Meet our clients
We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.
We are privileged to work with these dedicated individuals every day, and we give them the tools and connections they need to fulfill their organizations’ potential. Take a look at our recent work:
Margaret’s Village Senior Community Center
Margaret’s Village engaged Conlon Public Strategies to provide strategic guidance and to connect them with elected officials to highlight the essential role Margaret’s Village serves in the Englewood community. For example, Margaret’s Village has a senior center that helps elderly members of the community avoid isolation by providing a spot to drop-in and socialize. It desperately needed new lighting, but costs were prohibitive. The Conlon team shared this need with Powering Chicago, IBEW/NECA, which worked with ECO Lighting to donate labor and materials for new lighting fixtures and electrical outlets in the senior center building. As a result, seniors now have a safer, more welcoming space that is improving quality of life in the community.
Watch Margaret’s Village’s story below.
Explore more of our work
Treatment Alternatives for the Safe Communities (TASC)
Bringing together valuable stakeholders to create a strategic vision and plan
Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC)
Bringing together valuable stakeholders to create a strategic vision and plan
Overview
Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) of Illinois — the largest TASC program in the
nation – engaged Conlon Public Strategies to develop a three-year strategic plan to increase the impact of the organization’s specialized case management programs for clients with substance use and mental health conditions, as well as its efforts to drive systemic change to reduce recidivism and decrease substance use and related health issues.
The Conlon team assessed the environment in which TASC operates and led an equity-focused, inclusive strategic planning process that embraced the perspectives of a range of internal and external stakeholders, including clients that TASC serves. Conlon Public Strategies collaborated with TASC to create a plan based on TASC’s core competitive advantages and the community’s shared aspirations and goals for its future direction.
Outcome
As a result of the strategic planning process, TASC identified areas of potential growth, opportunities to amplify its role as a national thought leader, and several new and diversified funding sources. Conlon also connected TASC leadership, including its new CEO, with elected officials and other stakeholders that are key to TASC’s programmatic and policy objectives.
TASC now has a clearly defined theory of change firmly grounded in the needs and strengths of its community and organization, as well as the concrete strategies and relationships necessary to empower the organization to increase its impact over the next three years and beyond.
Erie Family Health Centers
Partnering to facilitate long term Investment in employee retention and well-being
ERIE FAMILY HEALTH CENTERS
Partnering to facilitate long term Investment in employee retention and well-being
Overview
Like other health and human services providers, Erie Family Health Centers operated in a competitive labor market even in pre-pandemic times, and the pandemic aggravated these challenges with labor shortages and inflation. Erie retained Conlon Public Strategies to define an employee value proposition (EVP) to ensure the organization’s ability to attract and retain the employees necessary to achieve its mission, while also advancing Erie’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Conlon team members with extensive business consulting and DEI experience collaborated with the Erie team to assess market trends and existing Erie policies in order to develop an EVP that would address Erie’s immediate and long-term human resources goals. The Conlon team also provided hands-on advising on change management to ensure the successful implementation of the new EVP.
Outcome
As a result of this engagement, Erie has an EVP that has strengthened Erie’s position as a premier employer of choice committed to DEI values. In addition, the Conlon team provided Erie with the long-term strategies and metrics/tools it needs to continue to quickly and successfully respond to future needs and shifts in the labor landscape.
Greater Chicago Food Depository
Providing research and analysis to secure funding and avenues for growth
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY
Providing research and analysis to secure funding and avenues for growth
Overview
Acknowledging the importance of “food as medicine” in promoting health, the Greater Chicago Food Depository engaged Conlon Public Strategies to conduct a policy analysis of financially sustainable approaches to provide medically tailored home delivered meals to low income populations with chronic health conditions. The Conlon team conducted extensive research on potential public funding streams. Based on this research, Conlon Public Strategies provided the Food Depository with a comprehensive analysis of funding options.
Outcome
The Food Depository now has a clear picture of funding options, which it can use for planning and budgeting. It also has a roadmap for pursuing new funding, with recommendations for the most promising avenues for funding prepared meals, along with guidance on the challenges and opportunities associated with each option. In this dynamic public policy space, Conlon advisors continue to work with the Food Depository to evaluate the steps required to pursue each of these recommended policy opportunities and implementation.
Illinois State University
Mennonite College of Nursing
Cultivating vital partnerships with federal agencies and congressional levels
ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY MENNONITE COLLEGE OF NURSING
Cultivating vital partnerships with federal agencies and elected officials
Overview
To respond to the nation’s nursing shortage, Illinois State University’s Mennonite College of Nursing has broken ground on a new state-of-the-art facility, which will enable the school to expand programs, including a new accelerated pathway for military medics to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing.
The College of Nursing engaged Conlon Public Strategies to explore opportunities for public funding for this ambitious initiative. The Conlon team immediately activated its network to introduce College leaders to federal officials and to educate key decisionmakers about the urgent need for this new facility.
Outcome
As a result, College leaders have deepened relationships with federal agencies and elected officials, and, in 2022, the College was selected to receive $2 million in congressionally directed funding for this important project.