Current Projects

http://www.alwaysillinois.org

Background:
Always Illinois is a social networking site exclusively for the Illinois family. Stakeholders include students, alumni, faculty and staff. Similar to Facebook and MySpace, Always Illinois allows members to post personal and professional information, create and join interest groups, network with other members, post and search employment opportunities and more.  Always Illinois is marketed and branded as a professional on-line community for Illinois.  Always Illinois is not open to the public.

The original outcomes identified at the time the online community was established include:

• Provide valuable, relevant networking services to students and alumni.
• Create a communication tool that facilitates cultivating lifelong relationships.
• Build stronger bonds with our students and alumni, so they will be more engaged with their department, college, and campus.
• Achieve a better understanding of the most meaningful connection to the university for our alumni so that we can do a better job of stewardship in those areas and find ways to keep them engaged.
• Collect better demographic and other data for alumni relations, development and communications efforts.

Perceived primary benefits to students:

• Network with alumni
• Create mentoring opportunities within interest/academic groups
• Search for internships and employment opportunities
• Connect and stay connected with other students
• Stay connected with faculty and staff

Perceived primary benefits to alumni:

• Post employment opportunities
• Network with other alumni
• Keep up with happenings on campus
• Stay connected with faculty and staff

Perceived primary benefits to faculty and staff:

• Create groups for classes/advisees to use for non academic purposes– calendar function, discussions
• Post and search employment opportunities
• Network with alumni
• Stay connected with students and alumni

The site also allows users to:

• search for members based on their class year, major, degree, region, job or industry
• offer career advice, information of their region, or introductions to others
• post items for sale, engage in discussion, schedule events, post blog entries

Project Description:
It is important to note that the site is not being used to raise money, but to facilitate and cultivate relationships, improve connections between alumni and campus, and provide opportunity for students and alumni to interact.  It is important to the campus that we provide a free, lifelong service that is viewed as relevant and of value.  This initiative is campus-based and championed by the chancellor’s office in collaboration with the Office of Institutional Advancement, the UI Alumni Association, and the Office of Public Affairs.

• Due to the decentralized nature of this campus not every unit is promoting the network. Some view it as additional work; others as competition for programs they already have in place. 9 of 15 colleges have a link from the alumni section of their web site.  Only 2 have a link from their career services page.

Challenge Statement:

• What is the value proposition for the students?
• Today
• Tomorrow
• How do we reach students:
• By what means
• With what messages
• Once students join the network, how do we keep them engaged?
• How do we keep this relevant to students and alumni?

http://www.channingmurray.org/

Background:

The Channing-Murray Foundation (CMF) is a Unitarian-Universalist Campus center located at the heart of the University of Illinois Campus across from the main quad. The building has been at this location since 1908 when it first opened its doors as the Unitarian Church of Urbana-Champaign and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was established as the Channing-Murray Foundation, a Unitarian-Universalist (UU) Campus Center in 1954 when the Unitarian and Universalist Churches merged. CMF has a rich history as a center for social justice, spirituality, music and the performing arts and health consciousness with deep ties to the community at large.

The mission of the Channing-Murray Foundation is to provide educational opportunities to explore Unitarian-Universalist spirituality, reflect our concern for social justice, and affirm diversity through outreach to the campus community of Urbana-Champaign.

Current Channing-Murray programs include the Red Herring Vegetarian Restaurant, The Social Justice Committee, Poetry and Fiction Writing Workshops, Meditation, Yoga, The Tagore Festival, Sunday Services and the Women's Sharing Circle. We also try to encourage activities with the Red Herring Coffee house and the UU Young Adult Group. Currently, we have no one to run either of these groups, so they aren't active this semester. Most of our programs receive a fair amount of support and involvement from the Urbana-Champaign community. Our social justice forums, for instance, typically have great attendance, particularly by community members. Unfortunately, we have less success in fostering student interest in our programs.

Most students know Channing-Murray Foundation through either the Red Herring Vegetarian restaurant or as a place where they can rent space for performances, classes and dances. During the U of I Fall and Spring Semesters, we regularly have a number of young people in our building, but they aren't usually attending CMF sponsored programs. The Channing-Murray Foundation Denominational Outreach Committee is developing efforts to better reach out to UU Young Adults in particular. In addition to targeted outreach efforts, we have recently hired a UU Ministerial Intern for the 2008-09 school year. We believe that developing a core group of UU Young Adults will help to bring more students through the door, but we also want to appeal to the broader student population. One step we will be taking is to purchase a lighted sign displaying the names and logos of both the Red Herring and CMF. We feel this will better identify our building and hopefully encourage passing foot traffic to stop in and to take a look around.

The Red Herring Vegetarian Restaurant is CMF's biggest program. It has been in the basement of CMF for thirty years in one form or another. Like CMF, it is pretty well known to the citizens of Champaign-Urbana. While, perhaps more successful than CMF in drawing in the student population, it struggles to be known on campus. We hear on a semi-regular basis, U of I students saying, "I didn't know this was here and I am a vegetarian."

Efforts we have taken so far to further develop CMF's presence and, more specifically, the presence of The Red Herring Vegetarian Restaurant include: publicity (three or four articles have run in the Buzz, Daily Illini and News-Gazette since the beginning of 2008), a Facebook group, a Myspace page, an email list, Website (channingmurray.org), weekly email announcements to a broader CM audience, announcements in the CMF Newsletter (published 1-2 times per semester), a sandwich board by the sidewalk, punch cards, and some fliering. Most of our efforts so far have been volunteer-based and somewhat inconsistent. We also have a community table at Quad day that is used to promote all of CMF's programs.

Challenge Statement:

• How can Channing-Murray develop a more of a presence on the University of Illinois campus? Specifically, how can we increase awareness of the Red Herring Vegetarian Restaurant? How can we get folks to walk through the door?
• How do we better publicize CMF programs to people who are already coming into our building on a regular basis, specifically via space rental?

http://www.awomansfund.org/rapecrisisservices/index.html

Background:

Rape Crisis Services (RCS) began as a grassroots movement against sexual violence in the Champaign Urbana community.  Founded in 1971 by a small group of women, RCS was then known as Champaign County Women Against Rape (CCWAR).  In 1979, the organization merged with A Woman’s Fund, Inc and changed its name to Rape Crisis Services.  RCS is a 501c(3) not for profit organization that offers free and confidential services to survivors of sexual violence and their families.  Our services include: a 24-hour crisis hotline, individual and group counseling, educational programs in schools & community groups, in-person medical advocacy at local hospitals and legal advocacy to help survivors navigate the criminal justice system.  RCS serves residents in Champaign, Ford, Douglas and Piatt counties.   

Challenge Statement:

Rape Crisis Services relies heavily on volunteers to help keep the organization running.  Volunteers staff our 24-hour hotline in the evenings and on weekends, when the office is closed.  They also help us with fundraisers, special events, and presentations.  However, our volunteers are primarily students from the University of Illinois, which means that we experience a lot of volunteer turnover, and that we lack volunteers during the summer months. 

• We would like our volunteer base to reflect the diversity of the people that we serve.  How could we recruit and retain more volunteers from the community, instead of relying so heavily on students at the U of I? 
• As a not for profit organization, our budget is always tight.  We often find ourselves wishing we had volunteers with skills such as graphic design or experience with fundraising.  How can we reach out to businesses and local organizations who might be willing to volunteer their services?