On the afternoon of May 7, Tiglat Issabey greeted Assyrians as they packed inside a newly renovated community center in Lincolnwood, Illinois.
It was the space’s grand opening, and the long road to this day had been a bumpy one for both Issabey and the non-profit Assyrian Universial Alliance Foundation (AUAF). Only a few years earlier, the organization floundered under a legal battle in the Illinois circuit court and a lack of brand recognition within the local community.
When first recruited to join AUAF’s board, Issabey had no prior business experience — or even enthusiasm — to be part of a non-profit.
“I’m purely a musician and that’s my interest,” he said.
Issabey had grown up around music. His mother was a vocalist and his father, a composer, had produced an Assyrian national anthem.
Issabey’s closest business experience was when he rearranged his father’s music for a symphony orchestra and chorus, and supervised its performance by the Chicago Philharmonic.
The thought of running an organization for the Assyrian community, especially one facing an uphill battle, was not something he anticipated — and it was just this kind of musical background and out-of-the-box thinking that AUAF was looking for.
“I came in with the condition that I was going to do a lot of different things and it’s going to require a lot of financial support,” he said. “Everything we’ve done is quite new. It’s not different, it never existed.”
History
AUAF was founded in 1978 by Helen Schwarten. With help from her brother, State Senator John Nimrod, the pair created the organization to support the mass migration of Assyrian refugees into the United States. The foundation first prioritized the resettlement process, providing language assistance, and securing housing and employment.
In 2015, the foundation’s leadership, led by Issabey, expanded the group’s mission to include humanitarian relief and educational and cultural programs.
“AUAF has been around for 40 years and basically was managed like a family-style business,” he said. “There were really no plans in place to do anything. We wanted a fresh look and to tell people what we are all about.”
Most importantly, Issabey said the organization needed to avoid politics.
“Originally there was a partnership between the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) and AUAF,” said Reine Hanna, who manages the foundation’s community affairs and event planning. “The AUA was focused on political issues and the AUAF was focused on the humanitarian side. The two groups split years ago, and the unfortunate thing is people still associate the two organizations.”
Hanna hopes the rebrand will distinguish AUAF from prior political affiliations and set a new tone.
“It was really important for us to revive our local community and inspire changes across the board,” she said. “Having this new brand gives us a clean plate and a way to start fresh.”
Rebranding
To tap into the local community, Issabey began reaching out to new audiences
“I wanted to attract the group of people that I’m interested in,” he said. “The younger people, the new generation, and the educated group because we’re all about culture. I want to attract the musician, the artist, the scholars, writers.”
Most of AUAF’s materials were decades old. To reach these audiences, Issabey needed a new approach. He invited Rabel Betshmuel, a young Assyrian graphic designer living in Chicago, to draft a revised logo.
It was supposed to be a simple redesign. But after visiting the renovated foundation, Betshmuel realized his job was much bigger.
“I saw Assyrian history up on the walls and kids playing music, kids making art, and lots and lots of books,” Betshmuel said. “I quickly realized that a logo alone wouldn’t do this place justice, so I got to work on developing a brand strategy.”
Betshmuel started work on a bold new design — a daisy wrapped with Assyrian text. The flower, he said, symbolizes individuals working in unison toward a common good, and each petal contributes to the beauty of the flower.
To bring the brand to life, Betshmuel applied the logo across letterhead, business cards, a brochure, and a rack card. He then created a website mock-up and began integrating community-focused marketing messages.
“The new brand is much more reflective of the work that we do here,” Hanna said. “It looks more like a cultural or community center logo as opposed to the traditional Assyrian Star. We wanted to make it clear that this is a place that promotes culture and education, and we stay away from political work.”
The logo unveiled in April 2017, a month before the grand reopening. After developing the brand strategy, Betshmuel remained at the foundation, working with Joseph Badalpour to expand the arts program.
Programs
Issabey next set out to structure AUAF’s programs — in fine arts, music, education, culture, and humanitarian efforts — not as leisure activities, but as serious concentrations for finding and developing young talent. Naturally for Issabey, that began with the music department.
“It’s a program that is very much designed like a conservatory,” he said. “The reason for that is the way our music is going these days. The only way to correct this is to start from zero.”
To showcase its young musical talent, the foundation plans to organize concert series. The music will be a mix of serious classical and pop music.
