The Challenge
Understanding and reaching a diverse membership
For Illinois Farm Bureau, understanding its membership is essential to supporting advocacy efforts and delivering relevant communications across the state. With members representing diverse backgrounds, farming operations, and regional interests, the organization needs confidence in the information used to guide outreach and engagement.
Member information was spread across multiple sources, making it difficult to create a complete picture of the organization’s audience. Significant staff effort was required to reconcile data before it could be used for planning, engagement, and decision-making.
“Before partnering with DTN, our data was fractured across multiple sources and highly inconsistent, requiring a lot of staff time to make it usable for decision-making,” Sandhu said.
The Solution
One trusted partner
Building on a long-standing relationship with DTN, Illinois Farm Bureau implemented Farm Intelligence to gain a more complete understanding of its membership. By bringing together member intelligence from a single trusted partner, the organization gained cleaner, more actionable data that helped identify engagement opportunities and support advocacy initiatives.
“DTN made things a lot easier because we trusted the data and knew we’d have the support to make sure it always worked,” he said. “When we partnered with DTN, we gained a single partner delivering clean, consistent data that allowed us to hit the ground running.”
Farm Intelligence has helped us drive our member engagement and advocacy efforts.
The Results
Stronger member engagement and advocacy
With better visibility into its membership, Illinois Farm Bureau can more effectively engage members and support advocacy efforts across the state.
As a result, the organization can deliver more relevant communications and connect with members in a way that reflects their unique needs and interests.
“Farm Intelligence has helped us drive our member engagement and advocacy efforts,” Sandhu said. “With members from so many different backgrounds across Illinois, we’re able to resonate with them the first time rather than the second or third.”
Identifying New Member Opportunities
Farm Intelligence also helped Illinois Farm Bureau identify gaps in its member outreach, giving the organization a more complete understanding of its membership and new opportunities to strengthen outreach, engagement, and advocacy efforts.
“Farm Intelligence’s been a great product for us,” Sandhu said. “The data set was providing matches of over 80% with our existing information that we had on our members and helping us understand the folks we weren’t reaching.”
The Future
More informed decisions
With trusted member intelligence and a stronger understanding of its membership, Illinois Farm Bureau is well-positioned to continue strengthening member relationships, supporting advocacy efforts, and making informed decisions that benefit farmers across Illinois.
