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
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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
Local Initiatives Support Corp.
This request to CCT is for continued partnership with Local Initiatives Support Corporation on the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards (CNDA). LISC respectfully requests the Chicago Community Trust’s renewed support of $25,000 to sponsor “The Chicago Community Trust Outstanding Community Plan Award” to be presented at CNDA. The winner of the award in 2022, selected through a competitive application process led by cross-sector representatives from the city's community development industry, is the N. Lawndale Quality of Life Plan led by the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council. The CNDA event where the award will be presented along with other sponsored awards is on June 29, 2022 at the South Shore Cultural Center.
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Grant Recipient
Grow Greater Englewood
Grow Greater Englewood is a 501(c)3 non-profit social enterprise development organization established in 2014 focused on revitalizing the Englewood community through the creation of agriculture-based social enterprises leveraging the acquisition, repurposing and preservation of vacant land in Englewood. The Ujima Hive will provide space for creating and growing agriculture-based social enterprises and potentially serve as the Chicago Food Policy Action Council’s proposed Food Hub, a social enterprise that manages a combination of aggregation, processing, distribution and marketing on behalf of multiple urban farms
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Grant Recipient
Illinois Partners for Human Service
Illinois Partner’s current priorities are to: - Advocate for robust, sustainable, and equitable state funding of human services; - Advance systems that center equity in policy making and funding, and secure access for service providers and clients with lived experience to decision making forums; - Address systemic racism within our sector and empower our coalition to challenge established policies that perpetuate white supremacy. Our priorities are rooted in community informed initiatives built through engagement with our coalition partners. This year, we will add a new Grassroots Partnership Director who will focus on our Chicago area partners and amplify the work of grassroots leaders in Black and Latinx communities.
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Grant Recipient
The Conservation Fund
This application seeks operational funding to launch the Working Farms Fund program in metro Chicago. The Working Farms Fund program is an innovative model to support a resilient regional food system by addressing farmland as a critical piece of supply chain infrastructure. Specifically designed to enable talented and diverse growers to scale production to meet institutional demand for good food, the Working Farms Fund protects critical at-risk farmland and offers a patient pathway to landownership as the basis for business resiliency and intergenerational wealth creation.
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Grant Recipient
YOUNG INVINCIBLES
Young Invincibles (YI) co-leads the Illinois Higher Education Network (IHEN) to create a more equitable higher education system. We address the impacts of institutionalized racism and classism on the success of Black and Latinx students, and students from low-income households. The coalition consists of advocacy organizations, college access and success organizations, college and university faculty and staff, and students. Working with these stakeholders, YI builds momentum for policies to create fair institutional funding models, meet students’ basic needs, increase financial aid, and address student mental health in a culturally competent manner.
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Grant Recipient
ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS
As the undocumented population continues to be left out of federal relief legislation, our directly impacted leaders continue to speak out about the need for state and local governments to provide permanent direct cash assistance. ICIRR, as a member of the IL Cost of Living Refund Coalition, partners with Economic Security for Illinois (ESIL) and provides strategy, organizing, and legislative support around ESIL’s campaign to expand inclusion of the state Earned Income Credit to ITIN filers and other historically excluded persons. ICIRR will engage its broad membership in 2022 to make Illinois one of the few states to include these groups, and will also advocate and organize around direct cash assistance in the context of COVID relief.
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Grant Recipient
Thrive Counseling Center
Thrive Counseling Center, serving Chicago’s West Side and Near West Suburbs, respectfully requests $50,000 to expand and enhance mental health care for minority and low-income youth ages 6-17. It is no surprise that the demand for care has jumped dramatically during the pandemic. The American Pediatric Association recently declared a mental health crisis for our nation's children and teens. The capacity to provide affordable care lags far behind this demand. Thrive clients must wait an average of three to four months to see a therapist or psychiatrist unless their condition is especially acute. And yet, the agency is often the only option for mental health care for these low-income families in our area as very few private practitioners accept Medicaid. Support from the Chicago Community Trust will enable Thrive to: a) hire an additional youth therapist to expand capacity to assist youth, and b) enhance our therapists’ ability to address trauma, especially racial trauma, by hosting a series of four focused workshops delivered by an external trainer with expertise in this modality. When polled, Thrive therapists rated racial trauma training as the number one professional development need. Outcomes include an increase in low-income youth clients and an enhancement in therapists' confidence in their abilities to effectively treat racial trauma among their clients.
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Grant Recipient
Greater Chicago Food Depository
The Greater Chicago Food Depository’s mission is “providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in our community.” The organization has grown to provide over 93 million pounds of food annually, the equivalent of 300,000 meals each day. In response to the significant need as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this fiscal year the Food Depository anticipates distributing 105 million pounds of food. Our organization also implements innovative solutions to address the root causes of hunger and food insecurity, like helping low-income individuals and families enroll in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and invests in programs that strengthen the health and economic stability of communities. In particular, the Food Depository operates workforce development programs to prepare un/underemployed individuals for quality jobs, advocates for food security policies and serves as the coordinator and capacity building provider for a network of over 700 community-based food distribution partners and programs. The prevalence of hunger in Cook County demands a need for a strong network of community partners working to distribute healthy food to individuals and families in need, as well as comprehensive public policies that address food insecurity and its root causes. With the support of the Chicago Community Trust, the Greater Chicago Food Depository will continue to advance our hunger relief policy agendas and provide capacity building and technical assistance to strengthen our network of 700 food access partners – especially those in communities of color – to ensure everyone in Cook County has access to the food needed to lead healthy, stable lives.