Thinksgiving connects St. Louis nonprofits with teams from smart companies for a day of creative problem-solving focused on the future. There are several things that make Thinksgiving unique, including a “draft” where the Business Partner teams (for-profits and large nonprofit institutions) select a nonprofit’s challenge that aligns with their expertise, as well as post-Thinksgiving opportunities hosted by Filament that help turn ideas into action.  If you’d like to learn more, share your interest with us here and we’ll answer any questions you might have.

Our next Thinksgiving Day is November 2, 2023. See additional milestones below.

AUGUST: Nonprofits finalize the focus of their challenge.

Filament and selected Nonprofits work together to clarify a non-financial challenge that significantly impacts the work they do for our community.

SEPTEMBER 19:  Draft Day

On Draft Day, each Business Partner team selects a challenge (without knowing the Nonprofit it belongs to) that best fits their team’s skillset and expertise. After the selections are made, the partnerships will be revealed.

SEPTEMBER: Best Practices Workshop

During this single, half day workshop, organizations explore what’s worked, what hasn’t, and ideas on how to best approach their Thinksgiving collaboration. Facilitated by Filament, we will share innovative approaches, hear from Thinksgiving alumni, and provide tools and tricks applicable to the Thinksgiving experience and beyond. The entire team is encouraged to join; a minimum of one representative from each organization must attend one of the offered sessions.

NOVEMBER 2:  THINKSGIVING DAY

Business Partners and their paired Nonprofit spend the day tackling their Thinksgiving challenges. We’ll conclude with a party and share our work, meet one another, and learn more about all our participating Nonprofits.

To participate as a Nonprofit, you must have 501(c)(3) status, have a defined mission and established leadership, and engage a 4 to 5 person team fully in the collaboration.

In order to maintain a comfortable and productive atmosphere for our business partners, we discourage applications from Nonprofit organizations whose main objective is promoting a specific religious doctrine, who have overt political affiliations, or take other highly polarizing stances.

While we value the contributions made by these organizations, our goal is to minimize potential distractions or conflicts that may arise from such affiliations -- especially as we pair our teams -- ensuring that all participants can work together effectively to generate positive change in our communities.

More than 100 distinct companies have participated in Thinksgiving, ranging from small startups to large enterprise companies to institutional nonprofits.

Thinksgiving is best for:

• Innovation-focused businesses

• Organizations with a commitment to community impact

• Consultancies, creative agencies, and professional services firms

We welcome any and all organizations, as long as you can commit to the process (see ‘Business Partner Expectations’ below).

For Business Partners:

• Community Impact — Thinksgiving benefits far exceed the benefit of a typical financial contribution (although we certainly encourage you to support financially as well!). In previous years, Thinksgiving has generated more than $1 million in value for participating nonprofits by giving them access to thought leaders and providing a full day of free strategic support they could not otherwise afford.

• Employee Retention — 64% of employees who currently volunteer said that volunteering with work colleagues strengthened their relationships. Thinksgiving gives Business Partners the opportunity to engage key employees in a day of impact with their coworkers.

• Professional Development — Many Business Partners use Thinksgiving as an opportunity for high potential employees to practice leading a team. They will send them to the best practices workshop and use Thinksgiving Day as a training ground to help them develop.

There is no cost for nonprofits to participate in Thinksgiving.

To support event costs and growth of Thinksgiving to other cities, Business Partners are charged a fee of $5,000 per team (if you purchase 3 teams, you will receive an additional team free of charge.)

Thinksgiving is currently not a nonprofit organization (although it may be in the future). Funds raised via sponsors and business partners are used to continue to grow Thinksgiving, cover costs for the event, and support the more than $500,000 worth of free programming we provide to the St. Louis community.

Our dream is to eventually bring Thinksgiving to multiple cities and higher education institutions. We hope to be able to accept every qualifying non-profit who wants to participate. The $5,000 fee per team will help make this dream a reality.

• Attend Draft Day on September 19th.

• Team Facilitator (and ideally the full team) attends the Best Practices Workshop

• To build rapport and deeper understanding of their paired Nonprofit’s mission and the challenge they’re bringing to Thinksgiving, Business Partner and Nonprofit teams connect for an informal meeting. (Date, time, and location to be arranged by the team leads.)

• Business Partner team arrives on time and prepared for Thinksgiving Day

Nonprofit challenges fall within the following categories:

• Marketing and Branding

• Scaling

• Board & Stakeholder Experience / Engagement

• Culture and Alignment

• Internal Organizational Processes

• Messaging and Telling Our Story

• Team Talent and/or Volunteers

• Product or Service Launch

• Building Partnerships

Learn more about past challenges and experiences from 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Nonprofit applications are closed for 2023. Please revisit the possibility in the spring!

Yes! We have many Business Partners who have multiple teams participate. If you purchase 3 teams, you get a 4th team at no additional charge.

To sign up, please fill out this short form and we will reach out to schedule a call.