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
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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.
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Grant Recipient
Disability Lead
Disability Lead (DL) is profoundly grateful for the enduring support from The Chicago Community Trust, which has been crucial in establishing our organization as the pioneering leadership program for individuals with disabilities in the United States. This support has enabled the growth of a vibrant network comprising over 220 innovative leaders who are driving transformative changes across various sectors in Chicago. This network, underpinned by deep relationships and shared experiences, fosters ongoing growth and development for our members, ensuring sustained impact. DL has also grown our staff to seven, including new capacity through the addition of dedicated Education & Learning Services Manager, Operations, and Marketing & Communications roles. These roles will be key to our success going forward, and we anticipate delivering a higher level of service to our Members as a result of sustained funding for this growth. Reflecting our dedication to being a disabled-led organization, all three new staff members identify as disabled. At its core, Disability Lead embodies the belief that effective leadership thrives within a community grounded in understanding, empathy, and shared objectives. Our comprehensive programs ensure that individuals with disabilities are not only equipped with essential leadership skills but are also provided opportunities to exercise significant influence. Supported by a robust network, our members receive guidance and encouragement essential for their continuous growth. Continued backing from The Chicago Community Trust will be instrumental in allowing Disability Lead to sustain and expand our impactful work. This will enhance our presence in the Chicago area and strengthen our long-term strategies for growth and sustainability, maintaining our crucial role in the community and reinforcing our commitment to inclusive leadership.
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Grant Recipient
McHenry County College
Community programming and partnerships led by the Center for Agrarian Learning (CAL) are the primary focus of our Director of Innovation, Sheri Doyel. Sheri Doyel leads the expansion of the McHenry County College (MCC) Student Farm to align with industry standards, and advises on curriculum changes in MCC's Entrepreneurial Agriculture degree and certificate programs. In last year's FLO application, MCC proposed doing a deep dive evaluating and enhancing the Entrepreneurial Agriculture programs, specifically. However, the Dean for Mathematics, Science, and Health Services rightly determined that MCC's Horticulture program would be first in line for the review process, as it is 30 years old. In January 2024, the younger Entrepreneurial Agriculture program was then scheduled for review from November 2024 - October 2025. This process is referred to as DACUM (Developing a Curriculum) and was adopted from Ohio State University. In short, it is a focus-group facilitated process of identifying the skills/proficiencies needed in a particular job/career (in this case farming, or farm business launch) and aligning curriculum to match so that students are well prepared for their future. This application, then, is to request funding for CAL to enhance the Entrepreneurial Agriculture program, writing now with a much better understanding of the DACUM process, its fullness, and its timeline. In addition, CAL will continue to serve the farming community with non-credit educational opportunities, while also deepening partnerships with area non-profits and agencies to better do this work.
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Grant Recipient
LIFT
LIFT-Chicago's mission is to break the cycle of poverty by investing in parents. We do this by partnering with parents to achieve economic stability and mobility through our holistic, two-generation coaching model with wraparound support, including financial capabilities workshops and quarterly cash infusions. With the support of Bridges to Brighter Futures, LIFT-Chicago will: (1) Engage 75 student-parents annually over two years in LIFT’s coaching program to provide cash assistance and help young parents enroll and persist towards their education goals (2) Expand our capacity to track members’ education outcomes so that data can be leveraged to support policy and advocacy centered on the experiences and needs of student-parents.
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Grant Recipient
YEAR UP INC
Year Up respectfully requests an investment of $150,000 from Bridges to Brighter Futures to fund our workforce development program operations in Chicago in 2024. In one year or less, our evidence-based and innovative technical training programs connect low-income young adults to careers with living wages of at least $25/hour. Your gift extends far beyond the short-term impacts of our program; it plays a fundamental role in extending opportunity to talented young adults and unlocking access to career pathways that offer ongoing opportunities for economic mobility for our graduates, their families, and communities. With Bridges to Brighter Futures’ investment, we will enhance our integration into the Workforce Development space in Chicago, addressing a critical gap and positioning Year Up as a key player in this sector. Your contribution will enable us to deliver our research-validated training, coaching, and career navigation services to 250 young adults, connecting them to meaningful, living-wage careers and strengthening our role in the broader workforce development ecosystem.
