Nonprofit Merger Case Study: The Eleanor Foundation - The Chicago Foundation for Women
The Eleanor Foundation, an over 110-year-old nonprofit begun to assist young, single mothers with a place to live and offering them an education, will soon wind down its operations and merge into the Chicago Foundation for Women. Noticing a lack of economic opportunity, limited access to health services, widespread domestic violence, and a host of other issues threatening many women’s lives, Marjorie Craig Benton, Sunny Fischer, Iris Krieg, and Lucia Woods Linley created the Chicago Foundation for Women. Both working to help women, particularly female-led households, these two groups successfully completed a merger of their operations in order to create a more efficient organization capable of helping more women.
Forming their strategic plan in 2012, both organizations were stable and creating positive impacts, yet as K. Sujata, president of the Chicago Foundation for Women and the former director of programs at the Eleanor Foundation notes, it is not about the organizations but rather about putting the focus on the women being affected by daily challenges. The combined efforts of these organizations only grew their impact. The Eleanor Foundation transferred its approximately $7 million in assets to the Chicago Foundation for Women’s already significant $7 million. This transfer was officially a conditional gift transfer that when completed, and meeting certain conditions, the Eleanor Foundation was dissolved. Additionally, the former Eleanor Foundation receives the benefit of the Chicago Foundation for Women’s robust fundraising network. Bringing in $1-2 million annually at the time of the merger, this affords significant spending in pursuit of mission success. Combining industry expertise, large assets, and a substantial fundraising network developed by the Chicago Foundation for Women, this nonprofit merger is a display of a well thought out and highly effective strategic planning.
According to tax filings, the Eleanor Foundation had the larger bank account of the two groups, with about $8.5 million in assets at the end of 2011 compared with the Chicago Foundation for Women’s approximately $6.5 million at the end of June 2011. The Eleanor Foundation was quickly and intentionally spending that money at a rate of about $1 million a year in an effort to achieve results ( they found that spending conservatively wasn’t quite making as large an impact as they hoped). However, the same records show that the Chicago Foundation for Women has built a fundraising machine that the Eleanor Foundation could not replicate in the same geographic area. The Chicago Foundation for Women raised a little more than $1.7 million through donations and grants during the fiscal year ending mid-2011. Meanwhile, the Eleanor Foundation raised a little more than $181,000 in that same fiscal year. The merged organizations, now under the label of the Chicago Foundation for Women, have seen considerable fundraising growth since the merger, raising increasing amounts annually ranging from $4 to $5 million until in 2018 they raised $8.7 million. This has been accompanied by significant spending to accomplish its mission.
In press releases, the organizations have mentioned the prioritization of efficiency, sector efficiency that is. Not every organization needs an independent administrative structure or brick and mortar location. Coming together brought significant resources and a powerful fundraising system together in order to successfully care for those in need. This is a prime example of a well done, timely, and highly effective nonprofit merger. Just two years after the nonprofit organizations merged, in 2014, the Chicago Foundation for Women worked with more than 2,000 donors and partners to fund 150 projects in four counties serving 53,000 women, and that work has only received more funding over the six years since. Achieving this, required strategic planning and a nuanced understanding of nonprofit operations. Both organizations partially credit the success of the merger and productivity of the new strategic alliance on the boards taking personal ownership and serious interest in shaping a new organization together.
Bringing forward-thinking, strategic planning, and data together to guide organizations to achieve greater returns on investments, the NMBL nonprofit consulting team is fully prepared to plan for any outcome. Contact us at info@nmblstrategies.com to hear more about what our expert consultants offer.