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.
Explore Our Discretionary Grants
Showing 3781–3788 of 3859 results
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Grant Recipient
On the Road Lending
On the Road Lending provides affordable loans for reliable cars to help working families and individuals overcome transportation barriers so they can find and retain employment, live healthier lives, and avoid predatory lenders. Our clients have limited financial knowledge, poor credit, and lack of assets due to personal circumstances and structural barriers. We provide relationship-lending, financial education, and vehicle selection assistance as an alternative to subprime lending. Reliable transportation puts our clients on the road to economic mobility. On the Road Lending will bring its successful program to the Chicago metro market by the end of 2023. Today, our program serves 80% BIPOC populations. This will be a planning grant to pilot and deploy our program in the Chicago market.
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Grant Recipient
Michael Reese Health Trust
Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness (CFTEH) respectfully requests $100,000 for one year from The Chicago Community Trust to support the Housing Justice Fund (HJF). This fund aims to distribute $2 million over two years to support policy, advocacy, community organizing, and narrative change initiatives to advance housing justice. The fund will provide unrestricted grants to coalitions, alliances, partnerships, and other collaborative tables for at least two years, recognizing that policy change, narrative change, and political will-building take time and significant resources.
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Grant Recipient
Firebird Community Arts
Firebird Community Arts, is working on the construction of a new 12,000 sq ft artisan manufacturing and commercial building on vacant land located at 3312-3344 W. Lake Street. A new larger facility will allow Firebird to serve many more individuals, generate more jobs, provide more robust trauma-support services, and lead the city in violence reduction and trauma-recovery through the arts. Funds will support pre-development costs associated with getting a new facility that will allow Firebird to expand its programming, including through a new trauma-informed program for youth between 9 and 14 years of age.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Citywide Literacy Coalition
ScaleLIT is uniquely positioned to fully integrate the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) investments into Chicagoland’s workforce development system. Properly coordinating these investments has the potential to build a more equitable economy. As the One-Stop Operator (OSO) for the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership and through staffing a corps of Career Pathway Navigators at American Job Centers (AJC) across Chicagoland, scaleLIT will: 1) train local workforce development professionals in these new funding opportunities, 2) communicate and share resources with employers and 3) connect and place job seekers from disinvested communities to high-quality jobs that arise from these investments. We Rise Together’s (WRT) support of this three-pronged approach will expand the reach of scaleLIT’s communication and training with providers (increase to 20 organizations beyond the OSO contract), provide targeted opportunities to employers to learn about IIJA and IRA opportunities, and increase the number of individuals connected to IIJA and IRA training and job opportunities (3,600 individuals referred and 500 individuals placed in jobs). This vital funding will allow scaleLIT to continue staffing Navigators at AJCs on Chicago’s south and west sides. WRT’s support will fill the funding gap that scaleLIT is facing as its All Chicago pilot (that has connected individuals in the rapid rehousing program) is sunset. It will also allow scaleLIT to expand its reach by offering technology tools beyond its current audience. 1) Train local workforce development professionals in these new funding opportunities As the OSO, scaleLIT leads communication and coordination across Chicago and Cook County’s workforce development ecosystem. Since 2020, scaleLIT has convened 101 partners across ten AJCs monthly, provided customized monthly resource newsletters to each location, and developed tools for better system coordination, such as a systemwide orientation, customer satisfaction surveys, and a referral platform. With WRT’s support, scaleLIT will expand its communication and coordination beyond its current scope of AJC partners to include 20 new organizations from Chicago’s south and west sides. It will also ensure that IIGA and IRA opportunities are agenda items at monthly partner meetings and contained in resources newsletters. OSO will host two systemwide quarterly meetings (March 2024 and June 2024) highlighting these opportunities. 2) Communicate and share resources with employers This year, scaleLIT began working with business services staff across the system. The team has just completed its inventory and assessment phase and identified several ways to incorporate business services into its existing communication and coordination infrastructure. To that end, scaleLIT invited business services staff to monthly partner meetings and sent them monthly newsletters. By including business services staff in these communication touchpoints, scaleLIT will also reach local employers. Business services staff have provided over 1,000 contacts to scaleLIT, and OSO will begin the inventory and assessment of employers this year. ScaleLIT will then establish a communication and coordination structure that meets the needs of business service staff and their trusted employer partners. With WRT’s support, scaleLIT will host two meetings during the grant cycle to educate and train employers about IIGA and IRA opportunities. These meetings will also allow employers to share their activities relevant to this topic and deepen connections between employers and workforce development professionals. 