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
Illinois Public Interest Research Group Education Fund
Illinois PIRG Education Fund is a recognized leader on utility accountability and insurance reform. Our successful coalition building and strategic, long-term approach have successfully shaped public narrative and policy outcomes. We led the charge in standing up to powerful utility companies, paving the way for a remarkable shift in utility regulation in Illinois last year - including a new focus on affordability. We launched a coalition to tackle unfair and excessive car insurance rates, taking on another industry that was considered too powerful to challenge in Illinois. In a relatively short period of time, our campaign has elevated the issue, built political will, and demonstrated that meaningful reforms are achievable. Utilities and insurance are both relatively universal - utilities provide essential services and insurance is required to drive, which many Chicagoans must do to access education, work and health care. But in both industries, common practices have disproportionate impacts on communities of color as observed through greater energy burdens, disproportionate utility disconnection rates, and objectively discriminatory car insurance rates. We have consistently demonstrated an ability to convene and lead coalition efforts that lead to tangible change. With the generous support of the Chicago Community Trust, we’ve made significant progress building power and advancing policy priorities over the past several years. The coming year presents exciting opportunities to build upon our progress: after eight years of campaigning, we are on the verge of implementing fundamental reforms to the Peoples Gas pipe replacement program, which has significantly contributed to crippling utility debt particularly in majority Black neighborhoods in Chicago. We are also at an inflection point in our car insurance campaign, transitioning from initial organizing and educating to campaigning to advance tangible policy reforms that will rein in excessive and discriminatory car insurance rates.
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Grant Recipient
Greenhouse Scholars
Greenhouse respectfully requests a grant of $200,000 from the Chicago Community Trust in support of our Whole Person College and Post-College Young Leaders Programs. This grant would allow Greenhouse to execute current programs with quality and expand our impact and services for Chicago-area young adults both during and for a decade following college. This work ensures the diverse constituents we serve are well-positioned to build generational wealth and to create opportunity, prosperity, and access to choices for others in their families and communities.
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Grant Recipient
Center for Community Progress
Community Progress’ and Chicago Community Trust’s (Trust) ongoing partnership, has yielded great results from 2022 to 2024, specially with the passing vital legislation to reform the Illinois property tax system (SB 1675). With the continued support from the Trust, Community Progress will provide the following services aimed at building wealth in communities of color – specifically Black and Latine households– by minimizing the harms imposed by vacant and deteriorated properties and increasing housing stability: (1) Support the Trust and its community partners, including, but not limited to, Cook County and statewide stakeholders in their efforts to implement the 2022-23 property tax system reforms; (2) Assess and educate the Trust and relevant stakeholders on the potential impact of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Tyler v. Hennepin County (Tyler) on the Illinois Property Tax Code (PTC), including identifying the need for, and helping to assess, proposed legislative responses to address concerns regarding the Supreme Court decision; (3) Conduct research, identify, and design a range of potential legislative and policy solutions to enhance the ways in which Illinois communities can more equitably, effectively, and efficiently leverage the PTC to keep vulnerable families in their homes and to reduce vacant, tax-delinquent properties; and (4) Work with the Trust to explore how it can best partner with local organizations and nonprofits to implement policy and practice changes to address vacant properties and support families hoping to secure and maintain property that has been passed down to them (i.e., heirs’ property).
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Grant Recipient
Loyola University of Chicago
Loyola University Chicago developed Arrupe Continuing Scholars, a two-year to four-year pathway to a bachelor’s degree, as part of its overall commitment to serving a diverse population of students. The program builds on Loyola’s successful associate’s degree program, Arrupe College, and continues the Jesuit tradition of offering a rigorous liberal arts education to a diverse population of students, many of whom are the first in their family to pursue higher education. Arrupe College uses an innovative model that ensures affordability while providing care for the whole person, and students graduate with their Associate of Arts degree with little or no debt. For 50 or more of these graduates continuing on in Loyola bachelor’s degree programs annually, Arrupe Continuing Scholars provides a range of academic resources, tutoring, career planning and social supports such as peer mentoring. Designed as a cohort model, Arrupe Continuing Scholars creates a supportive campus community designed to foster a culture of inclusivity and belonging, increasing students’ likelihood of success. We respectfully request a grant of $200,000 from the Chicago Community Trust for Arrupe Continuing Scholars to expand student success services and address barriers to bachelor’s completion for Arrupe graduates.
