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
Community Desk Chicago
As part of a three-year commitment, continue to support the early stage launch and development of Community Desk Chicago (the Desk) as a separate legal entity. After incubating at the Trust for five years, the Desk launched as a 501c3 in March 2023.
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Grant Recipient
Partnership for College Completion
Historical and ongoing inequities in college degree completion have been a fixture of higher education across the United States. In Illinois, significant and sometimes widening racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to higher education and reliable pathways to degree completion have persisted – particularly those affecting Black and Latinx students, as well as disparities between students from lower-income/wealth households and their peers from higher-income/wealth households. Additionally, Illinois has stood out over the last few years in terms of the lack of college affordability due to the level of disinvestment that has occurred over time. There are many contributing factors to these barriers to access and completion, and the most significant of these, from a policy perspective, include issues of affordability, access, accountability, and equity-centered policy. The Partnership for College Completion (PCC) stands as a pivotal advocate and partner for racial and socioeconomic equity within Illinois' higher education landscape. In 2021, PCC played an instrumental role in establishing the Commission on Equitable Public University Funding through the passage of Senate Bill 815. Illinois is currently among the only states in the nation with no funding formula for distributing state appropriations to its public universities. This Commission was responsible for developing recommendations for an equitable, stable, and adequacy-based higher education funding system, released in March 2024. PCC has actively participated in this work as a Commission member and contributed significantly to the groundbreaking work on conceptualizing adequacy-based funding, which aims to provide institutions with the necessary resources to serve students equitably and effectively. PCC's involvement on and off of the Commission has required significant time, research, data analysis, legislative engagement, and communication efforts. PCC's leadership and contributions on this issue have been instrumental in supporting positions on race-conscious policymaking and prioritizing universities that have suffered the most from historic disinvestment, enrollment declines, and also serve the largest percentages of students of color and students from low-income families. The Coalition for Transforming Higher Education Funding (CTHEF), led by PCC and established as the engagement and advocacy arm for the equitable funding formula, has grown significantly over the past year and will continue to do so. Composed of advocacy organizations, direct service organizations, civil rights groups, and institutional faculty, staff, and student groups, the Coalition has actively worked to enhance the state's investment in the Monetary Award Program (MAP), Illinois’ need-based aid program, and in overall state appropriations to higher education. PCC, CTHEF, and partners successfully lobbied for an additional $100 million investment in Monetary Award Program (MAP) Grants for the FY24 state budget, following a $122M investment in the prior year. In Fall 2022, a core program engaged students from Illinois public universities, educating them on higher education transformation and legislative advocacy to encourage their participation in these efforts. PCC and the Coalition hosted a number of Community Conversations on equitable funding in communities across the state. In Spring 2023, the Coalition hosted its second Transforming Higher Education Virtual Advocacy Day, focusing on increased investments in the MAP and institutional funding, with a push to consider equity in state appropriations decisions. This series of initiatives demonstrates a concerted push for positive change in Illinois' public higher education system over time, through informed student and stakeholder engagement and sustained advocacy. At this time, PCC's efforts have become increasingly important. With the Commission having finalized its recommendations, PCC and our partners are ramping up efforts to push these recommendations forward. Our ultimate goal is to turn these recommendations into legislative action, resulting in a funding formula prioritizing students and equity. This requires sustained and coordinated action in a number of different areas, including data analysis, technical modeling, legislative education and engagement, coalition building and advocacy, and communications and public awareness. Concurrently, PCC will advocate for a similar initiative to ensure equity and adequacy in community college funding formulas. This effort will begin with the release of a comprehensive report in the fall of 2024, followed by ongoing engagement and education of our stakeholders. Successfully implementing the Commission's recommendations and PCC's efforts will hinge on a coordinated and strategic approach. It will require organizational capacity and flexible funding to ensure we have communication materials, events, presentations, and a physical presence to build support in communities across the state. It will require engagement and relationship-building with a diverse group of key stakeholders. With equitable funding at the forefront, Illinois has the potential to lead the way in establishing an inclusive, affordable, and accessible higher education system that benefits all students, regardless of their background or circumstances, by testing a new and innovative approach in adequacy and equity-based funding for higher education.
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Grant Recipient
Center for Neighborhood Technology
This proposal supports the involvement of six organizations, led by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), to participate in coalitions regarding transportation equity and mobility justice. These organizations - CNT, Active Transportation Alliance, Equiticity, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Palenque/Logan Square Neighborhood Association, and Metropolitan Planning Council make up the leadership of the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), a coalition formed in 2020 that now includes 55 community groups, civic organizations, equitable transportation advocates, academics, and other stakeholders. This grant will be used in large part to support the continued involvement and leadership of our organizations in this coalition and will also support our involvement in other related coalitions. In addition to its past activities, the coalition is bringing focus and intention in the coming year to methods of equitable governance, decision-making, and financial sustainability.
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Grant Recipient
Wellington United Church of Christ
The Sanctuary Working Group (SWG), a program of Wellington UCC, is applying for the Chicago Community Trust’s “Addressing Critical Needs for Housing Stability” grant to support our work housing migrants. The SWG uses the word “migrant” to encompass all statuses of people supported, including asylum seekers. We are a cooperative, grassroots network of representatives from 40 different non-profit organizations across the Chicago area who are uniquely positioned to respond to the diverse population of currently arriving migrants. Since March 2020, the SWG has offered support and accompaniment to nearly 600 asylum seekers, both families, and individuals, who come from Africa, Central-East Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This grant, for general operating expenses, will enable the SWG to continue providing migrants with rent and utility support, including housing and case management that assists them in accessing public benefits related to living expenses, medical and dental care, employment and educational opportunities, and childcare needs.
