How Lincoln Park Community Services Created an Impactful Donor Experience with OneCause

Background

Background

Founded in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in 1985, Lincoln Park Community Services (LPCS) has grown to a year-round, multi-site operation housing 120 individuals facing homelessness and poverty each night. Their mission is to empower individuals who face homelessness to secure housing and make sustainable life changes.

With more than 70,000 individuals experiencing homelessness in the Chicago area, LPCS strives to provide the necessary resources to their community with empathy, equity, integrity, and accountability.

To support their mission throughout the year, LPCS prepared to host one of their main fundraising events, Taste of Fall. This year was the event’s 15th anniversary, bringing together supporters of LPCS with food tastings from local Chicago restaurants.

The LPCS team was committed to creating a seamless and engaging experience for their in-person attendees and supporters.

Challenge

Challenge

Emerging from the pandemic, LPCS had significantly grown the community of individuals that they supported through their housing and outreach services. However, with a small staff and new location opening at the beginning of the pandemic, LPCS needed a strong source of fundraising dollars to continue to provide support to their community.

To meet their fundraising needs, LPCS looked for a solution that would foster deeper connection with their donors, grow their fundraising, and make it easy for their staff.

LPCS wanted a fundraising solution that could provide a:

  • Single platform for all their fundraising activities, events, and data.
  • Seamless donor and giving experiences, no matter the event type.
  • User friendly, easy-to-use interface for their staff and volunteers.

Armed with what they needed to enter their next stage of fundraising success, LPCS was ready to find a partner who could meet their fundraising needs.

Solution

Solution

Enter the OneCause Fundraising Platform. The LPCS team knew the innovative software and modern interface would provide the ease needed to effectively run their fundraising events and make giving easy for their supporters.

Next up, using OneCause to help grow their annual Taste of Fall event. As one of the two main fundraisers that they run each year, the team needed this event to be a success and to maximize their fundraising efforts.

Backed by the power of the OneCause Fundraising Platform, LPCS leveraged the software to:

Ease of Event Management

Every nonprofit knows how much time and resources go into planning and executing a fundraising event. LPCS needed to make event management easier and provide a seamless donor experience for their attendees.

LPCS used the OneCause Fundraising Platform as a single fundraising source for their event start-to-finish, including:

  • Donor information
  • Auction management
  • Data & analytics
  • Check-in & registration
  • Check-out & item pick-up
  • And more!

“Because of the OneCause Fundraising Platform, we were able to create a well-rounded and seamless experience for our donors. The system allowed us to collect all the information we needed from and ensure we didn’t miss anything. This made it so much easier to manage our event so that we could focus on creating a great experience for our attendees,” explained Cheryl Hamilton-Hill, CEO.

Because of the easy-to-use software, LPCS was able to dramatically:

  • Reduce the time spent setting up their event
  • Increase the visibility into all event components
  • Access and store all event information in one place

Leveraging the OneCause Fundraising Platform allowed them to dedicate more time to engaging with their donors, amplifying the impact of their mission, and diving deeper into the real-time analytics of their event.

Leverage Event Support

When planning a fundraising event, having direct support access from your fundraising software provider can drastically improve your event execution experience.

After a couple years of virtual fundraising, the LPCS team need to maximize engagement and success of their in-person event. They also knew new software sometimes has a learning curve and that they needed easy-to-use tools and helpful support. With OneCause, luckily, they had both!

Because of their partnership with OneCause, LPCS had year-round access to:

  • Live phone support
  • Event Consultants
  • Customer Success Manager
  • Onsite Event Manager & staff
  • Online knowledge-base & training resources

Having these tools at their disposal meant that any questions, fundraising best practices, and troubleshooting during the planning and set-up process were just a click or call away.

With the help of the OneCause team and software, LPCS was ready for event day. On event day, a certified OneCause Event Manager was onsite to help the team:

  • Answer attendee & volunteer questions
  • Train volunteers on the software
  • Assist in last minute event changes
  • Oversee fundraising support with software
  • Support the staff in executing a seamless fundraising event

“The OneCause event team was an incredible asset at our event. They genuinely wanted our event to go well and worked hard to help make our event a big success. Having the support from the OneCause team gave us the reassurance that we would be able answer and troubleshoot any questions that arose during the event,” explained Sarah Harpring, LPCS Volunteer Coordinator.

Having onsite assistance meant the LPCS team could execute their event with confidence and focus on their guests, their mission, and the overall event experience.

Real-Time Reporting and Analytics

With all the time and resources spent planning and executing a fundraising event, every nonprofit needs an accurate view of how their event is performed. Having access to real-time analytics and event reports during and after the event provides a clear picture of what worked well and how to improve for future fundraising initiatives.

The LPCS team leveraged the real-time analytics in the OneCause Fundraising Platform to get a clear view on how their 2022 fundraising events performed. This comprehensive visibility helped save them time and energy that would have to be used to manually calculate campaign results.

With this data in hand, LPCS was well-equipped to reflect on event performance. With the OneCause Fundraising Platform, nonprofits do not have to wait until the end of their event to access accurate event data. During their event, LPCS was able to:

  • Monitor their auction lot performance
  • See total ticket sales for their wine pull
  • Announce final proceed numbers at the end of the night

“The analytics in the platform were so helpful in visualizing the impact of our event. With clear dashboards and graphics, we can see and reflect on the data from each individual component of our events – silent auction, wine pull, etc. – and see what should be replicated for future fundraising events. Being able to make those comparisons is so beneficial for both our current and long-term fundraising strategy,” stated Harpring.

In addition to the real-time analytics dashboard that is provided in the software, LPCS leveraged data in many reports, including:

  • Donor information: all contact information for event attendees and registrations.
  • Auction bids: a look into auction lot performance and who bid and won each lot.
  • Tickets: all information associated with ticket sales.
  • Total Fundraising proceeds: all data linked to the overall amount raised at your event.

“At other fundraising events, it was normal to have to wait days after the event ended to announce the total proceeds raised. However, with the Platform, we were able to end our event by announcing our final proceeds. This was just moments after closing it down in the software, and it was so easy and fast. We loved having instant access to the numbers and we loved sharing it live with our attendees who made the event’s success possible,” stated Hamilton-Hill.

Results

Results

With the support of the powerful and user-friendly software, LPCS saw amazing results:

  • $91,675 total raised
  • 102% of event goal reached
  • 200+ in-person tickets sold

Ready to learn how your organization can leverage the OneCause Fundraising Platform for your next fundraising event? Request a demo today.

Connect with a Cause

To learn more about Lincoln Park Community Services, please visit their website.

Wrapping Up!

More fundraising resources are just a click away.

cta-1-24-make-giving-easy