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
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
Sunshine Gospel Ministries
For over a century, Sunshine Gospel Ministries (SGM), a 501(c)(3) organization, has been a steadfast presence in Chicago’s most challenging communities. Established in 1905, SGM has weathered the storms of history, including two pandemics (1919 and 2020), numerous political shifts, and evolving urban landscapes. Through it all, our faith has carried and guided us through pivotal moments such as the race riots of 1919, the Civil Rights Movement, urban renewal efforts, and multiple relocations and transformations of our ministry in Chicago’s inner city. In 1974, responding to the growing need for community renewal, SGM shifted its focus to support low-income youth in the Cabrini-Green housing projects. As the North Side’s public housing began to be demolished in the early 2000s, many families moved to Chicago’s South Side. In 2004, SGM followed this migration, purchasing and renovating buildings in the Woodlawn community. Now celebrating 21 years in Woodlawn, we remain deeply committed to serving the youth and families of this vibrant but under-resourced area. Throughout our 120-year history, much has changed, but three core principles have remained constant: 1. Our love for discipleship 2. Pursuing the renewal of the city 3. Serving the most under-resourced communities of Chicago As we reflect on our past and look to the future, we are grateful for the opportunity to continue our mission of bringing hope, transformation, and empowerment to the communities we serve. ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW A Legacy of Faith and Service: This Our 120th Year of Sunshine Gospel Ministries MISSION AND PURPOSE - With a presence in the most challenging communities of Chicago, Sunshine Gospel Ministries’ (SGM) mission is to seek the renewal of the city through ministries of discipleship, mercy, and justice. To achieve this, SGM engages and empowers youth and families to thrive and lead fruitful, healthy lives through faith, connectedness, and opportunity. SGM uses a place-based approach/strategies which respects the right of community members to be heard in voicing their needs and concerns and for Sunshine to seek to understand the issues, interconnections, and relationships in our community; along with being involved in coordinating action and investment to improve the quality of life for the greater good of the community and those that reside. We carry out these strategies currently through five programs: 1. Youth Outreach - Serves elementary, middle, and high school ages with a structured after-school environment that fosters a commitment to learning, and positive values that help develop a moral compass and well roundedness that promotes positive self identity and capability to make ethical decisions in life. Youth also participate in various academic, creative, and recreational activities and field trips. 2. Familyhood - Provides practical training, support and intervention where necessary and facilitates spaces where parents/guardians and children can come together to abound in love, reconcile, and grow as a family unit. The goal is to restore hope in families and renew hurting communities by embracing and embodying wholeness for the family to thrive. 3. Flourishing Community Initiative - Provides organizing and collaborative support to gunshot wound survivors and their family through three core services: trauma intervention; case management for victims and their families after release from hospital or criminal system; and coalition-building among community, violence intervention partners, hospital-based institutions, and the Chicago Police Department of the Third District. 4. Housing Equity Initiative - Addresses housing-related disparities within the Woodlawn and Washington Park communities in three areas: retention, ownership, and revitalization aimed at supporting our neighbors in building assets and wealth creation for their families and investments in their community. 5. Bridgebuilders - An experiential service-learning program that invites participants from all over the country ranging from high school age through adulthood. It connects people from different backgrounds to promote a shared understanding of the challenges facing inner-city communities. We believe the giftedness of the community is more clearly seen through fostering healthy, meaningful experiences and conversation that combine learning with active engagement. The Justice Advisory Council grant has been instrumental in sustaining our existing programs and expanding our capacity by enabling the hiring of additional staff to support and grow these two critical initiatives/programs - Flourishing Community Initiative and Youth Outreach. This general operating gap funding grant would be of assistance in continuing the services provided through both. Flourishing Community Initiative (FCI) works with victims of gun violence to serve and support them throughout their recovery to wholeness. FCI’s clients are primarily between the ages of 13-66. The project is staffed with a Director, a Violence Intervention Specialist and a Case Manager. FCI serves about 30 families per year. For our FCI program the total process of care can last 12-24 months based on the needs of the clients. The first 8-12 month period is directly after the client is discharged from the hospital. FCI staff focuses on getting the client involved in counseling, reestablishing safety through relocation, addressing any desires for retaliation, and completing necessary paperwork to secure financial victims compensation. Clients are under the care of our intervention specialist