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Grant Recipient
Greater Chatham Initiative Inc
Greater Chatham Initiative (“GCI”) has offered FoodLab Chicago to South Side food service entrepreneurs for five years from 2020 through 2024. GCI will partner with the EJ Consortium, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, Menu Engineers, Soul Delivered, and Sunshine Enterprises to bring FoodLab Chicago 6.0 to Chicago’s South Side’s rich and diverse Black restaurant ecosystem. This project includes training 25 food service entrepreneurs in menu engineering, cultural trail storytelling, and cost-effective catering delivery, working hand-in-hand with financial management and capital access training, to support the sustainability and growth of local food-based businesses.
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Grant Recipient
Logan Square Neighborhood Association
Palenque LSNA respectfully requests program support to continue our work in the administration, research, and coalition building components of the Illinois Community Land Trust Task Force. This renewal comes at a crucial time as, due to administrative delays in the state, the Task Force began meeting later than expected and now our timeline has been extended with Task Force meetings concluding in December 2024 and a report to be published in Spring of 2025. Illinois Senate Bill 2037, passed in partnership with the Illinois Housing and Development Authority (IHDA) and the office of Governor JB Pritzker, established this Task Force. The bill presents a unique opportunity to further our collective efforts in promoting equitable wealth building and community shared ownership arriving as community land trusts (CLTs) gain momentum regionally as a tool for increasing homeownership in Black and Latinx communities. Entry level homeownership is increasingly inaccessible to families; good quality homes are too expensive in gentrifying neighborhoods and too rare in disinvested ones. However, CLTs reverse this trend by creating opportunities to build wealth while ensuring neighborhood stability in both gentrifying and disinvested communities. Through CLTs, neighborhoods retain land ownership and equitably compete with investors, leading to balanced, community-driven development and more opportunities for Latine and Black families to access generational wealth. The state of Illinois recognized this benefit. In January of 2023, it awarded the Here to Stay Community Land Trust $5 million in American Recovery Plan Act funds to accelerate land acquisition and development and to provide equitable subsidies for new homeowners. However, policy barriers inhibit the growth and success of CLTs. The State remains uninformed and unprepared to repair racial wealth gaps through homeownership in part because of their unfamiliarity with CLTs as a model for neighborhood stability and their lack of relationships with budding regional CLTs. This is beginning to change. The Task Force will continue to conduct research and lead community engagement, the findings of which will become a report published in partnership with IHDA. This report will set an agenda for strategic policy reforms to accelerate the success of CLTs, seeding future systemic reforms and additional funding to increase homeownership in Black and Latinx communities. We are still collecting data and discussing solutions, we do not expect a bill to be created yet therefore we do not intend to lobby for any legislation as we are still collecting data and discussing solutions. We believe that CLTs are essential to creating affordable housing options, preserving neighborhood stability, and empowering residents to build wealth and achieve economic security through shared ownership. With the Trust's support, we aim to leverage the Task Force to develop and implement policies in the future that expand access to community ownership of land and ensure long-term affordability for Chicago’s most vulnerable people.. Through our efforts to promote and support Community Land Trusts, we are directly addressing the racial wealth gap in Illinois. By creating affordable homeownership opportunities in Black and Latinx communities, CLTs help build wealth and ensure neighborhood stability. These efforts are crucial in reversing the trends of gentrification and disinvestment that disproportionately affect these communities. Our commitment to community engagement and education ensures that residents are empowered to take an active role in their neighborhoods, fostering a sense of ownership and economic security. By addressing the systemic barriers to CLT adoption and operation, we are working towards a more inclusive and equitable housing landscape in Illinois.
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Grant Recipient
Northern Illinois University
STAMP is a collective impact partnership between Education Systems Center at Northern Illinois University (EdSystems), the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association Education Foundation, and regional collaboratives comprised of public school districts and their postsecondary and employer partners. STAMP’s goal is to prepare youth for in-demand, living wage careers in manufacturing, with a special focus on recruiting and retaining historically marginalized populations including Black, Latinx, and female youth. STAMP’s focus is on developing high-quality college and career pathways from secondary to postsecondary and careers, which include robust work-based learning and acquiring in-demand industry credentials. This proposal seeks funding to specifically support STAMP in Chicago, suburban Cook County, and Kane County. STAMP received funding for school years 2022¬–24 through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s Job Training and Economic Development program. A competitive grant renewal is currently pending with the state agency, which has shared that both the total number of grants awarded, and the award amounts will decrease. At minimum, support for this proposal will cover the funding gap; ideally, when braided with the agency funding, it will allow STAMP to serve more students in the Chicago metro region.
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Grant Recipient
Safer Foundation
Safer Foundation (Safer) proposes its Healing Economic And Racial Trauma through Homes (HEARTH) program to provide justice impacted Cook County residents with affordable housing units and rental subsidies. The overarching goal of the project is to provide a productive, supportive, and permanent pathway toward stabilization by providing subsidized, permanent supportive housing for at-risk or housing insecure individuals to address, reduce and/or eliminate associated barriers and cost burdens to housing. The program is further positioned to respond to socio-economic insecurity through an array of holistic, wraparound services that address and advance employment outcomes, access to social services, and physical, mental, and behavioral health while employing harm-reduction principals to address the long-term stability and well-being of at-risk individuals leading to living wage employment. This work is crucial in supporting the reentry efforts of those released from incarceration and addressing many issues of our highest poverty communities.