“We had a working group for funders, one for getting individual donors excited, one for getting nonprofits to sign up and participate, another for government… Everyone was at the table, and everyone was working towards this big, beautiful goal, knowing that it wasn’t helping any one group more than another.”
– Marlee Honcoop, Member Services Coordinator, Donors Forum

How Collaborating Put the Media Spotlight on Illinois Nonprofits with Marlee Honcoop

Session 64

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For nonprofits, it can often feel as though you are competing with other organizations for the same donors, which can feel selfish; after all, you’re all working to advance the common good. Marlee Honcoop has a solution: work together! Marlee helped coordinate “IL Give Big,” a Giving Tuesday campaign specifically for the nonprofits of Illinois. It began as an amalgamation of influences, bringing together grantwriters, nonprofit boards, consultants, and more. Between cooperation from the national Giving Tuesday campaign and allowing each participant in #ILGiveBig to work on their own area of expertise, the effort pumped out webinars, templates, and strategies for nonprofits to use. The centerpiece of their plan was pooling donations for a huge media buy – a move many nonprofits alone are not in the position to do. The benefits of their collaboration showed: the media buy reached over 500,000 people and brought in over 100 new nonprofits, culminating in a total of $3.9 million raised – all on a single day of giving.

Marlee and Beth discuss:

  • Bringing nonprofits, funders, and consultants together
  • How Illinois nonprofits used the state’s economic difficulty to come together
  • Using national campaigns at a regional level
  • Learning from collaboration with other nonprofits
  • Finding the right ways to reach different audiences
  • Motivating people and organizations to help the community, not themselves directly
Resources:

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