United Way of the North Shore, the City of Evanston Mental Health Board and Evanston School Districts 202 and 65 hosted GROUP: A Community Exploration of Mental Well-being on Wednesday, September 16 at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center in Evanston. The event was a major success, with over 100 people and 22 nonprofit agencies in attendance.
Tamara Habib, Program Manager at the United Way of the North Shore, felt that the conference was necessary for Evanston when considering the current economy. “We view ourselves as a partner in the community and one of our duties as that partner is to provide opportunities for agencies to come together in an effort to share ideas and resources,” she explained.
Mental health experts addressed ways human service agencies and social workers can collaborate to best serve their clients. “In these difficult financial times, it is imperative that we begin to explore opportunities for better collaboration. We must continue to examine creative methods of meeting the needs of our community,” said Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl of Evanston, who welcomed everyone to the event.
Mayor Tisdahl was followed by Angie Lobo, Chief of Staff for State Senator Julie Hamos, who discussed the budget crisis and how representative Hamos is dedicated to finding the best solutions for everyone in the Evanston community. She encouraged non-profits in attendance to become actively involved and connected, emphasizing how important it is to establish partnerships among agencies and to initiate advocacy programs regarding funding issues. This talk preceded the keynote address from Brooke Wiseman.
Wiseman, of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Center for Non-Profit Management, is a specialist on nonprofit management, gaining much of her knowledge and experience as CEO for the Girl Scouts of Chicago for 16 years. She spoke about community collaboration, and asked conference attendees to think about how they are working together to accomplish each of their individual organization’s missions. She challenged the audience to adopt a “network” mindset, and to use the strengths of other organizations to their advantage, as she emphasized that other, similar non-profits are not competition but simply another resource to be used in achieving success of a similar goal.
Following the keynote address, participants attended two break out sessions, each with 3 different topics to chose from. The first session included the topics “Social Disparities and Youth”, “Potential Areas for Agency Collaboration”, and “Financial Management for Agencies and Lines of Credit for Not for Profits” which was presented by First Bank & Trust (Evanston). The second breakout session included the topics “How the Recession Affects Family”, “Resources for Agencies”, and a repeat of “Financial Management for Agencies and Lines of Credit for Not for Profits”. These breakout sessions allowed participants to engage in a smaller, more intimate setting in order to foster a discussion among agencies and social workers about trends being seen in the community and how to address those through utilizing resources and collaboration.
The conference not only helped strengthen the network of providers serving the Evanston community, but also stimulated dialogue focused on creating more collaboration and synergy among non-profits and the social work community. Kate Mahoney, executive director of PEER Services Inc. in Evanston, saw the day as “an exciting opportunity to look at other organizations and see how we can be more effective in helping the entire community”. She emphasized that getting a dialogue started is important, and that the event was extremely successful in that sense.
In the afternoon, an agency fair was held in order to continue the theme of collaboration and learning. The fair included 22 Evanston non-profits and was attended by social workers, city employees, members of the community, and elected representatives from Evanston. Each participating organization presented written and oral information about the services they provide. This was a great way to end the conference, making the entire event a major success.
In the end, everyone who participated in the events of the day left the conference feeling hopeful for the future of their organization, and for the future of the community of Evanston.
