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
The Chicago Community Foundation/The Fund for Equitable Business Growth
The Fund for Equitable Business Growth (FEBG) is a collaborative of local and national philanthropic and institutional funders focused on strengthening the network of technical, financial, social, and knowledge supports provided to Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in Chicago. FEBG approaches this in two ways: (1) catalyzing collaboration and partnerships between Business Service Organizations (BSOs) to address unique needs of businesses owners across the developmental spectrum, and (2) increase and strengthen connections between capital providers and small businesses. For FY23, FEBG requests support to continue the evolution of BSO collaboration and partnerships by strengthening cross-partnership collaboration to deepen the network of entrepreneurial supports. In addition, in alignment with our active survey of Chicago’s entrepreneurial capital access landscape, we are focusing our attention on the ways in which BSOs connect entrepreneurs to capital provider and the types of capital products they can access.
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Grant Recipient
Revolution Institute
For reasons articulated in our Organization Profile, RI views the development of worker cooperatives as an effective mechanism for closing the racial wealth gap in both social and economic terms. In the final quarter of 2023, RI will launch a cooperative business that operates in the advanced manufacturing sector; specifically, this business will provide B2B mechatronics technician services to small, mid and large-scale manufacturing enterprises. This business will be initially capitalized by and incubated within RI. In 2024, the cooperative will be spun out into an independent worker-owned entity and fully operational business. In order to achieve this objective, Revolution Institute must cultivate two separate but parallel values. First, we must establish a sustainable business model with appropriate operational and financial supports to ensure the business is competitive and has measurable revenue potential. Second, we must foster the potential of our participants to effectively operate as worker-owners of the business. The funding requested under this grant will fuel the latter effort. We request funding from The CCT to build and implement a comprehensive curriculum and corresponding supports designed to cultivate the self-esteem, knowledge, and influence of our participants in the workplace. We believe this will directly enhance their professional progress and personal development as community leaders. This dovetails with The CCT’s dual objectives of promoting quality education and quality employment opportunities under this grant. RI’s Cooperative Leadership Training will be both phased and progressive. This is informed by extensive literature which suggests that personal development and the self-esteem requires time, space, and trust in order to emerge. Participants will therefore undergo RI’s Cooperative Leadership Training over the course of four semesters. In tandem with this work, participants will undergo technical training and certification through the Manufacturing Technology Department (MTEC) at Daley College to ensure they have appropriate technical skills to support business operations.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Women in Trades
Systemic barriers have historically excluded women and people of color—particularly Black individuals—from the construction trades workforce. In Cook County, less than 5 percent of trades apprentices are women, and only 6 percent of Chicago construction workers are African Americans. The Chicago Construction Workforce Equity Coalition, led by Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), Revolution Workshop (RW), and the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, has drafted comprehensive ordinance language in collaboration with tradeswomen of color, minority contractor organizations, and other industry stakeholders. The Chicago Construction Workforce Equity Ordinance takes concrete action to improve access to and retention in the construction trades for underrepresented groups, requires the City to provide the staffing and resources to implement and enforce new requirements, brings all industry stakeholders together to assist with oversight, and requires public reporting of data to provide accountability on performance. Chicago Women in Trades recently succeeded in introducing and getting HB 3400 passed by the Illinois State Legislature in May 2023 to increase state data transparency, thanks to sponsors, Representative Will Davis, Leader Mattie Hunter, and Representative Will Guzzardi. This bill awaits the Governor’s signature to become state law and requires the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) to issue quarterly reports by project and by contractor on the workforce of public works projects that include race, ethnicity, and gender information by trade, skill level, and hours worked—providing workforce data transparency that will lead to accountability to under-represented communities. Fueled by state and federal spending on infrastructure, large scale local projects, and investment in pre-apprenticeship training, opportunity has never been greater to make progress for people of color and women in the trades than it is right now. Now is the time to leverage this legislative victory, momentum, and opportune season so that the City of Chicago provides solutions to racial and gender inequities in the construction trades. Chicago Community Trust funding will alleviate the strain on the coalition’s existing resources and capacity by helping fund lobbying and advocacy efforts as well as marketing and public education initiatives.
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Grant Recipient
AUSTIN COMING TOGETHER
Austin Coming Together (ACT) is seeking operating funds to support its efforts to attract investment to Austin through “Austin Forward Together,” a five-year Quality of Life Plan for the Austin community area. By providing the organizational infrastructure, technical support, seed funding, and external relations, ACT is empowering local leaders and organizations to implement the 84 actions of ‘Austin Forward Together.’ Over the next year, ACT staff will assist local leaders to complete the remaining action plans that are part of Austin Forward Together and aggressively pursue the private, non-profit, and public investment that is needed for their completion.
