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 3071–3078 of 3874 results
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Grant Recipient
Ignite
Ignite is seeking support for services offered to young people, ages 14-26, experiencing housing instability in Chicago. This annual gift of $80,000 over the next three years will provide critical funding as Ignite moves into the final years of its five-year strategic plan, designed to allow for maintenance and growth of services offered to Chicago’s youth with the highest needs. While Ignite’s core focus is addressing housing insecurity and homelessness among youth, the team provides comprehensive evidence-based services to ensure clients are able to reach sustainable outcomes and lead lives in which they thrive. From emergency and transitional housing to supportive apartment living, each youth will engage in career and education goal setting, proactive physical and mental health management, and financial planning. Our housing programming provides a comprehensive model that includes supportive services, mentoring and customized action plans that ensure youth are on a path that includes personal and economic growth. This model is inclusive of aftercare support and has the end in mind–with youth being able to successfully secure permanent housing and chart a course of personal and economic independence. Ignite also understands there are many youth experiencing homelessness who may not make it to our front door. We see this as an opportunity we must rise up to address. Through direct street outreach, engagement in local schools and with community partners, and hosting events at our Community Hub, we meet youths’ immediate basic needs and provide crisis intervention in a safe, welcoming environment. With a spectrum of support and services housed under one roof, youth can access services at our Community Hub that include housing placement, health care planning and supply provision, food and basic needs, life skills programming, education and employment services, technology access, substance use assessments, and more. Ignite’s services are designed to meet the immediate and long-term needs of youth, but it’s our sense of community that truly makes Ignite unique. In each program we offer, participants build deep relationships with one another as well as with our staff that continue to positively impact their lives long after they move on from our programs. Services offered in Ignite Residential Programming are founded on the agency’s philosophical framework, which incorporates various best practices and frameworks, including: Trauma-Informed Care, Positive Youth Development Framework, the Sanctuary Model, Harm Reduction, and the Restorative Justice Process. Ignite’s 46-year history has allowed for the refinement of services offered and the organization continues to regularly assess data, solicit feedback, and focus on quality improvement. In order to improve program execution and ensure technology will allow for seamless growth as the agency expands, data management practices continue to be optimized. The organization’s Program Manager, who was hired in late 2021, spent significant time expanding Salesforce, the agency’s database. Adjustments included the integration of intake and assessments directly into the database, dashboard creation, streamlined documentation processes, and improved data quality. Due to these enhancements, program staff have decreased the amount of time spent entering data daily. This directly translates to more time the team can spend meeting with clients, reviewing cases, and improving strategy and approaches. Data management improvement is critical to building the infrastructure that will support growth, allowing Ignite to expand into new neighborhoods, support more clients, and address contributing factors to youth homelessness through advocacy and policy work. Ignite has various roles filled with individuals who have lived expertise and regularly seeks feedback from current and former clients. Feedback on programming is gathered during biweekly community meetings, weekly group meetings, evaluation surveys, one-on-one case management meetings, and through the Youth Advisory Council (YAC). The YAC meets biweekly and is comprised of six clients, who discuss their thoughts on program execution and requirements, propose outing ideas, and collaborate with staff on possible improvements and current concerns. This council is designed to give a voice to youth within the program and maintain a consistent line of communication between staff and clients. As the organization moves forward in our strategic plan, we will maintain these efforts for improvement, which will ultimately lead to expanded services and scopes, increased awareness of the issue of youth homelessness, an improved infrastructure leading to greater organizational capacity, and the expansion of Ignite’s partnerships throughout the city, resulting in increased access to resources.
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Grant Recipient
Focus Fairies Mentoring
I believe the S.E.L.F.F. grant would tremendously impact Focus Fairies (the organization), Darryca Brim-Mims (Executive Director), and the many young ladies we service who are exposed to high trauma dosages daily. The benefit of this much-needed grant will be evident by the outcome of an increase in constituent and organizational power we will experience. I intend to measure the change in the organization and the leader by doing focus groups and interviews at the beginning of the grant cycle and once again at the close of the grant.
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Grant Recipient
Growing Home, Inc.
Growing Home, Inc. respectfully requests a grant of $45,000 per year in renewed support of our Food Access Program, with a total of $135,000 over three years. This program increases the accessibility of nutritious produce in Chicago's Englewood community, a majority Black and Brown neighborhood, with unique initiatives in partnership with local food pantries, no-cost biweekly food box deliveries, pop-up event donations and local markets. In 2022, we served 12,303 people (17,578 individual meal-servings) with nutritious produce at no cost or highly discounted prices. This award would allow us to sustain and grow this program to continue improving food security at many levels in our Greater Englewood community.
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Grant Recipient
La Casa Norte
La Casa Norte respectfully requests consideration of a grant from The Chicago Community Trust through its program, Addressing Critical Needs - Essential Services. We are applying to renew a grant supporting our community services, including case management to more than 900 housing clients yearly. La Casa Norte also facilitates other services, including community outreach and access to a food pantry and health care, reaching more than 18,000 residents a year on Chicago’s West Side and South Side.
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Grant Recipient
TELPOCHCALLI COMMUNITY EDUCATION PROJECT INC
As the leader, I know it is time to redefine both my professional and personal roles as Executive Director of Telpochcalli Community Education Project. This application tries to identify some of the challenges and questions that need to be addressed - both for me and for Tcep.
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Grant Recipient
Invisible Institute
The Invisible Institute seeks general support for its ongoing journalism program.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago City Council Latino Caucus Foundation
The U.S. Latino population will surpass 130 million by the year 2050. The Chicago City Council Latino Caucus Foundation is challenging the Chicago workforce to invest in a forward-thinking generation of Latino leaders in order to serve an audience projected to account for close to 33% of the entire U.S. population. In Chicago, nearly half of CPS students are Latino, nearly 1 in 3 babies born in Chicago is Latino. Despite this, we’re disproportionately impacted by the broken structures that surround us. Latinos have made up nearly half of the COVID positivity rates in Chicago, Latino representation is far too low across the board: only 20% of CPS teachers are Latino, while more than half of the students are Latino. That is why in 2013, the Chicago City Council Latino Caucus founded the Chicago City Council Latino Caucus Foundation (“CLCF”) as an entity to empower and prepare the next generation of Latino leaders. CLCF was created to empower entry-level to C-Suite Latino talent to refuse to be overlooked as they offer their expertise, cultural competency, and powerful experience to the fabric of Chicago’s workforce. CLCF achieves this mission through a distinct and impactful program: the CLCF Leadership Academy.
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Grant Recipient
NAMI Metro Suburban Inc
The impact of untreated mental illness is pervasive and can contribute to a host of destabilizing factors affecting critical life and safety needs. Housing and food security, employment, educational attainment, and incarceration are all deeply connected to mental and emotional wellness. The systems in place (or lack thereof) for ease in access to consistent mental health care are inextricably tied to the basic safety net of individuals and their households. Without equitable mental health support, individuals and families suffer, affecting the livelihood of neighborhoods and the strength of our collective communities. With a purpose to radically reduce barriers to mental health care at the forefront of our community programs, NAMI Metro Suburban submits this application respectfully requesting $150,000 across three years for funding connected to our core programs and services: offering critical peer mental health support at no cost across the western suburbs of Cook County.