About 100 people gathered Wednesday for the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation’s annual nonprofit workshop, with an eye on the power of building coalitions.
In these times of economic uncertainty, nonprofits may find leaning on each other is a source of strength and sustainability, said Erik Rankin, who heads the foundation.
“Dwindling budgets, smaller staff sizes and still then the request to do the same things you’ve always done. … there’s a real challenge in that,” he said, adding cross-group collaborations are a way for nonprofits to ask, “Is there a way for us to tackle this same problem together?”
After chatting over doughnuts and coffee Wednesday morning, the crowd at Illinois State University’s Alumni Center took their seats to hear a panel discussion of how nonprofits can tackle collaboration.
Panelist Matt Burgess, who heads Home Street Home Ministries, talked about the success of that nonprofit’s new shelter village called The Bridge.
The recent collaboration between Home Sweet Home and local government shows the growing trend of public-private partnerships can work, he said.
Other speakers included State Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington,; Patrick Hoban, head of the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council; Paige Buschman and Rachel Waring-Sparks, with Illinois State University’s Center for Civic Engagement; and Kate Piatt-Eckert, a nonprofit financial sustainability expert with BDO’s Nonprofit and Grantmaker Advisory team.
Hoban and Waring-Sparks invited the nonprofits to reach out to the EDC and ISU’s Civic Engagement office to take advantage of the data assessment tools those groups utilize.
Rankin said after the panel’s talk that it’s great that area nonprofits can connect with those organizations to work on assessment.
Why coalition building is needed now
Illinois Prairie’s Rankin said organizers were getting feedback that a climate of economic uncertainty is leaving nonprofits in a sort of limbo as they try to plan their budgets.
“There’s a shared level of suffering, in a lot of ways, that are going on in the nonprofit community right now,” he said, noting the volatility emanating from the Trump administration has made economic questions loom large, down to the local level.
“Donors are a little more hesitant to donate because they’re scared about what’s going on in the world around them,” said Rankin, noting possible increases to the cost of goods and other financial issues have people reconsidering donations.
“And if that’s the case, then it directly harms groups like Home Sweet Home, Salvation Army, and others that are doing such amazing work within our community,” he said.
So, nonprofits are starting to get together to ask, “’Hey how can we find ways to work together? How can we partner with one another? Or what are better ways for us to find ways to move forward?” he said.
Workshop participant Rich Tinaglia, a board member with the nonprofit Heartland Theatre, said he liked the collaboration focus of the event.
“I think the environment we are in, in the United States, especially through nonprofits, is a very difficult environment, and I think banding together, forming coalitions — there’s strength in unity, and hopefully this will help us have strategies, form strategies, to develop coalitions that are meaningful and will help us all,” he said.
Rankin noted Wednesday's workshop also offered the chance for nonprofit professionals to get together — and not be siloed off in their own pursuits. That community building attracted many people to the event.
Barry Reilly, a retired educator who is executive director of the student-focused nonprofit Promise Council, said he took lots of notes.
"This really appealed to me. I'm learning a lot from the panel. I've taken a full page of notes, and I'm going to go to the sustainability small group next. My hope is to not only network, but to get some practical information, too. I'm excited to learn from my peers," he said.
Rankin said hosting the nonprofit workshop annually isn’t enough, and he'd like to expand the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation’s role facilitating such events throughout the year.
With nearly 45 nonprofits sending representatives to Wednesday’s workshop, he said it’s clear to him there’s an interest in the groups getting together more often.