and case manager, and the ultimate goal is to work towards the individual feeling safe once again. The second phase addresses the needs of employment, ongoing health care, legal matters and education. During this timeframe, the Case Manager works with clients to identify meaningful goals that will give individuals a hope for the future. The final phase is the process of follow up and implementation of any additional needed services. This phase includes reincorporating the client into positive relationships within their community. Ultimately, the clients’ needs are FCI’s main priority. If they need more time with FCI, the staff will extend their time individually and in certain cohorts based on the progression of their healing. Also, clients can continue to engage with our organization through workshops, and events. FCI has collaborative relationships - University of Chicago Medical Trauma Center, 3rd District CPD Victim Crimes Advocate, Advocate Trauma Center, P.O.A.H.(Preservation to Deliver Affordable Housing, licensed therapists, employment partners and more. Sunshine Gospel Ministries Youth Outreach has three core programs: elementary youth,1st-5th grade; middle school youth - 6th-8th grade; and high school teens - 9th-12th grade. Each program has their own dedicated staff members. Ideally, each grade level has 2 full-time staff, and 2 part-time program assistants have two youth outreach volunteer leaders, and one Director who oversees the whole team. Youth Outreach programming serves over 200 youth on a year-round annual basis. The Youth Outreach Staff engages youth through afterschool programming, day summer camp program, and a week long summer sleepover. During the school year, our staff provides a program Monday through Friday between the hours of 3:30 and 8:00 pm. Over the summer months of July and August, Youth Outreach provides a day camp Monday through Friday from 9-3 PM. On Fridays during Summer programming, youth are taken on a field trip. Our Youth Outreach programming has Summer youth employment for ages 16 through 24 through One Summer Chicago, and we are implementing the expansion of this program to be year round for those ages 18 to 24. Sunshine tracks the progress of youth in developing positive character assets through the Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets Survey. Youth participants take this survey yearly which helps our youth outreach staff to identify areas to build programming around to positively impact growth in character development and social emotional learning for the youth. The 40 Developmental Framework provides Youth Outreach with a framework of support systems and strengths that youth need in order to live healthy, whole lives. This sets our youth up for success in all that they do which positively affects youth long term, preventing negative interactions with police, courts, and other systems. Youth Outreach has strong partnerships for enrichment and other programming needs.
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Grant Recipient
University of Chicago’s Arts and Public Life
Elevated Chicago is spearheading an Arts & Culture Strategy to foster Placemaking and Placekeeping conversations and opportunities across Chicago communities. As part of this initiative, Elevated will establish the Creatives Advisory Council, a group of artists, creatives, and culture bearers with whom they maintain ongoing relationships. This Council will help refine and implement the Arts & Culture Strategy. Additionally, Elevated Chicago will leverage its network and social media to create the Elevated Chicago Creative’s Table—a citywide forum for artists dedicated to exploring and advancing community development. This Table will define the scope and terms of a regranting program aligned with Elevated Chicago's vision and values. The Creative’s Table, or a subcommittee, will oversee the program's implementation, mobilize its network to promote the Creative Placemaking and Placekeeping regranting opportunity, and emphasize safeguarding the vitality of existing spaces and creating new ones. Arts + Public Life (APL) at the University of Chicago will serve as a technical advisor to these efforts, sharing their extensive expertise in community arts engagement and equitable transit-oriented (ETOD) initiatives like the Arts Block. Specifically, APL will: • Host gatherings and events in its spaces, offering a welcoming and resourceful environment. • Strengthen connections between Black and Brown artists and opportunities provided by Elevated Chicago. • Deliver technical assistance, including consultations, templates, professional development, and artist-centered guidance. APL and Elevated Chicago have successfully collaborated for years. The Arts and Culture Strategy provides an exceptional opportunity to expand organizational partnerships between the two entities. In addition, the collaboration for the Arts and Culture Strategy allows APL to continue materializing its mission to be “a dynamic hub of exploration, expression, and exchange that centers people of color and fosters neighborhood vibrancy through the arts on the South Side of Chicago” and advancing ETOD initiatives while nurturing creativity and cultural preservation in the Washington Park neighborhood. Through this collaboration, APL and Elevated Chicago will amplify the voices of underrepresented communities, driving creative solutions for equitable growth. To support these efforts, we kindly request a mini-grant from the Chicago Community Trust to fund general operations, staff time, and technical assistance. These resources will help APL sustain the Elevated Chicago Arts & Culture Strategy, ensuring its impact on neighborhoods throughout the city.
