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IDOT Blog – Monday, June 30, 2025
NIU students offer fresh strategies to boost IDOT grant interest
The Office of Communications, Bureau of Safety Programs and Engineering, Bureau of Programming’s Special Programs Unit, and the DCC Marketing agency, which helped create the “It’s Not a Game” campaign, teamed up with six business students from Northern Illinois University’s Experiential Learning Center over the winter.
Their project: Developing new ways and possible business solutions to enhance interest in IDOT’s grant programs.
“We have been asking ourselves internally for a while what more we could be doing to generate interest in these grant opportunities and ultimately get more communities to apply,” said Director of Communications Guy Tridgell. “The people who manage these programs for IDOT take their mission seriously. We try our best to support their efforts from a communications standpoint but wanted to get some new perspectives. By working with the students, we were able to get a fresh set of eyes on our processes, which never hurts.”
Throughout the semester, IDOT staff met regularly with the students to help guide their efforts. They addressed challenges, answered questions and connected the group with IDOT bureaus, who provided feedback to refine ideas.
“Meeting weekly, we helped the students understand the challenges of grant marketing and encouraged them to think outside the box,” said Kim Hoskins, the Region 3 communications outreach liaison and NIU alumna who served as the main point of contact for IDOT during the semester. “The students also devised a plan to create an online mentorship protégé community where past grant recipients shepherd new applicants through the process by offering their wisdom and advice.”
Also contributing on the IDOT team were Special Programs Unit Chief John Paris, Safety Programs Unit Chief Juan Pava and Local Policy and Technology Engineer Tim Peters.
The students saw potential to improve IDOT’s online user experience for the grant application process by leveraging AI. Targeted messaging, highlighted in their tagline “Your Town. Your Safety. Our Support,” aimed to empower communities by encouraging local officials to apply for IDOT funding.
IDOT plans to dive deeper into the recommendations, with the potential to integrate several of the students’ strategies into future efforts.