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
Sex Workers Outreach Project Chicago
SWOP Chicago is currently in a phase of concentrated fundraising toward the goal of returning to our full slate of programming. In early 2024, we made the decision to suspend some programs temporarily, most notably our Street Outreach program, until we are able to achieve the financial foundation necessary to fully staff and supply them. Yet during this partial hiatus, the organization’s vital cultural work has continued uninterrupted, through exhibitions and performances foregrounding the work and talents of Chicago’s workers in the sex trades. Events such as our annual Chicago Sex Workers Art show serve as both fundraisers, and social hubs for Chicago’s overlapping sex-worker and LGBTQ+ communities. Funding would support this and other programming, including Street Outreach, our Legal Clinic in collaboration with Beyond Legal Aid, our Housing Assistance program in collaboration with NeighborScapes, and the PROS Network, a listing of sex-worker-friendly service providers and businesses. Funding for Street Outreach, our largest program, covers staff wages, maintaining our Outreach van, and keeping our outreach sites supplied with Narcan, safe-use supplies, food, hygiene products, and other essentials for members of our community who live and/or work on the street.
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Grant Recipient
School of Opulence
SOO was founded over 20 years ago by esteemed figures in the Chicago Ballroom Scene. Originating in the 1920s in New York City, Ballroom culture provided a safe space for LGBTQ individuals, particularly people of color, to express themselves authentically and freely. Over the decades, Ballroom has evolved into a vibrant subculture that celebrates diversity, self-expression, and resilience. Mauren Avant Garde, a pioneer in the Chicago Ballroom scene, established the school alongside Tommy Avant Garde. Members of the House of Avant Garde, the first ballroom house in Chicago, Mauren, and Tommy, were galvanized to create another alternative that prioritized addressing the social, economic, and health conditions of LGBTQ+ persons. Witnessing the challenges faced by BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals in Chicago, the founders created the School of Opulence as a philanthropic initiative. Our organization is dedicated to serving the South Side of Chicago, primarily focusing on the South Shore community. Our outreach extends to neighboring areas such as South Chicago, Woodlawn, and Greater Grand Crossing. These communities are characterized by their low-income status, predominantly consisting of people of color facing challenges such as high unemployment rates, prevalent firearm violence, substance abuse issues, and limited access to essential resources. For LGBTQ+ individuals residing in these communities, these socioeconomic challenges are an additional barrier that perpetuates a cycle of hardship within the LGBTQ+ community. Discrimination and stigma can lead to limited job opportunities, lower income levels, and barriers to accessing quality healthcare and education. This can result in higher rates of poverty, homelessness, mental health issues, and overall disparities in well-being compared to non-LGBTQ individuals. Thus, we strive to implement holistic services that improve LGBTQ+ persons' quality of life and overall well-being. Throughout our 20-plus-year history, the School of Opulence has delivered various services and programs to address the most pertinent needs of our community. Under our past leadership, the School of Opulence has received funding to implement academic and GED training. Recently, we have enacted more initiatives that prioritize promoting healthy behaviors and reducing risk in the community. Furthermore, we provide a safe space that further accentuates Ballroom and other art forms that celebrate diversity, self-expression, and resilience. The School of Opulence (SOO) is seeking $40,000 in general operating support to enhance our current operations and infrastructure to effectively advance our mission and vision of reducing structural inequities that plagues LGBTQ+ communities of color. Securing funding from this grant opportunity will be pivotal in bolstering our organization's capacity to maintain and expand our initiatives. By investing in general operating support, we can enhance both our internal operations and external impact. The funds will enable us to grow our team, upgrade essential equipment and technologies, and ultimately maximize the effectiveness of our programs. This strategic allocation of resources will ensure sustainability and drive innovation and efficiency across all facets of our organization.
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Grant Recipient
Youth Empowerment Performance Project
Through this general operating grant, YEPP is looking to continue operating/uplifting all our programs and services. Some of the main and ongoing expenses we are looking to address through this grant are, but not limited to: space rental, food for young people, hygiene supplies and other basic items, and team members stipends.