“It’s not meant for entertainment,” Issabey continued. “It’s meant to expose us to others that don’t know who Assyrians are the right way. I’m taking and showing non-Assyrians what Assyrian composition can look like.”
Accompanying the music program is a free-of-charge fine arts program that runs on Saturdays. Like the music program, Issabey hopes to identify young Assyrians with exceptional talents at an early age. Children ages 7 to 18 are led by professional instructors across different mediums.
Today, 130 children ranging in age from 8 to 18 are enrolled across arts programs. It’s acclaimed to be included on the list, as each student must try out for one of the exclusive positions.
“We are trying to take things to the next level,” Issabey said. “We are very picky on who we are going to work with and what’s going to happen in that place. The talent is there. You just have to know what to do with them.”
Fine arts students will have a chance to show off their work in AUAF’s new studio gallery. The space will host rotating exhibitions by Assyrian artists.
For its grand reopening, the gallery displayed works by nine contemporary Assyrian-American artists.
The foundation also launched the first of what it hopes to be an annual art competition. U.S.-based Assyrian artists can submit artwork, with a grand prize of $3,000.
“It gives them the platform that they don’t necessarily have anywhere else,” Hanna said. “And it’s to encourage the artistic community that maybe hasn’t gotten the support they’ve deserved in the past.”
As for the foundation’s education wing, it’s focused on middle school and high school students who need support outside of the classroom, especially those who have recently immigrated to the United States.
Alongside the eudcation program is a scholarship fund that awards roughly $300,000 each year. The scholarship was paused last year as AUAF reassessed its mission, but the organization hopes to relaunch it as soon as this year.
The board is also exploring ways to build a network of Assyrian scholars to increase engagement within the academic community.
It’s not all fine arts and education. AUAF’s Community Care Program — funded through the Illinois Department of Aging — provides an alternative to nursing home care. The program serves 2,000 senior citizens and employs over 1,400 people.
Recognized as an independent agency contracted by the Illinois Department on Aging, the program offers a cost-effective substitite for nursing home placement.
“The majority of our clients are Assyrians, but we also service non-Assyrians,” Hanna said. “That allows our community members to have the highest level of independence to live with dignity in their own home.”
Outside of Chicago, the foundation works closely with the Assyrian Aid Society (AAS) to support humanitarian efforts worldwide. The foundation’s largest project is working with Assyrian schools in northern Iraq. Over the past year, AUAF has sent over $200,000 to support these schools.
“The funds that we provide for the schools pay teacher salaries because the regional government there has stopped funding Assyrian schools,” Hanna said.
Other AUAF events in development include a lecture series, SAT prep classes, and leadership programs.
New community center
In 2013, AUAF moved offices from Clark Street to Lincolnwood. Within the last two years, its offices have undergone major reconstruction.
At the heart of the center is the Ashurbanipal Library, which holds the largest collection of Assyrian texts in the world. The library features works about and by Assyrians, including volumes that date back more than a century.
One highlight is a collection of Assyrian magazines and newspapers over the last century featuring English, Assyrian, Arabic, and Swedish.
Issabey’s next goal is to convert the texts into a digital library and welcome people around the world to the vast collection.
“If it’s sitting in Lincolnwood, it doesn’t do an Assyrian good in Australia or perhaps anybody else that has been doing the research,” Issabey said.
The digital library won’t be available for at least another six months to a year. “It’s a lot of work because it’s a lot of old books and they’re very fragile,” he said. “It’s very difficult to scan, so we’re planning to buy a special scanner.”
The new programs and digital conversion of the library are steps in the right direction, Issabey said, but the foundation has a long way to go.
“We’ve gone through a lot of changes and these changes require time and attention,” he said. “It’s very time consuming and putting different things in place is not easy.”
Through the foundation’s new initiatives and rebranding efforts, Hanna hopes the Assyrian community will see the organization as a way to come together through their shared heritage.
“We’ve all had different experiences that have led us here,” she said. “Some people are immigrants, some are first-generation Americans, but we all are tied together, regardless of where exactly we came from, by our identity and our love and appreciation for our heritage. We’re hoping that this foundation can be a place where Assyrians and future generations of Assyrians are inspired to continue to see connections with their past and each other.”
Watch the Grand Opening Presentation: