Make It Champaign

What Make It Champaign does

Make It Champaign (also branded as Make It Champaign-Urbana or 'You're Welcome CU') is a nonprofit community branding and marketing initiative launched in 2015 and operated by the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation in collaboration with Experience Champaign-Urbana and the University of Illinois Research Park. The initiative promotes the Champaign-Urbana region of Illinois as a destination for prospective residents, employers, talent, and visitors through content marketing, community storytelling, and a volunteer ambassador program. It serves as the region's primary economic-development and tourism-marketing platform rather than as a commercial technology product.

The core product is the makeitcu.com website, a content-driven marketing platform with no APIs, SDKs, or technical integrations. The site features an Innovation Showcase highlighting inventions with regional origins (Mosaic web browser at UIUC's NCSA, LED, plasma television, residential air conditioning), a Community Resources library of downloadable maps/infographics/videos, multilingual support across 10 languages, and links to a dedicated jobs portal. The Chambana Welcome Crew, launched in 2021, is a sub-product consisting of 60+ trained community ambassadors who personally onboard new residents and connect them to 100+ HR representatives in the Champaign County Recruiters Network. The platform is supported by social channels (YouTube, Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook) and partner-driven content distribution.

Make It Champaign operates without a traditional revenue model. It does not sell products or services; all content and programs are free to users, and the platform is publicly disclosed as a non-commercial marketing effort. Operating costs are funded by a coalition of 40+ sponsors and partners, anchored by original 2015 launch sponsors (Wolfram, Yahoo, Amdocs, Busey, City of Champaign) and ongoing institutional partners (UIUC, Visit Champaign County, Champaign County Chamber of Commerce, Champaign Center Partnership, Horizon Hobby). The initiative employs 1-10 people and is housed at 1817 South Neil Street, Suite 100, Champaign, IL.

Name

Make It Champaign

Legal name

Champaign County Economic Development Corporation

Website

https://makeitcu.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Make It Champaign is a nonprofit community branding initiative launched in 2015 and operated by the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation to promote the Champaign-Urbana region to prospective residents, employers, talent, and visitors through a marketing website and volunteer ambassador program.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Community Marketing and Economic Development

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYBPAGALAO

Community Arts, Culture & Creative Placemaking Enterprises

Business & Public Services/Nonprofit, NGO & Social Services/Social Enterprises & Impact Organizations

SECONDARYEDALAHAF

Cultural, Identity & Inclusion Programs

Education/Student Services & Campus Operations/Student Activities, Clubs & Campus Life

Keywords

• Community marketing
• Regional promotion
• Economic development
• Resident attraction
• Tourism marketing

Headquarters

HQ city

Champaign

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Make It Champaign is a free community branding and marketing platform that promotes the Champaign-Urbana region as a destination for residents, businesses, talent, and visitors. The initiative runs the makeitcu.com website, the Chambana Welcome Crew ambassador program that connects new residents with local guides, an Innovation Showcase highlighting regional tech heritage, and a downloadable community resources library.

Product overview

Make It Champaign-Urbana is a unified community attraction and marketing platform operated as a joint collaboration between the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, Experience Champaign-Urbana, and University of Illinois Research Park. The core offering is the makeitcu.com website, which serves as the primary promotional and informational hub for the region. The platform integrates four main components: the main marketing website showcasing the area's quality of life and innovations; the Chambana Welcome Crew ambassador program connecting new residents with local guides; an Innovation Showcase highlighting notable technologies and entrepreneurs from the community; and a Community Resources library providing photos, videos, maps, and downloadable materials. This is not a technology product with technical integrations but rather a content-driven marketing and community engagement platform.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Chambana Welcome Crew: A community ambassador program to recruit and welcome new residents to the Champaign-Urbana area.

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• Champaign County Economic Development CorporationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-operator of Make It Champaign-Urbana initiative. Provides economic development expertise and coordinates regional business attraction efforts.
• Experience Champaign-UrbanacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-operator of the initiative. Destination marketing organization focused on tourism promotion and quality of life messaging.
• University of Illinois Research ParkcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-operator providing technology sector expertise and connecting the initiative with startup ecosystem activities.
• Visit Champaign CountymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCommunity partner for tourism marketing and visitor attraction.
• Champaign County Chamber of CommercemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCommunity partner providing business networking and employer engagement.
• Champaign Center PartnershipmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCommunity partner for downtown business district promotion.
• University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerKey institutional partner providing innovation stories, talent pipeline, and research park connections. Home to National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) where Mosaic browser was developed.
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUIUC research center where Marc Andreessen developed the Mosaic web browser in 1992-1993.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Choose Chicago: Choose Chicago is the official destination marketing organization for Chicago, performing regional branding, tourism promotion, and convention marketing. It is directly comparable to Make It Champaign-Urbana in function (regional marketing and attraction) and stakeholder model (nonprofit/public-private partnership).
• Select Greater Philadelphia: Select Greater Philadelphia is a regional economic development marketing initiative by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce that promotes the region for business location and talent. Comparable in mission (regional talent and business attraction) and nonprofit governance structure.
• Choose New Jersey: Choose New Jersey is a public-private partnership that markets New Jersey as a destination for business relocation, talent, and tourism. It mirrors Make It CU's combination of economic development marketing, talent attraction, and tourism promotion under a nonprofit partnership model.
• Make It MSP: Make It MSP is a Minneapolis-Saint Paul regional talent attraction and community-marketing initiative run by the Greater MSP partnership, aimed at recruiting skilled workers and their families to the Twin Cities. It mirrors Make It Champaign-Urbana's branding, talent-attraction focus, and community-ambassador programming almost identically.
• Visit Denver: Visit Denver is the official tourism and convention bureau for Denver, Colorado. Comparable in nonprofit destination-marketing structure, multi-channel content distribution, and corporate-sponsor funding model to Make It Champaign-Urbana.
• Livability.com: Livability.com is a data-driven platform that ranks and promotes mid-size U.S. cities for talent attraction, economic development, and tourism. It overlaps directly with Make It CU's value proposition of highlighting mid-size metro quality of life and innovation stories.
• Experience Columbus: Experience Columbus is the destination marketing organization for Columbus, Ohio, running community engagement, talent, and tourism campaigns. Its content-driven community experience platform is functionally analogous to Make It CU's makeitcu.com site.
• Experience Madison: Experience Madison (Visit Madison) is the destination marketing organization for Madison, Wisconsin, another Big Ten university town. It is directly comparable as a university-anchored, mid-size metro community-marketing platform with similar sponsor and partner structures.

Others

• Brookings Metro: Brookings Metro is a research and policy program focused on the economic competitiveness of U.S. metropolitan areas. It is an indirect peer because it produces influential regional economic data, rankings, and policy frameworks that initiatives like Make It Champaign-Urbana draw upon for messaging, though it is not a direct competitor in community marketing.

Emerging players

• Built In: Built In operates a network of city-focused tech and startup community sites (Built In Chicago, Austin, etc.) with employer branding, talent matching, and content marketing. It competes with Make It CU for tech-talent mindshare and employer-recruitment marketing, though at larger scale and with proprietary tech.

Market position

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/makeitcu
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCP4hJ81HMvMZhGRkcn_lESA
• Facebookfacebook.com/makeitcu
• Instagraminstagram.com/makeitcu

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Make It Champaign