Content Company case study -- Donors Forum of Chicago

case study — Donors Forum of Chicago

The Donors Forum of Chicago, www.donorsforum.org, serves both grantmakers and grantseekers in the Chicago area.

For organizations seeking funding, the Donors Forum has an extensive library of resources about funding sources. However, organizations have to do substantial work to define themselves, create strategic goals and file government paperwork before they can begin to research who might fund them. Since the process of seeking grants was not laid out in a step-by-step manner, organization representatives often arrived at the library without having done that background work. Librarians were overtaxed, and grantseekers left frustrated.

The Donors Forum engaged Content Company to create an online resource for grantseekers, to help them do their initial research and background work before making a personal visit to the Donors Forum Library.

Content Company structured the information according to the grantseeking process itself, so that organizations could get an overall picture of the process and, therefore, understand what work they had already accomplished and what was still ahead of them.

Working closely with the Donors Forum, we developed content that:

laid out the grantseeking process, step by step
pointed out online resources that grantseekers could use from anywhere
illustrated how the Donors Forum can offer personal resources

The Grantseekers Toolbox, www.donorsforum.org/resource/gstoolbox1.html, has been a valuable self-help resource. As a result of this, organizations are able to use the Donors Forum Library more effectively, and the librarians are more available to offer more in-depth guidance to local nonprofits.

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