3) Connect and place job seekers from disinvested communities to high-quality jobs that arise from these investments scaleLIT’s Career Pathway Navigators, housed at eight of the 10 AJCs, ensure marginalized communities connect to the workforce development system. Specialized in serving individuals from historically disadvantaged communities, the Navigators find resources for individuals with low skills, disabilities, and without housing to ensure everyone can get on a career path and become economically mobile. With WRT support, over the 18-month grant period, scaleLIT’s Navigators will refer 3,600 individuals to education and workforce development services, connect 500 individuals directly to jobs, and add six new digital literacy instruction sites. In addition to the abovementioned activities, scaleLIT leadership will dedicate time and resources to building the necessary relationships to meet the above objectives during this grant period. The relationships and convenings include but are not limited to, the Chicago/Cook Clean Infrastructure Workforce Development Convening (convened by the Chicagoland Workforce Funders Alliance), Literacy Coalitions (Northside, South/West sides, and the Hispanic Literacy Council), the Illinois Skills for Good Jobs Policy Working Group (convened by the Chicago Jobs Council), Adult Education Coalitions (IACEA and COABE), Literacy Minnesota (Digital Navigators VISTA Program) and Open Door Collective. Coordinating the fragmented workforce development system is always a challenge. Service coordination in a time when so much is at stake for communities and the environment is ambitious and bold. WRT’s support will allow scaleLIT to have the resources to be flexible and meet the demands of the current situation at three critical levels - with workforce development professionals, employers, and individuals in need of services. Meeting these demands will build a healthier environment and a more equitable economy and improve individuals’ economic mobility.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Foundation/Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance
The Human Service Workforce Initiative seeks to activate philanthropy and aligned sectors to foster the conditions for a valued, equitable and thriving human service workforce. The Initiative is beginning as a pooled and aligned fund, organized by the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance, described in full by a Shared Proposal created by and for all participating funders (see attachments). In its first year the Initiative will deliver Funder Convening / and Fundraising, Human Service Agency Convening, the Development of Pilot Project(s) to address challenges facing the Human Service Workforce, Research that lifts up worker voices in the sector, and a Policy/Advocacy agenda.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago House and Social Service Agency
At Chicago House and Social Service Agency, we share the Chicago Community Trust’s vision for Addressing Critical Needs and Building Pathways to Stability. Chicago House work centers around the social determinants of health as a method to end the HIV epidemic and support the goals of the Illinois in Getting to Zero plan of zero new infections by 2030. The agency promotes wraparound services, including connecting clients to Housing, Health, Employment, and TransLife Care services. The Building Pathways to Stability opportunity’s goals well align with those of Chicago House, particularly in improving access to housing, health, and wellbeing. This project will leverage the partnership with two researchers/trainers to examine a Peer Navigator model for service delivery. Chicago House has received funding to support two full-time Peer Support staff, who will be individuals with lived experience, and will support case managers in providing culturally-conscious and trauma-informed services for mental healthcare and wellbeing. The project will study the impact this program model has on the overall outcomes for housing clients.
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Grant Recipient
Art Works Projects
A series of public newsrooms, panel discussions, and workshops leveraging visual storytelling raising awareness, empathy and action for migrants in Chicago.
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Grant Recipient
Heartland Alliance Health
The Road Map Initiative, convened by Heartland Alliance Health (HAH) and Smart Policy Works (SPW), aims to disrupt cycling across crisis services with interventions like stabilization housing, outreach, engagement, and case management support to address the social determinants of health. In 2022, the Road Map Initiative (RMI) launched a Flexible Services Pilot to provide outreach and engagement services to the nearly 3,000 individuals cycling across emergency systems in Chicago and Cook County. The RMI Flexible Services Pilot successfully stabilized 31 individuals who are experiencing homelessness and are pre-treatment and pre-diagnosis. Our official pilot period ended on 9/30/23 and we seek support for rental assistance for participants who have been on the Coordinated Entry System, Chicago’s housing waitlist, for as long as 16 months but have not been matched to permanent housing. We are currently spending approximately $12,000.00 a month on rental assistance for Master Leasing Arrangements with a private landlord, Mercy Housing Lakefront, and a private SRO operator for 17 participants. We are working with Continuum of Care (CoC) to find permanent housing solutions for our participants but are facing a gap in funding for supporting rent. We respectfully seek support from the Chicago Community Trust for rental assistance through January, 2024 while we work with the CoC and others to resolve their housing crisis.