Sr. Program Officer, Human Services & Community Development
James H. Lewis is the senior program officer for The Chicago Community Trust in human services and community development. Lewis leads grant making for human service provider agencies, focusing on service delivery and organizational development. Lewis is currently conducting a comprehensive evaluation of poverty strategies aimed at maximizing the use of resources to fight poverty. He also manages the Trust’s joint initiatives with the United Way aimed at achieving operating efficiencies, advocacy for human services resources, agency capacity building and meeting unmet needs. Other projects include oversight of evaluation of the City’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness and studies of aging and suburban service provision in the Chicago region.
Prior to joining the Trust, Lewis was director of the Institute for Metropolitan Affairs at Roosevelt University and taught urban affairs and research methods in Roosevelt’s sociology department. Before joining Roosevelt, Lewis was vice president for research and planning at the Chicago Urban League where he specialized in education finance, legislative redistricting and political empowerment, civil rights and urban economic development. Lewis holds his Ph.D. in American History from Northwestern University and has authored more than 30 articles, chapters and commissioned studies.
