managing change affecting the aquatic industry, providing a consistent message, provide a respected and credible influence on aquatic issues, create elevated awareness for areas of concern, and presenting positions that are publicly valued.
Education – by increasing public awareness of the aquatic field, raising aquatic safety awareness, hosting compliant facilities training, demonstrating aquatic activities return on investment, and hosting forums to present non-biased information to the public and legislative bodies.
Research – promotion of current, fact-based solutions (scientific process) on aquatic issues and solutions, coordinate the investigative process that establishes resources to initiate innovation and better aquatic business practices.
Professional Collaboration – by providing a forum promoting an inclusive networking environment that fosters open idea exchanges, supportive relationships, shared goals, leadership development, and consensus building.
C. Values
The AOAP Board of Directors team will serve the Association with the following values:
“We care about our members, our profession, and the customers our members serve. We do this with integrity, respect, trustworthiness, and dedication to egoless, purpose based leadership.”

We are proudly meeting these goals annually and we continue to grow our partnerships and collaborations with various groups.

We are the one stop shop for drowning prevention and pool code information. Our association continues to grow and get our message out there. We currently have a FREE weekly on-line newsletter that goes out to over 26,400+ individuals and that grows weekly as, again, it is free.

We provide on-line education on drowning prevention, risk management, legal liability, programming, facility operations and management and daily operations. We also developed an Aquatic Professional Designation for professionals within the field. https://www.splash-edu.org/courses/aquatic-professional-designation-aqp

We continually review our strategies and how we are getting the word out there. We participate in various radio interviews throughout the year and we promote FREE sessions during our conference for the public that cover drowning prevention initiatives.

As stated above we have been on a mission to provide drowning prevention education, life jackets and swim lesson grants and our accomplishments have even surprised us in the mere 10 years that we have been around. We are so very excited to see what the future will bring. Our goal is to not have any more non-fatal or fatal drownings! We will continue to educate everyone on the dangers of water for children and non-swimmers and promote the importance of learn to swim programs and life jackets for all non-swimmers or not strong swimmers.

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We shared information about our current feedback practices.

  • How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

    Evaluations and surveys,

  • How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

    We constantly look for feedback to continue to grow and meet the needs of aquatics education,

  • What significant change resulted from feedback?

    We continually look at all of our services and programs from the perspective of our members and aquatic professionals and companies and the community. We adjust what types of educational offerings we provide as well as additional webinars and grants based on annual feedback that we receive. We also added a Diversity and Inclusion position to our board positions to ensure that we are meeting the needs of everyone. We also added conference scholarships for diverse populations as well as added many diversity sessions to our conference line-up and covered LGBTQ+ areas. We have also added gender pronouns to our name badges for our conference based on feedback that we received at our last conference.

  • With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

    Our members as well as AOAP Weekly subscribers,

  • Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

    Getting people to provide it,

Financials

Association of Aquatic Professionals
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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Connect with nonprofit leaders

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  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

Association of Aquatic Professionals

Board of directors
as of 07/22/2022
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board chair

2628949772 Cory Hilderbrand

Association of Aquatic Professionals

Term: 2021 - 2022

Cory Hilderbrand

City of Irvine

Craig Merkey

Penn State Harrisburg

Bob Kappel

ProMinent

Sue Nelson

Total Aquatic Programming

Mark Basnight

Lincoln Aquatics

Donita Grinde-Houtman

Derby Recreation

Tara Eggleston-Stewart

MNPCP

Gwen Willcox

City of Temecula

Jeff Fryer

River Road

Manda Groff

Gwinnet County

Christian Peck

Peoria Aquatics

Courtney Clay

City of Mesa

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 10/21/2020

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
White/Caucasian/European
Gender identity
Female, Not transgender (cisgender)
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual or Straight
Disability status
Person without a disability

Race & ethnicity

No data

Gender identity

No data

 

No data

Sexual orientation

No data

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 07/22/2022

GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more

Data
  • We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
  • We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
  • We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
  • We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
  • We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
  • We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
  • We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
Policies and processes
  • We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
  • We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
  • We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
  • We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
  • We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
  • We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
  • We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.