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Grant Recipient
In Care of Black Women
ARC Co-op (Arts, Resources, and Care) is an alternative, cooperatively owned, and operated art center in West Englewood, founded by Black and Latine artists and makers. ARC Co-op features studios, workshop classrooms, live/work apartments, a retail storefront, a rotating gallery, a commercial/teaching kitchen, and a community wellness space. Our specialty retail store offers a diverse range of products including art supplies, contemporary streetwear apparel, books, vinyl records, and home goods. We make creative endeavors more accessible by providing affordable live/work spaces and tiered memberships for facility use, in addition to four to eight-week workshops in woodworking, photography, writing, and visual art. Our worker-owners also provide custom fabrication services, creative consulting, private space rentals, and event hosting, particularly emphasizing individuals and organizations serving Greater Englewood.
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Grant Recipient
Viator House of Hospitality
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Grant Recipient
Association House of Chicago
Association House's Workforce Training programs provide participants with opportunities to gain the hard and soft skills needed to thrive in the workplace. Participants who complete training are connected with potential employers and placed in jobs that earn a living wage and benefits with opportunities for professional development. During and after training, participants are connected with other agency programs to mitigate barriers to training and employment - such as being connected to the agency's food pantry, assistance with public benefits applications, or substance use counseling. Current workforce training programs include Financial Careers Training, which prepares participants for careers in banking, and Kitchen Training, which prepares justice-involved participants for careers in restaurants/hospitality.
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Grant Recipient
Habitat for Humanity Chicago
Homeownership is a significant wealth-generating tool for families and a key factor in neighborhood health; however, one in ten Chicagoans live in substandard housing, and four in ten in declining neighborhoods. Chicago has the largest gap between White and Black homeowners among major U.S. cities—74.1% of White Chicagoans compared to only 39.1% of Black Chicagoans—a gap perpetuated by the disparity in loans made to Black communities. To respond to this disparity Habitat for Humanity Chicago (Habitat Chicago) will create a new loan product, considering income, the availability of vacant land, percentage of owner-occupied units, and the diversity of housing stock. These metrics ensure that we are providing homeownership opportunities to low-moderate income individuals in neighborhoods in need of single-family homes. Habitat Chicago will implement this new loan program in partnership with two HUD certified organizations: Oak Park Regional Housing Center (OPRHC) and Far South Community Development Corporation (FSCDC). Both organizations have a history of preparing homebuyers in our focus neighborhoods, while also fulfilling a service gap for Habitat Chicago- qualified buyers. Habitat Chicago was established through a consolidation of multiple Habitat for Humanity affiliates in 2002, and in 2011 adopted a strategy to focus on neighborhood health by providing affordable new home construction, homebuyer education, and neighborhood development grants in targeted communities. We build affordable homes for qualified buyers, equip them for homeownership with in-depth financial literacy education and equitable lending, and facilitate positive community action through neighborhood improvement projects that promote social cohesion. Habitat Chicago works in historically disinvested neighborhoods where exclusionary housing policies and inequitable development have limited wealth building for generations. In 2012, we began work in West Pullman on Chicago’s South Side. We broke ground in Greater Grand Crossing in spring 2021 and we are preparing to expand services to Austin on Chicago’s West Side. We intentionally serve neighborhoods with predominantly Black populations because regional prosperity depends on the health of these communities. In consideration of current and future needs of our focus neighborhoods, our FYE 2024-2028 Neighborhood Forward Strategic Plan identifies four areas of impact to include: strengthen the neighborhood housing market, connect the community, elevate the neighborhood appeal, and enhance the physical environment. This grant will allow us to strengthen the neighborhood housing market with our key tactics being to expand access to pre-purchase educational opportunities and financing to promote sustainable long-term homeownership through our Affordable Homeownership Program (AHP). AHP gives qualifying homebuyers access to a 30-year, zero percent interest mortgage to purchase newly constructed, affordable, energy efficient homes built by Habitat’s construction team, subcontractors, volunteers, and homebuyers. Qualified homebuyers receive extensive support from application to closing, attend classes and guidance meetings, and help build their homes. In FY24, we plan to complete eight new homes, and twelve more in FY25. Further, we recently piloted a collaborative workforce development initiative at our construction sites with several local workforce development programs (Revolution Workshop, Chicago Women in Trade, Rebuilding Exchange, etc) that will allow us to increase our construction delivery over time. Funds acquired by this grant will provide Habitat Chicago with the opportunity to expand an existing project to include more structured homebuyer preparation and more flexible underwriting guidelines than our current loan product. Additionally, this proposal includes the creation of a special purpose financing program to provide greater access and to specifically target Austin and West Pullman.