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
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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.
Explore Our Discretionary Grants
Showing 5311–5318 of 4270 results
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Grant Recipient
Public Media Institute
Public Media Institute (PMI) is a 35 year old nonprofit that has over the years grown into a hub for Chicago’s LGBTQ+ artist and media communities, particularly on the South West Side. By taking care of platforms like Lumpen Radio 105.5 FM, Co-Prosperity, and Buddy, PMI convenes and amplifies a heterogenous range of marginalized voices through broadcasts, exhibitions, convenings, and long term relationships. Our organization’s mission is deeply rooted in progressive activism, which has always included elevating LGBTQ+ artists, performers, and youth. Having started as a hub for young folks via Lumpen Magazine in 1990, the organization now focuses more on fostering intergenerational dialogue and community-building through publications, exhibitions coalitions and events that bring older and younger artist organizers together, and by intentionally working with predominantly queer artists from a large range of backgrounds on our volunteer Programming Council. Operating with a budget just under $1.5m, PMI is positioned to put more concerted effort into programs that serve queer people in the Chicago area. Our leadership, staff, and programming are composed of 85% BIPOC and 40% LGBTQ+ individuals, and having funding earmarked for work with friends of Dorothy work allow us to do so much more saying “yes” to the exciting projects that Chicagoland’s swishiest artists and media makers want to present on our platforms. We seek funding to continue and expand our efforts, particularly in supporting queer performance art exchanges with venues like Links Hall and our midewstern network of MdW partners, promoting intergenerational exchange and oral history work with artist organizers who were active in the 80s and 90s through our NAAO + Act Up radio interviews and publication research, and by amplifying the voices of LGBTQ+ youth and elders on the radio via a genderqueer audio portrait initiative led by trans Yollocalli graduates. Since 1990 one of our taglines has been “a front for the left in the arts,” and as such we understand that our various projects don’t fit any one identity box very cleanly, but neither does the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and we have done a lot to build power and platforms as scrappy BIpoc and queer folks on the south side and we would love to be able to use what we’ve built even more in service of queer community in Chicago, the best city on the continent! We are grateful for your consideration. Fingers crossed!
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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.
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Grant Recipient
Taskforce Prevention and Community Services
TaskForce Prevention and Community Services respectfully requests $30,000 to support our mission to improve the sexual health and overall well-being of LGBTQ+ youth of color in Chicago. We do this by providing a safe space for fellowship, HIV/STI screening and education, and on-site referrals to medical, housing, and other social services. Together with our staff, community members, board members, and other stakeholders, we are working towards a world without health disparities and we’re committed to being a respectful, caring partner serving everyone affected by health disparities through our comprehensive, integrated prevention, care, and treatment programs.
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Grant Recipient
GF Productions
Gender Fucked Productions envisions a world where trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming artists are able to thrive and make art that pushes beyond any binary we could imagine. We advance trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming equity through supporting artists and coalescing radical community. It is so vital to our community that we share stories of trans joy, resilience, and connection in this era in which trans people have been under attack on all fronts. GFP hopes to be a major contributor to trans resilience here in Chicago and beyond by supporting our community’s emerging artists. Gender Fucked Productions has an ever expanding list of performance types, and we’re currently producing in the areas of dance, musical cabaret, puppetry, new play development, and open mics. The aesthetic of our work is centered on not only blurring the lines of gender but also the lines of genre. For our projects, the biggest financial priority is paying the artists we work with. We have been paying small stipends and wish to increase this dramatically. For example, our Producer Mentorship Program has the highest paying stipends and is only $500 for a 6 month commitment. This inability to pay artists what they are worth continues to perpetuate societal inequalities, especially in regards to race and disability. This means only those who have pre-existing financial stability have been able to work with GFP. In 2024, we allocated a total of $4,000 towards these mentor and mentee stipends. Support from the LGBTQ Community Fund would allow us to continue our paid Producer Mentorship Program next year, retain the mentees as mentors, and increase the total stipend amounts. While we have a strong cohort of artists that believe in what GFP is doing, this kind of low pay has led to some of our collaborators having to leave or take breaks from our work. We have the structure, connections, community trust, and people in place, all we need is the financial support. We are prepared to put the funds to use immediately upon receiving them. We would put this award towards the continuation of said mentorship program in 2025, our inaugural trans play/music festival in the works for spring 2025, and raises in the small stipends for our artists at all levels. Additionally, all senior leadership positions are unpaid, so this grant could allow for compensation not exceeding that of our programs’ producers.
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Grant Recipient
About Face Theatre Collective
About Face Theatre (AFT) is honored to request $40,000 in general operating support from the Chicago Community Trust. We believe that our organizations have a shared vision for the future of Chicago as a place where all members of the LGBTQ+ community can thrive and live life to the fullest as their authentic selves.
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Grant Recipient
One Roof Chicago
Chicago's LGBTQ+ community is facing pressing needs at both ends of the lifespan - a crisis in youth homelessness, accelerated aging among people living with HIV, and an acute lack of culturally competent support for seniors. At the same time, the national political climate presents an existential threat to our community, with Illinois becoming a sanctuary state for individuals fleeing discriminatory and deadly policies elsewhere. One Roof Chicago is a transformative initiative to build a welcoming and inclusive intergenerational community on the South Side of Chicago for older adults and young people. * Affordable housing centered around the needs of LGBTQ+ elders and older adults living with HIV * Supportive housing at the same site for LGBTQ+ young adults impacted by homelessness * Focused job training in culturally competent senior care ORC is designed to provide proof of concept for the kinds of infrastructure and policy models that our community needs, now and with increasing urgency as time passes. In 2025, we will be moving forward on several fronts: (a) launching the first cohort of our workforce development program to provide seniors with caregivers from within our own community and supporting our young people with a stable and rewarding career ladder; (b) completing the property transfer process from the City and finalizing site plans; and (c) proceeding from pre-development to the financing phase of the project, including preparing a Low Income Housing Tax Credit application and taking the first steps toward a full capital campaign. Funds will support our ongoing operations and staffing to ensure we hit our marks as we move forward toward these ambitious goals.