A Case Study in Engaging a Diverse Membership

The Madison Audubon Society works to protect and improve habitats for birds and other wildlife through land acquisition and management, education, and advocacy.

THE CHALLENGE

The Madison Audubon Society was looking for new ideas to connect with a diverse audience with the goal of building and sustaining a diverse membership that reflected the communities it served.

THE SOLUTION

The Alliant Energy Foundation partnered with the Audubon Society through a grant and provided nearly 40 team members to participate in the process. A custom Innovation Works® recipe was created to leverage their knowledge and expertise to identify new strategies for engaging a diverse membership. Participants in the process included people with expertise in sales, marketing, engineering, and experts from Alliant’s diversity, equity and inclusion team.

Through a game-based process, we engaged teams in creating solutions and action steps that would improve outreach to diverse communities, test new events that would meet people where they were, and improve marketing to better reflect the audience they were attempting to engage. The teams developed, refined, and pitched ideas during a one-day session that resulted in new strategies they could begin to implement right away.

THE RESULTS

“Not only were we given a concrete, clear, and high-potential solution in a short amount of time, but we will definitely be incorporating elements of this process in our organizational decision-making. If you're lucky enough to participate in Innovation Works - DO IT.”

- Matt Reetz, Executive Director