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Grant Recipient
Inner-City Muslim Action Network
Since 2013, the Granville T. Woods Academy has stood vacant, vandalized and a blight on the surrounding community. Englewood is home to two of the ten zip codes receiving the highest number of returning citizens every year. Multiple studies establish housing, health care, and employment as the critical components of successful reentry, yet many returning citizens struggle to access all three, creating instability at the individual, family and neighborhood level. The Regenerator, a project of the Go Green Development Group - comprising IMAN, Teamwork Englewood, Resident Association of Greater Englewood and E.G. Woode - will remediate and repurpose the Woods Academy to tackle these three integrated components with a robust health and wellness ecosystem, permanent supportive housing and workforce development opportunities, along with a range of reentry services. IMAN will be the owner and operator of the health and wellness ecosystem at The Regenerator. IMAN is requesting pre development funding from CCT for the interior buildout of this wellness ecosystem which includes a Federally Qualified Health Center, urgent care and pharmacy, bringing critical primary, behavioral and oral health care access and jobs to the entire community. This project is phase II of the Regenerator buildout.
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Grant Recipient
CITY COLLEGES OF CHICAGO FOUNDATION
According to the Advancing Workforce Equity project people of color are a large and growing share of Chicagoland’s workforce (47%), but do not share equitably in its prosperity. Workers of color are more than twice as likely as their white peers to earn wages under $15/hr. In 2018, racial gaps in wages and employment cost the region about $136B in lost economic activity. City Colleges of Chicago and the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership seek an investment to support a joint strategic planning process that aligns the unique resources and capabilities of both systems to better serve Chicago residents together. The Chicago Blueprint process will model City Colleges’ and Chicago Public Schools experience developing the Chicago Roadmap and leverage documented national examples of strategic alignment between community colleges and workforce investment boards in order to create a multi-year, multi-faceted strategic plan with goals aligned to each respective system and impact targets aligned to job and mobility targets. City Colleges requests support for Phase One of the Chicago Blueprint for Upward Mobility. The comprehensive plan encompasses three stages: (1) a comprehensive plan to research, review, and implement best practices in workforce-education partnerships; (2) identify the obstructions to upward mobility faced by our communities; and (3) galvanize the Chicago-Cook community of city agencies and employer partners to develop an actionable plan that addresses this fragmented system and successfully connects residents to local resources, training, and education and training that creates access to meaningful career opportunities.
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Grant Recipient
Center for Community Self-Help
The Center for Community Self-Help (Self-Help), in partnership with The Resurrection Project (TRP), the Hope Center Foundation of Chicago (HCF), and Lawndale Christian Development Corporation (LCDC), requests $40,000 to support our proposal to Advance Sustainable Homeownership in the greater Chicago area. These funds will supplement our second-year funding, allowing our collaborative to increase the geographic reach of our program by adding a new partner (HCF) - a trusted community organization serving greater Roseland - while minimizing the financial shock to existing collaborative members. Together, our two funding proposals seek to directly complement and enhance the work of the Reclaiming Chicago Initiative (RCI), a campaign organized by United Power for Action and Justice to help families in the South and West Sides of Chicago build wealth through homeownership. For this iteration, the collaborative will build on the learnings of our first year of funding and support the RCI vision by providing counseling services to individuals across the home purchase spectrum, utilizing referral channels to connect potential homebuyers to affordable financing solutions, forging new relationships to increase homebuyer DPA access, and piloting an expanded reserve program to protect new owners against unforeseen financial emergencies that may threaten their new ownership status. Through these efforts, we will work towards our long-term Reclaiming Chicago goal of increasing and sustaining the number of Black and Latino homeowners across the South and West Sides of Chicago.
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Grant Recipient
Metropolitan Planning Council
MPC is committed to building equity in Chicago's built environment by tackling systemic challenges that have historically marginalized communities of color. This organizational grant will support three key initiatives: 1. Great Rivers Chicago focuses on collaborative governance and community engagement to improve riverfront development and environmental stewardship. MPC will work with the River Ecology and Governance Task Force to enhance co-governance, community involvement, and long-term river asset management. 2. The Chicago Citywide Land Use & Zoning Assessment aims to facilitate comprehensive land use planning and reform Chicago's zoning regulations. MPC will conduct public engagement, evaluate Planned Developments, and develop accessible resources to guide community stakeholders and policymakers. 3. The Home Lending Partnership Implementation Program is part of MPC's Change Lab and seeks to create equitable pathways to homeownership for underserved communities. By fostering collaboration between financial institutions and community-based organizations, the program will address systemic barriers to economic stability and homeownership for residents of color. The requested general operating support will enable MPC to sustain and expand these initiatives, driving lasting community revitalization and economic inclusion for communities of color.