2019 Marketer of the Year: Maureen Maycheco

Maureen Maycheco
Communications Director
Reach Out and Read Colorado

Beyond being an award-winning rockstar nonprofit communications professional, Maureen Maycheco created Reach Out and Read Colorado’s New Parent Empowerment Initiative (NPEI), an innovative project focused on empowering expecting moms and disrupting the collective understanding of early literacy behavior change and messaging. Maureen designed an interactive storybook, “A Story About Reading,” to start a conversation with moms about the importance of introducing babies to as many words as possible during the first years of life. Maureen’s vision is to refocus mothers by using messaging that reminds them that being a mother can be hard, but “you are enough,” and “you are great.”

The storybook serves as a tool for pregnant women to guide reading, talking and singing to their baby with the hope of developing a habit of positive interaction, helping expecting mothers feel confident, empowered and well-prepared.

“Maureen is one of the most passionate and innovative young professionals working in the nonprofit field. Her dedication to social good has been a catalyst for our organization to make a significant impact over the past three years. She is an outstanding and creative member of our management team and strives to be an authentic leader in her field,” Meredith Hintze, executive director of Reach Out and Read Colorado, explained in her nomination.

In addition to her role at Reach Out and Read Colorado, Maureen also serves as a steering committee member for the Early Childhood Colorado Partnership, which provides the space and conditions for diverse partners across the comprehensive early childcare system—encompassing health, mental health, family support and early learning—to come together and identify common results, share best practices and implement strategies to improve system effectiveness for Colorado families. There, she advises the partnership on communication strategy and marketing.

Maureen is motivated by her love for implementing innovative strategy, opportunities to connect analytical thinking with real-world problems to find solutions, producing high-quality, meaningful results and fruitful
collaborations.