3C Community Profile: Humboldt Park
Take a stroll down the Paseo Boricua corridor on Division Street and it’s easy to see why Humboldt Park is one of Chicago’s most vibrant…
Grants
Featured
Our Grantmaking Strategy
For more than 100 years, The Chicago Community Trust has convened, supported, funded, and accelerated the work of community members and changemakers committed to strengthening the Chicago region. From building up our civic infrastructure to spearheading our response to the Great Recession, the Trust has brought our community together to face pressing challenges and seize our greatest opportunities. Today, that means confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
FARM Illinois
To empower the Illinois Agri-Food Alliance, a consortium of leaders driving implementation of the Food & Agriculture RoadMap for Illinois, to pursue roadmap-related activities as they relate to climate, conservation, and land-use, and advance its role as a connector and convener across Illinois’ agri-food system and catalyst and champion for forward-looking and systemic dialogue, ideation, and action.
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Grant Recipient
Upwardly Global
Upwardly Global requests funding in the amount of $25,000 to support efforts to empower our community of unemployed and underemployed immigrant and refugee job seekers (82% of whom identify as BIPOC) with the skills, networks and credentials needed to rebuild their lives and careers in the U.S., contributing to a thriving and more inclusive Chicago workforce and economy. Those served will emerge from our program having secured gainful, "thriving-wage" professional employment in sustainable industries like tech and healthcare, earning an average starting salary of $55,000 and experiencing an income increase of $45,000 on average. As a result, we will put mobility within reach and contribute to a reduction in income inequality among Chicago's immigrant families.
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Grant Recipient
AUSTIN COMING TOGETHER
• Project Name Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation • Application Summary Located at the corner of Madison St. and Central Avenue (5500 W. Madison), the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation is a multi-use facility development project to renovate and repurpose the (87,000 square feet) former Robert Emmet Public Elementary School into a coordinated community hub with industry sector training center that will service youth and out-of-work individuals with in-demand skill sets and small business supports. The Aspire Center (meaning, place of directing the hopes of the people) will be composed of several workforce training, career development and entrepreneurial skills providers all housed within the re-purposed and renovated Emmet School. The development will offer: * a high tech manufacturing training center for working age youth and adults * a business incubator for start ups * a restaurant with indoor/outdoor dining and social events * a bank and other neighborhood building businesses • Total Project Budget $27,995,000
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Grant Recipient
Artisan Grain Collaborative
AGC is a network of 170+ farmers, processors, end-users, and advocates working to cultivate and elevate a regenerative grainshed in the Upper Midwest. FLO funds will support AGC's core operations and expanding programmatic work.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Jobs Council
The Chicago Jobs Council works with its member organizations (primarily community-based organizations that provide employment and training services to marginalized job seekers) and advocacy partners to advance policies that increase access to family-sustaining jobs and remove structural barriers to employment that disproportionately affect people of color. A renewed grant would support personnel to manage the Transit Table coalition and the Illinois Skills for Good Jobs Agenda.
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Grant Recipient
REFUGEEONE
RefugeeOne seeks support of its Strengthening Families program to help refugee families achieve self-reliance. This grant will especially address the needs of newly arrived Afghan humanitarian parolees.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance
CAFHA leads the Housing Choice Voucher Working Group, launched in 2016, and the only cross-sector coalition in the region advocating for equitable housing opportunities for voucher holders. CAFHA will promote recommendations, developed through CCT-funded research under its 2020 Advancing Equitable Homeownership grant, and honed through coalition work under our current Growing Household Wealth grant, regarding public housing authority homeownership program best practices, by advocating for policy and programmatic changes among housing authorities, HUD, and the lending and real estate industry. The aim of this effort is to scale up PHA homeownership programs to meet the desires of voucher holders and create a means to begin to repair the racial homeownership gap caused by public policy and actions of the real estate industry.
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Grant Recipient
FUTURE TIES NFP
Since 2010, Future Ties has served youth and families through after-school programming, teen workforce development, parenting skills and capacity building, parent mentoring, and the provision of direct resources including food and more recently, pandemic equipment. To date, we have served 800+ youth. Future Ties leverages the professional expertise and on-the-ground experience of Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Maddox, who is an active Chicago Police Officer for 26 years. As a patrol officer servicing the Parkway Gardens Apartments community, she observed and responded firsthand to the challenges facing residents and built a positive relationship with the community. She established Future Ties directly within this community, on a block labeled one of the most dangerous in the city of Chicago per The Sun-Times. When we have funding and are able to compete and become attractive to youth we have seen the rate of violence decrease. Alternatively, when funding has been limited, we have seen a spike in violence due to a lack of opportunity, hopelessness, and resources. Our model is based on trauma-informed and whole family approaches. Grant funds will be used to support Future Ties programming in Parkway Gardens and the surrounding community.