TCEP is a nonprofit community center in Little Village that provides educational programs, daycare, and other resources. It is led by community members and aims to serve families. The document provides recommendations for how TCEP can gain corporate funding, including researching potential funders, identifying connections, setting up meetings, clearly communicating goals and values, maintaining an online presence, and evaluating success annually. It suggests hiring experts to assist with fundraising, website development, and applying for grants and corporate sponsorships of $10,000 or more.

1. Telpochcalli Community
Education Project (Tcep)
By: Angie Domino, Jenny Parrino, Erin McCoy, Kristen
Holdsworth, Aeriel Cabitac, Anthony Sacco, Maria Giannetos

2. Who is TCEP
● Telpochcalli means “House of
Youth”
● Provides resources that cater to
needs of the Little Village
community
● Offers programs such as English
language learning, daycare,
athletics for children, and
financial training

3. Who is TCEP cont.
● Led by community members who want to show their gratefulness
for this center
● Family-oriented: It is common for the entire family
to be involved
● Not a handout program,
but instead is providing
resources to support
community members serving
themselves source: TCEP Facebook

4. Question of the Quarter
● How should TCEP, as a smaller nonprofit,
go about gaining corporate funding?
Primary Goal
● Identify best practices for nonprofit organizations to gain long-term corporate funders

5. Target Audience
● Prospect and model corporate funders especially ones
that value:
o community culture
o education
o family involvement
o respect
o dignity
● Well-funded nonprofit organizations

6. Research
Primary Research: First-person
collection of information and analysis
Secondary Research: Finding existing
reputable information and using it to inform
decisions

7. Secondary Research
Corporate Funding
● Corporate giving represents a relatively small share of total
charitable giving in the nonprofit sector, but is prominent source of
funding among high-growth nonprofits
● Corporation usually has both altruistic and financial motive for
support
● Nonprofits often garner corporate cash when real market exists for
their products or service

8. Secondary Research Cont.
Tips to Attract Funders:
● Be clear about the demographic you are serving
● Have a great sponsor proposal
● Promise deliverables
● Don’t sell yourself short
● Do what you say
● Always follow up

9. Secondary Research Cont.

10. Primary Research
Nonprofit Organizations:
● TMC
● Enlace
● Chicago Commons
● KidsInDanger

11. First Step
● Do research on the corporation, know
who you are asking
● Find opportunities for a mutually
beneficial relationship

12. Second Step
● Identify the connections within your Tcep
community
● Pursue any connections to see if a
partnership is possible

13. How many corporate funders to apply to
● Seek guidance from your connections and or
an “expert” on the application process to
avoid getting discouraged and intimidated
● Pursue the corporations you have
connections with
● Continue to apply to as many as possible as a
backup

14. How to approach funders
● Calling hasn’t worked for every nonprofit
● Set up a meeting to
make a personal
connection

15. How to gain the trust of corporations
● Give them a chance to experience what
your nonprofit does first-hand
● Clearly identify
o Goal of the organization
o What the nonprofit hopes
to achieve
o Past achievements

16. The role values play in selecting corporations
● Values play a huge role in finding funders
● You inherit the reputation of that
corporation
● If all the values may not align, look into
using funds for an event

17. Acceptance rate and relationship
● Some nonprofits receive 60% of the
donations
● Apply to corporations you are able to
make a personal connection with

18. Recommendations
● Hire a website designer to create and
maintain TCEP’s website
● Use social media to your advantage
o Link all sites together
o Document all accomplishments and events
held with info/photos across social media
pages and website

19. Recommendations
● Show what your organization is about
through pictures of events and activities
on social media and in person
o Gives funders an idea of where money
is going
● The process for gaining funders is a job
in itself as it requires relationship
building on a consistent basis

20. Recommendations cont.
● Hire a grant writer to
help with the application
process
● Raise asking donation to
$10,000 or more
● Develop a sponsorship packet

21. Recommendations cont.
● As a backup, apply to as many
corporations as possible
● Reach out to connections (person to
person) to see what corporations they are
in touch with
● To supplement, conduct charged ticketed
events

22. Budget
● Invest in an “expert” who will be dedicated
to this relationship building process (grant
writer and or funding outreach)
● Invest in a technologically-savvy person to
create, design and keep up with a website

23. Evaluation
● Measure the numerical increase in
donations
● Measure the increase in programming
and activities funded by corporation(s) on
an annual basis

24. Evaluation: How to keep this research valid
● Recommend conducting an annual survey
or interview process with well-funded
nonprofits and corporate donors on best
practices
o This can also be done as secondary research
online

25. Evaluation: The research process
● It was difficult to find the contact
information for whom to interview at the
nonprofit/corporation
● Some nonprofits & corporations scheduled
interviews weeks from when we called: allow
time to collect all the needed information
● The interview itself was very successful

26. Evaluation: The research process cont.
● The response rate was unusually low
among our sample group
● Reccomend approaching sample group
early on to allow for:
o response time
o collection time
o time to analyze (find trends in results)

27. Thank you for this opportunity!