Project: Fundraising

Overview

For over 50 years, BUILD Chicago has sought out youth at the greatest risk of gang involvement and violence, providing them with hope and opportunities to achieve positive futures. While there are many community-based anti-violence organizations on the West Side, BUILD’s model of proactive, long-term support and mentoring has had a dramatic effect: Chicago measured a 60% decrease in gun violence victims in Austin since 2018—the largest of any neighborhood in Chicago.

With an expanding staff and growing budget, BUILD had converted every inch of their office space in Austin into a busy, overflowing youth and community center by 2020. Faced with impending enrollment caps but unwilling to turn youth away, they launched their first-ever capital campaign to raise funds for a new facility that would expand their block into a campus.

Overview

Ready for a Home of Their Own

For nearly 50 years, NSSRA had been using shared space in local park district facilities to create an environment of belonging through play for children, teens and adults with disabilities who live in its partner communities in Chicago’s northern suburbs. But as demand for NSSRA’s recreational services and programs grew dramatically, it became clear that the country’s first Special Recreation Association needed a permanent space of its own. In 2019, NSSRA purchased a building that required extensive renovation to create safe, fully accessible participant spaces. NSSRA’s partner agencies – including 10 park districts, two cities and one village – funded $3 million of the renovation costs.

To raise the additional $2.2 million needed, the NSSRA Foundation worked closely with TW&B to launch and manage the first capital campaign in the organization’s history — “A Place to Belong.”

Ter Molen Watkins & Brandt was engaged as campaign counsel to help Milwaukee Film achieve their $10 million goal. Through a customized process, Clyde Watkins and Anne Smith counseled staff and the board as they moved the campaign along a tight timeline. We applied our experience with campaigns in the arts and culture sector as well as our history and understanding of Milwaukee’s non-profit community.

Along with the construction of this new facility, SAU sought to increase their endowed scholarships in an ongoing effort to offer more financial aid to incoming students.

After their strategic plan was set in place in 2015, The Rep was inspired to embark on the Created in Milwaukee Capital Campaign with a $10 million goal to support the strategic priorities.

The New Trier Educational Foundation enlisted the help of Ter Molen Watkins & Brandt to conduct a fundraising assessment. A fairly recent strategic plan conducted by the Foundation suggested a goal of doubling the cumulated fund raising income for a five year period. Jon Heintzelman of TW&B was brought in to help determine how to achieve this ambitious goal which would total $1.8 million.

As the Museum looked toward the future, they collaborated with the community to launch “Extending Excellence: The Campaign for the McLean County Museum of History”. The campaign sought to help the Museum build connections with new generations and also strengthen the link between the community’s past and present.

In January of 2018, Marklund engaged TW&B to conduct a feasibility study to test an upcoming $15 million campaign, which would fund three specific capital projects:

1. The construction of locker rooms for the aquatic therapy center,
2. The expansion of the community day service program for adults with developmental disabilities, and
3. The construction of a third day school location.

As The Baltimore Museum of Art approached its 100th anniversary in 2014, its strategic planning process identified a number of objectives to address as part of the “In a New Light” campaign. Ter Molen Watkins & Brandt was proud to serve as counsel to the BMA throughout the planning and implementation of this historic campaign, the largest in the Museum’s history.

CFESA leaders realized an opportunity to purchase a facility just 25 minutes from the Charlotte-Douglass Airport in Fort Mill, SC. The CFESA Board of directors took decisive action to purchase a facility that has been developed into the CFESA World Headquarters and Global Training Facility.

Ter Molen Watkins & Brandt was engaged in April 2008 to aid with campaign planning and oversight, conducting a feasibility study for a comprehensive campaign to include endowment, academic programs, and annual operating support as well as the capital centerpiece.