Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation

In 2018, the Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation set out to put more emphasis on the community part of its name, and began to examine and reimagine how it interacts with and supports the people and organizations in the communities it serves. The staff and board engaged in a process of self-reflection and training, culminating in the intentional decision to focus its work on racial justice and equity.

As part of this effort,conducted the first community needs assessment for West Cook County in more than a decade, meeting with 100 neighbors, partners and stakeholders to identify key priority areas where the Foundation could make the greatest impact, resulting in the landmark Community Voices report, released in 2022.

Glendale collaborated with the Foundation and its consultant, the Nova Collective, to review and interpret the findings of the needs assessment, and determine the best approach to presenting data and sharing salient comments from focus group participants. We worked closely with the graphic designer to create infographics and crafted language to present a wealth of complex information in a clear and digestible manner. Once the report was finalized, we developed a communications plan for its release. In addition to a news release on the launch of the report, we arranged exclusive coverage with the newspaper of record for Oak Park and River Forest.

To further publicize the report and its findings, Glendale created a collection of social media posts on each of the priority areas and supporting data. In addition, we helped the Foundation publicize and produce a series of events to share insights from the report and engage with the community, including an in-person presentation at the Oak Park-River Forest Public Library and several virtual events attended by more than 200 community members.