Tony Zipple is the CEO of a nonprofit organization called Thresholds, one of the largest and oldest providers of services for people with severe mental illness in Illinois. Jerry Graunke is a senior associate consultant at Bain & Company, a consulting firm delivering high-level strategic and managerial consulting to big-business clients.
How did Tony and Jerry connect?
Because of their interest in our community’s drastic unemployment rates during times of severe financial crisis and a passion to help, both attended United Way’s event hosted at Deloitte, “Cracking the Code: A Discussion on Chicago’s Workforce Supply and Demand.”
Two weeks ago, at United Way’s “Cracking the Code: A Discussion on Chicago’s Workforce Supply and Demand” hosted by Deloitte, these two came together to listen to a panel discussion on the nature of today’s workforce and how it has responded to Illinois’ highest unemployment rate in 27 years.
“United Way’s “Cracking the Code” event was a wonderful opportunity for a wide range of people committed to solving employment issues to network and share ideas,” Tony said. “No one group can solve the unemployment problems our community is facing, so it’s important to hold events like these to bring groups together and talk about how to move forward.”
After identifying a need for collaboration, United Way organized the first of many events that united individual and corporate donors with nonprofit agencies throughout the community to talk about critical issues in our community.
“The best use of United Way is a collector of information,“ said Jerry. “Whether it be information, people or data, United Way does a great job of localizing issues and distributing resources in ways that better our community.”
With more than 80 attendees, “Cracking the Code” was a huge success. stay tuned for more “The Line that Connects” articles!
