AARP

AARP is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization

dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they 

live as they age. With a nationwide presence and nearly 38 million 

members, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what 

matters most to families: health security, financial stability, and 

personal fulfillment. 

Senior Leadership

• In 2015, AARP’s senior leaders initiated a transformation in

the work of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, which has a 

network of thousands of volunteers who are involved in activities 

coordinated by the organization’s state offices. The leadership’s 

aim was to increase AARP’s impact on the lives of people age 

50-plus and their families throughout the United States.

• Results for two key performance indicators, “Lives impacted 

through advocacy” and “Lives impacted through programs,” 

indicate that AARP has succeeded so far in doubling the reach of 

its work to impact lives from 32 million people in 2015 to more 

than 60 million in 2019.

Societal Contributions

• AARP provides strong and consistent support to its partner, AARP 

Foundation, which works to end senior poverty by helping 

vulnerable older adults build economic opportunity and social 

connectedness. 

• In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization launched 

AARP Community Connections, an online platform that served 

more than 470,000 users and helped create nearly 800 mutual 

aid groups in communities nationwide in its first five months of 

operation in 2020. 

• In 2019, AARP launched an initiative to build free fitness parks 

customized for older adults in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., 

Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The first 25 parks had 

been opened by August 2020, with 10 more slated for completion 

by the end of the year.

Organizational Strategy Aligned with 

Performance

• Using integrated tools and processes, senior leaders drive 

strategic actions to achieve AARP’s social mission. For example, 

the Enterprise Strategy Map links the organization’s purpose 

“to empower people to choose how they live as they age” with 

strategic priorities and performance objectives.

2020 Award Recipient

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce 

Highlights

• AARP has doubled the reach of its work to impact lives, 

from 32 million people in 2015 to more than 60 million 

in 2019. 

• In 2018, AARP established the AARP Brain Health Fund 

to accelerate research into cures for all types of dementia, 

including Alzheimer’s. The fund was launched with a 

$60 million investment in the Dementia Discovery Fund.

• To spur breakthrough products and services in the marketplace, AARP created the $40 million AARP Innovation Fund 

that provides capital to innovative companies focused on 

improving the lives of the 50-plus and their families.

• Benchmarked data show AARP is in the 94th percentile of 

national comparisons for the employee survey item “My Job 

Makes Me Feel Like I Am Part of Something Meaningful.” 

Annual spending on staff training has increased over the 

past three years, to around $2.5 million.

• In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization 

launched AARP Community Connections, an online 

platform that served more than 470,000 users and helped 

create nearly 800 mutual aid groups in communities 

nationwide in its first five months of operation in 2020. 

 
Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce 

2020 Award Recipient

AARP 

• AARP’s Enterprise Dashboard enables leaders to sustain a focus 

on achieving the organization’s key objectives—Grow Impact, 

Grow Relevance, Grow Revenue, and Engage Workforce—which 

cascade to departmental and individual employees’ performance 

objectives.

Managing for Innovation

• To enable the exploration of significant innovation opportunities, 

AARP has established within the AARP Innovation Labs a 

dedicated Design Thinking function. If opportunities arise outside 

of the planning process, AARP follows an approach that weighs the 

relative value, cost, and risk of new strategic opportunities.

• AARP established the Brain Health Fund in 2018 to address two 

primary concerns of aging—maintaining brain health and cognitive 

capabilities. The fund, created to accelerate research into cures for 

all types of dementia, launched with a $60 million investment in 

the Dementia Discovery Fund.

• AARP Innovation Labs engage, support and collaborate with startups

to transform industries and change lives. Since 2017, Innovation Labs

have engaged with 120 startups, invested $450,000, and supported 

dozens of promising new products and services.

• AARP created the $40 million AARP Innovation Fund, a first-of-itskind investment fund that provides capital to innovative companies 

focused on improving the lives of the 50-plus and their families. 

• In partnership with the Research Park at the University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign, AARP established Tech Nest, an innovative 

technology lab that employs academic talent to create technology 

solutions for people 50-plus.

Preparing and Engaging the Workforce

• Benchmarked data show AARP is in the 94th percentile of national 

comparisons for the employee survey item “My Job Makes Me Feel 

Like I Am Part of Something Meaningful.” In addition, AARP’s results 

for the survey item “I Get the Formal Training I Want for My Career” 

rank in the 80th percentile. Annual spending on staff training has 

increased over the past three years, to around $2.5 million. 

• For the past three years, AARP has been annually recognized as 

a “Top Workplace” by The Washington Post. At the same time, 

the organization has maintained comparatively high employee 

retention and low employee turnover.

Ethics and Accountability

• All of AARP’s employees and volunteers are required to complete 

annual training on a code of conduct and sign statements agreeing 

to avoid conflicts of interest. Employee survey results since 2015 

show that more than 90% of workforce members consistently 

agree that AARP “operates by strong values and ethics.”

• In 2019, and again in 2020, AARP was named one of the “World’s 

Most Ethical Companies” by the Ethisphere Institute, which since 

2007 has honored purpose-driven companies committed to ethical 

business conduct and to improving the communities they serve. 

• AARP’s RaiseYRVoice system for reporting ethical concerns is 

available on a 24/7 basis to the organization’s workforce, partners, 

and suppliers. Results show a beneficial steady trend in the number 

of ethics concerns for the past four years.

Customer-Focused Excellence

• While its membership of 23 million households has remained 

relatively stable over the past five years, AARP has succeeded 

in increasing members’ use of product and service offerings by 

7 percent since 2015. 

• Results for readership of AARP’s publications have sustained 

high levels that exceed national comparisons. In contrast to other 

major publications’ declining readership in recent years, AARP The 

Magazine has been the most widely read publication in the nation 

for three years in a row.

• AARP’s brand equity (a composite score of familiarity, quality, 

and consideration of the brand) results for adults age 50-plus have 

outperformed those of other U.S. nonprofits for four of the last 

five years. 

• In recent years, AARP has earned consistently good annual 

Net Promoter Scores, reaching a level of 50.8 this year, which is 

considered an excellent score relative to benchmarks.

Strong Financial Performance

• AARP’s unrestricted net assets have grown at a compound annual 

growth rate (CAGR) of 5.3 percent over the past five years. That 

rate exceeds the performance of comparable nonprofits for the 

past four years, which have experienced an average decline in 

CAGR of 2.4 percent over the same period. 

• Since 2015, AARP’s operating revenue has steadily grown at a 

CAGR of 3 percent, which exceeds the average CAGR of similar 

nonprofit organizations.

For more information:

AARP

601 E Street, NW

Washington DC 20049

AARPBaldrige@aarp.org

www.aarp.org

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

The Baldrige Program educates organizations of all sizes and 

from all sectors in organizational performance management and 

improvement. We also administer the Malcolm Baldrige National

Quality Award. Our key services are to identify and recognize 

role-model organizations, share best management practices, 

and help organizations achieve best-in-class performance levels.

We are the only public-private partnership and Presidential award 

program dedicated to improving U.S. organizations. 

For more information on the Baldrige Program: 

www.nist.gov/baldrige | 301-975-2036 | baldrige@nist.gov