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Grant Recipient
Community Desk Chicago
The Chicago Community Wealth Building Center (“The Center”) is a new center being incubated at the Community Desk Chicago ("The Desk) designed to strengthen Chicago’s local community wealth building ecosystem through four key strategies: (1) pipeline management and technical assistance; (2) funder education and capital coordination; (3) policy, advocacy & coalition-building; and (4) arts, storytelling and community education. The Center will be housed at The Desk to incubate with the goal of launching as a separate 501c3 within two to three years.
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Grant Recipient
WINGS Program, Inc.
WINGS Program, Inc. respectfully requests $50,000 from the Chicago Community Trust for general operating support. This funding will help manage the administrative and compliance requirements of the Cook County JAC government grant. WINGS’ current federal and state government grant portfolio includes funding totaling $4,569,462. WINGS indirect costs are calculated using the MTDC Formula which excludes applying indirect costs on leasing or rental housing; however, the 10% allocated to indirect costs from government grants is insufficient to cover the true administrative and compliance costs of the government grants. WINGS annual budget has increased 60% in the last two years to accommodate growth of programs and the administration to support the robust continuum of programs primarily providing housing for Survivors of domestic violence. Within the last year, to relieve the burden of administering government grants, WINGS expanded the Administration team by hiring a FTE Controller and a FTE Accounting clerk with no new administration dollars from government grants. The funds requested will bridge the gap between allocated indirect costs and actual expenses, allowing WINGS to enhance overall organizational effectiveness.
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Grant Recipient
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY
The Institute for Housing Studies will develop ETOD-related data indicators and provide data-focused technical assistance support to Elevated Chicago staff, Elevated Chicago Working Groups, Community Tables, and other Chicago groups working on ETOD-related issues.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Trust
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Grant Recipient
Allies for Community Business
Allies for Community Business (A4CB) seeks matching funds for an active government grant award we have secured with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Fund that was funded through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. A4CB was one of over 600 CDFIs that was awarded grants via the CDFI Fund’s new Equitable Recovery Program (ERP), which is intended to strengthen the ability of CDFIs to help low- and moderate-income communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and invest in long-term prosperity. A CDFI is a mission-driven organization that expands economic opportunity in low-income communities by providing access to financial products and services for local residents and businesses. This grant will help A4CB provide capital and coaching to small businesses, with a focus on serving entrepreneurs of color that remain in need of assistance as they recover from the pandemic in areas with increased economic distress.
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Grant Recipient
Center for Neighborhood Technology
CNT seeks a $50,000 general operating support grant from the Chicago Community Trust to offset administrative and compliance costs associated with its $6 million grant from Cook County, which received funding from The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This grant funds the planning and programmatic costs associated with implementing the RainReady Calumet Corridor plans in Cook County’s south suburbs. RainReady works with communities and property owners to identify and implement solutions to urban flooding. The investments in community infrastructure resulting from this grant will reduce flooding and build resilience to climate change while creating more beautiful neighborhoods, new green jobs, outdoor recreation opportunities, retail activity, and habitat conservation. Funding from the Trust will enable CNT to offset the true costs of administering this grant – beyond the de minimis indirect cost rate of 10 percent -- and ensure that CNT can maintain an administrative structure that allows us to serve as the prime applicant on government awards, ensuring that our community-based partners can participate as subrecipients and have access to funds for which they’d otherwise be ineligible.