On February 4, 2026, the Foundation launched the Second Cup, a new informal co-working event held at our offices. Coffee was served and ideas were exchanged between 15 professionals from nine nonprofits across the West Cook region. The first meeting centered around Project Management, and the conversation covered process improvement and team communications, helpful tips on tracking one’s to-do list, and the myriad of resources available to track ongoing impact.
Organized as part of our Nonprofit Excellence Program, this was the first in a series of planned gatherings for local nonprofit staff over the coming months. Participants were from a variety of organizations dealing with issues like food scarcity, mental health support and access, and youth advocacy. Foundation Development Director Brian Biederman was pleased with both the turnout and results.
“Everyone seemed very excited to participate,” he says. “I look forward to the group expanding over the coming months. We closed out the meeting by telling everybody their homework was to bring a friend next time.”
The co-working event is open to employees from every organizational tier at local nonprofits. Brian describes Second Cup as “crowd-sourced” sessions in which participants can share their individual knowledge and experience. This approach will continue with the second Second Cup event on March 18, which will address how to avoid burnout, and on April 9 when the subject will be teamwork.
“People are born from all sorts of different decades and all walks of life, but we are all here, you know, for the collective purpose of doing good, whatever that means to each of us,” Brian says. “These events highlight the things that work for our individual teams, so others can improve the processes back at their own offices.”
In addition to Second Cup, the Nonprofit Excellence Program will feature workshops tailored toward executive-level leaders and board members and led by consultant advisors presenting on subjects such as board development, building partnerships at the board level through grant writing, effective marketing and telling your organization’s story, and more.