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
Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) operates a technical assistance program for northeastern Illinois comprising the seven counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will and 284 municipalities. In 2020, CMAP created a suite of technical assistance projects to offer training and boots-on-the-ground support to local governments throughout the region. Projects developed under this program had a personalized, practical approach to boosting the ability of local communities to engage in planning, leverage resources, and execute projects. CMAP requests support to expand the scope of services provided with the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and Grant Readiness technical assistance offerings to include non-transportation grants and infrastructure improvements, as current funding sources preclude such considerations. These offerings would be targeted to historically disadvantaged communities of color in the south and near west suburbs of Cook County. Additionally, the CIP project will include an enhanced equitable engagement activity with resident stakeholders that are historically underrepresented in these types of processes.
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Grant Recipient
Enlace Chicago
Enlace will continue to support young adults in community-based settings in pursuing community college degrees – with a specific focus on the three City Colleges most often attended by Little Village students – through the facilitation Equity Response Teams, the Peer Mentor Program and Future Forward. These initiatives are specifically tailored to build on the strengths and community cultural wealth of Little Village students and their families, and to address the specific challenges that they face in getting to and through college. Through Equity Response Teams at each partnering city college institution, changes will be made to the policies and procedures currently in place in admissions, enrollment, financial aid, student services, and curriculum and instruction. With appropriate institutional changes and the type of community-based engagement and support that Future Forward and Peer Mentor Program provide, students will be supported in their postsecondary pathways, be able to access resources, and be on track to re-enroll, transfer or graduate.
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Grant Recipient
The Land Conservancy of McHenry County
The main goal of this project is to help get more food farmers on the land. We will build upon the success of our work in facilitating the transfer of a long-abandoned farm to a beginning organic food farmer by working with more farmers to help them achieve their land access goals. We will increase staff time to help expand our current land access work, including development of a community food forest, as well as take on a new project, Raices Latinas: Agriculture in McHenry County. Our work with Latinx, women and other underserved farmers will increase as a result of new partnerships.
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Grant Recipient
Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation
i.c.stars respectfully requests $150,000 from Bridges to Brighter Futures. Funding will support: 1) Expanded technology job skills program including career support, credentialing, mentorship, counseling, and case management for 75 Chicago participants; 2) Strengthened staff capacity and deepened employer relationships; and 3) Enhanced alumni resources. i.c.stars serves young adults without a formal education, who have the systems thinking and resiliency to thrive in technology careers. This year, our goal is to expand from 20 to 25 participants per cohort, serving approximately 70-75 participants during the year. We are increasing participant stipends from $200/week to $210/week. Program delivery will be hybrid, with in-person learning Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Cycle 51 will run August - December 2022 with participants responding to a business challenge from software firm Paylocity, a former project sponsor and employer. Cycle 52 will run January 2023 - April 2023 with United Airlines, a first-time project sponsor and employer. Cycle 53 will run May - Aug 2023 with Medline Industries, a former project sponsor and employer. Wraparound support will include trauma-informed counseling and case management, with connection to health care providers, childcare support, Internet access, housing aid, transportation assistance, and pro bono legal aid. We are strengthening the Residency Program, the 20 months of support following the bootcamp. In addition to access to career coaching, higher education counseling, continued wraparound support and networking, we are adding more industry certifications with sponsored exams as well as additional wellness and support. This also includes activities led by the Workforce Development Director to promote nontraditional talent, and to coach and work with employers in support of higher wages. In support of these efforts, we are also enhancing our data collection and discovery of specialized training opportunities, among other activities. The grant will also promote enhanced staff capacity including a Vice President of Learning role and a Chicago Managing Director role, which together will strengthen program delivery and help us grow in Chicago. A Chicago Program Fellow role will help distribute the workload, supporting staff retention. Finally, the grant will enable deepened employer relationships, in support of increased job placement and retention outcomes for i.c.stars alumni. This work is tied to our i.c.culture and Teacher’s Bureau initiatives, and will help ensure that placed graduates and other nontraditional talent at partner firms are met with inclusive practices, as well as that employers are working towards improving DE&I efforts to attract and retain talent.
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Grant Recipient
Network for Young Adult Success
UtmostU, a post-secondary success program operated by the Network for Young Adult Success, empowers young adults from low-income backgrounds to realize their educational and professional aspirations by supporting them as they earn college degrees, certifications, and launch their careers. The Bridges to Success - 2022 initiative will utilize our post-secondary coaching model to support 125 students in the City Colleges of Chicago system. Our program will ensure that young adults from under-resourced Chicago neighborhoods have the tools and guidance to earn degrees and attain careers of their choosing. Through a combination of strong partnerships, structured student interactions, and the use of technology, Bridges to Success - 2022 will continue to have a city-wide economic and social impact.
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Grant Recipient
Elawa Farm Foundation
To strengthen a network of Northern Illinois farmers to collaborate on market opportunities, build the supply of local food in the Chicago region through aggregation, and advocate for policy and access to resources as a unified group by supporting the Northern Illinois Young Farmers chapter.
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Grant Recipient
Illinois Arts Alliance
Arts Alliance Illinois respectfully requests $25,000 from the Chicago Community Trust’s Policy and Advocacy Open Call to support our general operations this year as we continue to address the impact of COVID-19 on the arts and culture sector of Chicago and Illinois, specifically advancing policies that help steward a stronger and more equitable sector for the long term and align with the Trust’s priorities around closing the racial wealth gap. Grant support would be general operating, as we have multiple policy activities and initiatives that align with the Trust’s interests. Our policy and advocacy work supports the Trust's interests in equitable economic recovery, access to capital, and civic engagement and representation. We are beginning an annual process of convening the creative sector in collaborative policy agenda setting, to document current needs, challenges, and opportunities that can be translated into program and policy change and collective action at local, regional, and state levels, with a focus on equity, access, and racial justice. This process will influence all of the policy issues and advocacy approaches outlined below. In addition to this policy agenda setting process, this general operating grant would support the redevelopment of our Advocacy 101 program through the engagement of BIPOC creative workers, the pilot of a Local Culture Bearers Network in long divested Chicago neighborhoods, and our organizing work ahead of the 2023 state legislative session, with a specific emphasis on equitable access to resources for BIPOC and rural creatives in Chicago and throughout Illinois in addition to the other policy areas outlined below.
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Grant Recipient
Mujeres Latinas En Accion, Inc.
Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Mujeres), in the last three years, has focused and grown our advocacy. We’ve strengthened the pipeline between our Latina Leadership grassroots training and our Community Engagement & Mobilization Program and have responsively increased our coalition participation to address Chicagoland’s Latinx immigrant needs, especially those impacted by COVID-19. This past year, with our partners in the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, this advocacy directly led to securing the largest commitment in the Illinois state budget’s history to the Immigrant Services Line Item which included direct cash assistance to undocumented individuals left out of the federal stimulus package. With this grant’s support, Mujeres seeks to fund a major expansion to its advocacy efforts: the hiring of a full-time bilingual Advocacy Manager. Such expansion will impact both the short-term and long-term trajectory of Mujeres’ advocacy as we respond to the shifting needs of our Latinx and immigrant communities, including but not limited to the creation and dissemination of the Position Paper, the improvement and expansion of coalitional relationships with ICIRR, ICADV, and ICASA, and the support of our Community Engagement and Mobilization Program.