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Grant Recipient
Sisters in Cinema
Sisters in Cinema centers and celebrates Black girls, women, and gender-nonconforming media makers, providing programs designed to educate, raise visibility, and support and serve our communities. We are dedicated to empowering and uplifting voices within the LGBTQ+ community through media arts. We address the unique needs of LGBTQ+ seniors by fostering community and belonging, and we support LGBTQ+ youth through vocational services, leadership development, and safe, inclusive spaces. Our programs provide LGBTQ+ inclusive arts and culture opportunities, ensuring diverse representation and tailored support for those facing intersecting forms of oppression. By focusing on historically marginalized, underrepresented, and underserved groups of Black people, including older adults, youth, trans, gender non-conforming individuals, and women/femmes, we strive to create an equitable and inclusive environment where members of the Black LGBTQ+ community of media makers and storytellers have equal opportunities to create and thrive.
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Grant Recipient
Life Is Work
Life Is Work (LIW) requests $40,000 in general operating support to enhance and expand our existing Unity in Wellness drop-in center, dedicated to serving the TLGBQ community with creative outlets and gender-affirming resources in a welcoming and educational environment for youth. The Center is open every Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at 5463 W Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60651. During these hours, African American and Latinx TLGBQ and gender-diverse participants can access a safe space where they can speak freely about their personal experiences of loss and grief, as well as navigate the intersectionality of various marginalized identities. Participants can address complex and unresolved experiences centered around death, sex work, survival sex work, dismantling of friendships, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, distrust in medical systems, dangers of saying no, and sex positivity. The Unity in Wellness drop-in center also addresses the unique needs of TLGBQ youth, including affordable housing, by increasing youth access to housing navigation by entering youth into the Homelessness Management Information System(HMIS), where they can obtain housing referrals. The drop-in center allows youth to engage in transitional housing, gender-based housing for individuals who are survivors or fleeing domestic/ intimate partner violence. Youth will be connected to domestic violence advocates for additional support. Youth can access ID and birth certificates to reduce barriers with name changing and meeting housing eligibility requirements. By utilizing the drop-in center, youth can obtain streamlined health care services to access Monkey Pox vaccinations in partnership with CDPH, gender-affirming care, and psychotherapy provided by Rush Hospital social workers. The community will have access to resources such as a food pantry and solidarity closet that will help address food insecurity and clothing necessities. Addressing barriers to employment within TLGBQ Unity in Wellness drop-in center will provide youth with internal referrals to access vocational services that will help with life skills development and access pathways for employability. The drop-in sessions are not only centered on community and belonging but also on increasing leadership development, advocacy, and the offering core programming services such as non-medical case management needs for supportive services, HIV Prevention services such as HIV testing and linkage to care PrEP, and PEP referrals to increase access to sexual health and wellness, and Gender-affirming housing to combat issues of safety, acceptance and housing discrimination.
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Grant Recipient
LAKESIDE PRIDE MUSIC ENSEMBLES INC
Lakeside Pride Music Ensembles, a 501(c)(3) organization, is seeking general operating funds in order to sustain our rapidly growing membership of over 400 musicians. Our reach spans the entire Chicagoland area with performances in Lakeview, Pilsen, South Shore, West Town, Andersonville, Buffalo Grove, and beyond. Operating for over two decades, our storied organization looks to expand our community to any and all LGBTQ+ and allied musicians who are seeking community through the musical arts.
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Grant Recipient
Youth Outlook
Youth Outlook aims to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ youth in the suburbs of Chicago and rural Illinois. For the young people we serve, Youth Outlook’s direct service programs facilitate ongoing personal growth, the development of a positive identity, and access to affirming healthcare. For families, we provide support, resources, and advocacy tools. For teachers, social workers, and other youth-serving professionals, Youth Outlook helps them create atmospheres in their institutions that are more welcoming to LGBTQ+ youth. Each year, Youth Outlook serves at least 400 youth ages 12-24, 95% of whom identify as LGBTQ; 65% identify as transgender, non-binary, or gender fluid. We also serve 25 families with kids in grade K-6, 50 additional parents and grandparents, and 3,000 youth-serving adults.
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Grant Recipient
SIT Hub
We are requesting $36,000 in creative arts funding in order to provide art therapy services and host community arts events to LGBTQ2SIA Chicagoans, with an emphasis on reaching trans and queer creative workers struggling to find financially and culturally accessible mental health resources. The requested amount of $36,000 would enable the latest addition to our team, our art therapist and event producer, to provide 10 hours of individual and group services per week and facilitate one community arts event per quarter. This funding is critical for the LGBTQ+ community because it bridges the need for culturally aligned and accessible mental health services with opportunities for creative expression and community arts programming.