Paving the Path to Homeownership for Housing Choice Voucher Holders
Since the mid-20th century, homeownership has been one of the most important vehicles for building wealth in the United States. According to research from the…
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.
-
Grant Recipient
FAMILY SERVICE & MENTAL HEALTH CENTER OF CICERO
An established community-based mental health agency primarily serving western Cook County, we are known for programs and services prioritizing low-income Latinx communities. We strive to ensure access and reduce barriers, whether linguistic, cultural, financial, or other, that prevent already underresourced, overlooked, or marginalized people from receiving services. As we extend our reach and deepen our impact with recently arrived populations, we seek funding that will help us strengthen our workforce and avert internal crises related to staffing shortages. The $50,000 we request will be allocated entirely toward our agency’s investment in clinical staff.
-
Grant Recipient
LIBERTY PRAIRIE FOUNDATION
Funding will expand the Liberty Prairie Farm Store and share the stories of the farms, farmers, and food entrepreneurs that are strengthening our local food system.
-
Grant Recipient
Chicagos Sunshine Enterprises Inc
Next Level Exchange (NLE)’s mission is to support BSOs and their client/entrepreneurs through high-quality, meaningful, and long-term mentoring relationships with established business owners, executives, and professionals; networking opportunities; and ongoing business education. NLE is a collaboration comprised of Sunshine Enterprises (SE), the Chicago Urban League (CUL), the Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC), and Bruce Taylor (NLE co-founder and volunteer). Sunshine Enterprises is applying on behalf of Next Level Exchange for $75,000 to strengthen NLE programmatically and support its continued growth and expansion. Most notably in 2024, NLE will capitalize on the new capacity it has to grow with a dedicated, full-time NLE staff member helping with the coordination, effectiveness, and sustainability of the program. In 2023, NLE successfully recruited 40 new mentees, conducted 3 cohorts and 8 events (including workshops, town halls, networking events, mentor huddles, and a graduation), and added 11 new mentors. Mentee confidence in managing their business financials increased from 13% being very confident to 33% being very confident. We made significant progress in the NLE playbook implementation and enhancement, including getting helpful feedback from the Ecosystem Innovation Project (EIP) developed in conjunction with WBDC, Urban League, and The Coleman Center for Entrepreneurship at DePaul University. That input highlighted the importance of bringing on a full-time staff person before tackling new goals. As a result, many of the efforts in Q3 and Q4 of 2023 focused on establishing and aligning a job description for the NLE staff person role, then subsequently reviewing, screening, interviewing, and deliberating on candidates to find a great fit for the role. In mid-January we are excited to be extending an offer for that full-time staff person. During this upcoming grant period in 2024, NLE also plans to continue running 3 cohorts of the year-long mentoring program, serving 50 unique entrepreneurs; continue to host 7-8 events for current and past NLE participants; fundraise a budget of $207,000; continue to operationalize and enhance the NLE Playbook; develop a draft of an overarching NLE MOU; recruit and train 5 new female and/or BIPOC mentors to help the mentor pool further reflect our mentees’ lived experiences; and after onboarding and training a full-time NLE staff member, explore adding a fourth BSO partner to help execute the program and increase the number of entrepreneurs served. If additional funding allows, NLE also plans to hire a part-time NLE data analyst to perform program evaluation and data management and set up a basic CRM functionality to manage program participants and data.
-
Grant Recipient
University of Chicago Urban Labs
Our organization is applying for additional funding to launch (In)Sights: PhotoVoice in the Chicago Resilient Communities, a PhotoVoice exhibition that captures the impact of the Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot through participants’ own photography and captions. The exhibition launch at the Harold Washington Public Library will aim for 200 guests and target elected officials who are not yet supporters of guaranteed income in order to shift the narrative around unconditional cash assistance. After a monthlong residency, the PhotoVoice exhibit will travel to other Chicago Public Library branches on the North, South, and West sides of Chicago in the fall of 2024 and will be permanently displayed through a microsite on the Inclusive Economy Lab website
-
Grant Recipient
Window To the World Communications Inc
WTTW respectfully requests The Chicago Community Trust’s consideration of a renewed grant of $125,000 for general operating support, including WTTW News—which provides trusted, fact-based journalism that is inclusive and reflective of diverse voices within the Chicago region.
-
Grant Recipient
Chicago Food Policy Advisory Council NFP
The Metro Chicago Good Food Purchasing Initiative (GFPI) is seeking continued support to deepen our work with institutions to improve their procurement processes, provide support to growers to access these institutional opportunities, and ensure the consistent application of the good food goals of fair wages, sustainable practices, and equitable access.
-
Grant Recipient
Greater Chatham Initiative Inc
The program will: 1) support Black-owned food-based businesses with access to capital via coaching and connections to service providers, and 2) support local South Side business incubators and entrepreneurial hubs and the businesses they serve by providing technical assistance to connect them to capital resources and to their surrounding ecosystem. Greater Chatham Initiative will also implement a technology platform to help local entrepreneurs access capital by creating a South Side small business resource online hub that improves upon and expands our existing funding webpage.
-
Grant Recipient
HR&A Advisors, Inc.
Chicago, as a sanctuary city, is facing unprecedented challenges due to the recent influx of migrants following the lifting of Title 42. With over 42,000 New Arrivals, primarily from Venezuela, having arrived in Chicago as of May 29, 2024, the city is grappling with the logistical and humanitarian aspects of accommodating and supporting these individuals. The sudden and continuous arrival of migrants, often without advance notice, has overwhelmed city officials, forcing the rapid expansion of as many as 28 temporary emergency shelters over eight months without certainty of volume and frequency of incoming buses in the coming months. This influx, coupled with the lack of federal and limited state funding, has strained city resources, leading to tension among residents, particularly in historically underfunded low income Black and Latine communities. City Hall and the Mayor's Office of Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Rights are in urgent need of capacity for strategic planning and facilitation support to figure out how to sustain and grow emergency response infrastructure to meet the profound needs on the ground today while leveraging the power of this moment as a vehicle to build better and lasting systems for the future. This represents a crucial opportunity for Chicago, the third-largest city in the United States, to lead on immigration reform, build pathways for resettlement, and operationalize the necessary infrastructure to fulfill the promise of a Sanctuary City.