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Grant Recipient
Inner-City Muslim Action Network
Incorporated in 1997, IMAN was established with a singular goal in mind, to provide restorative whole-life, wrap-a-round support to residents of two of Chicago's most severely under-resourced communities, Chicago Lawn and Englewood. Our mission is driven by the people that are directly affected and deeply invested in resolving the social issues impacting these under-resourced south side communities. IMAN employs integrative holistic interventions to address structural and systemic injustices impeding a dignified quality life for people in marginalized communities by fostering health, wellness and healing through its integrative approach. We are able to achieve this by providing quality healthcare, case management and wrap-around services through our arts & culture, organizing & advocacy and a transformative ReEntry program. IMAN’s Green ReEntry program's intention is to restore both justice and dignity to individuals who have been trying to survive and overcome systems that have made progression nearly impossible. It is critical and necessary to address the whole person as oftentimes unresolved trauma can impede one’s pathway to success. Therefore, our approach is to provide GRE participants with access to barrier reduction services in the form of housing (for those that need it), primary and behavioral healthcare support and soft skills training such as resume writing, financial literacy and leadership development through various multi-layered seminars including the “ Know Your Rights” seminar. In terms of hard skills, IMAN’s program participants receive classroom training from licensed carpenters, welders, and HVAC professionals as well as on the job training opportunities. The program’s successes include a 80% completion rate amongst all GRE participant leaders. This approach is costly but necessary as we are wholeheartedly committed to addressing the issues of racial equity by creating a pathway to sustainable employment, wealth creation and a path to home ownership for individuals and families that are most deeply affected. We know that investments such as this will ultimately lead to the stabilization of under-resourced communities such as Chicago Lawn and Englewood. Chicago Community Trust’s support would be beneficial to covering the costs associated with the soft skills, educational and the job placement component of our program.
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Grant Recipient
Elevate Energy
Elevate, in partnership with Business Services Collective (BSC) and Sustainable Options for Urban Living (S.O.U.L.), provides a tailored approach to assist a range of contractors and construction firms looking to strengthen their participation in the growing clean energy industry in Chicago and Illinois, which includes enhanced support in project preparedness and financial well-being.
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Grant Recipient
Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation
Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, in partnership with St. Sabina’s Employment Resource Center and Urban Growers Collective is seeking support through the Income Growth Solutions Grant to activate our initiative, “Community Wellness and Economic Empowerment Network.” This collaborative effort is designed to address key social determinants of health by enhancing educational opportunities, improving access to quality employment, and fostering overall financial health within Chicago’s Auburn Gresham community. GAGDC’s local relationships spearheaded by leveraging strategic partnerships overtime, including our historic partnership with Local Initiative Support Corporation (since 2003), facilitator of our community-centered quality of life plans and our relationship with Chicago's United Way and our Auburn Gresham Neighborhood Networks (since 2018) showcases the capacity and skills GAGDC has established enabling our success and adaptability to move according to the needs and goals of Auburn Gresham and surrounding communities as a strong collaborative convener and community quarterback. Additionally, our board and staff members have deep connections to Auburn Gresham and are deeply invested in the community's well-being. Over 45% of our staff are current community members and homeowners, providing an intimate understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist within our neighborhoods. This local perspective allows us to tailor our programs and initiatives to effectively meet the needs and aspirations of the community.
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Grant Recipient
Advocates for Illinois Children
The work is not yet finished. With the support of the Chicago Community Trust and others, Children’s Advocates for Change (CAFC) successfully secured legislative approval for a state Child Tax Credit that should help in reducing the racial wealth gap faced by Illinois families. Illinois is now the 15th state in the country to have a state child tax credit. Building on that success, this proposal is to provide greater relief to low-income households. CAFC helped lead this effort with weekly standing meetings with one of the chief legislative sponsors as well as a coalition leadership team. The measure supported by CAFC and 50 other coalition members, would have created a state Child Tax Credit of $300 per qualifying child for households with adjusted income of $75,000 for a married taxpayer filing a joint return and $50,000 for all others. This would have helped an estimated 1.4 million children. In the waning days of the 2024 spring legislative session, legislative leaders agreed to a Child Tax Credit proposal that essentially modifies the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit. In essence, a taxpayer who qualifies for the state EITC (worth 20% of the federal EITC), and has a child under the age of 12 in the household, can take an additional credit of 20% of the state EITC in tax year 2024 and 40% of the state EITC in tax year 2025 and beyond. While significant wins of $50 million for Tax Year 2024 and $100 million in Tax Year 2025 in a difficult budget year, the approved measure provides limited relief for very low-income households because of how the federal EITC is constructed. The federal EITC is constructed in a pyramid fashion that gets to the maximum credit level only after reaching an income level of approximately $11,750 for a single tax filer with one child and $16,500 for married filing jointly taxpayers with three or more children. According to the Illinois Department of Revenue, there were approximately 374,000 state tax returns that claimed the state EITC and where there is at least one dependent under the age of 12. CAFC will work to secure a minimum credit level for households at or below 75% of the federal poverty level. CAFC will also continue its efforts to secure a refundable income tax credit for renters. According to www.rent.com, 23 states and the District of Columbia have some form of a renter’s credit (some with restrictions). CAFC has been working on this issue since 2023. This past session, CAFC staff testified before the Senate Revenue Committee on the measure but it was not part of the final budget package. A far greater percentage of low-income residents pay more than 30% of their income on rent versus higher-income households. Providing the credit will provide housing stability to those taxpayers and allow for potential savings to be applied to home ownership.