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
Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation
The Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation (GAGDC) is seeking funding capital to assist with the development of a vibrant campus to be called the Auburn Gresham Health & Wellness Campus along with funds to bridge the financial gap of the Auburn Gresham Healthy Lifestyle Hub (“The Hub”). The Hub, which had its grand opening on November 11, 2022, will be the epicenter of the Auburn Gresham Health & Wellness Campus.
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Grant Recipient
Resilience Partners NFP
Resilience Partners is known for our hard work and dedication in the non-profit field because we strive for greatness. We help individuals and organizations develop their technology, fiduciary responsibilities and business practices. Our primary focus is community-based grass root organization and social enterprises serving underserved and marginalized communities. For the last few years we have served as fiscal sponsors for over 60(+) Safe and Peaceful grant recipients a year. We would love the opportunity to support Safe and Peaceful Applicants who did not receive the grant by providing group workshops and one-to-one counseling to help them prepare to reapply in the upcoming grant cycle. These workshops would be made available city wide and be open to anyone who has an interest in the grant or want to know how a grant application process would work. Through the years we have met many individuals/organizations across Chicago who are passionate about their communities and the work they do to serve those around them. We know firsthand how intimidating the application process can be. But, even more how challenging understanding program development and putting their ideas and dreams on paper. We will partner with individuals who want to make a difference but don’t necessarily have the skills to develop their programs. Our main goal is to help individuals understand the grant application process. By, empowering them with the tools needed to better develop and execute their programs. Most importantly to build their capacity for community continuity, leadership and sustainability. We will partner with the 20 to 30 individuals/organizations, to host 6 sessions to help them better understand programing, the importance of building partnerships, funding, and the grant application process to strengthen the impact of their efforts and more.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Scholars Foundation
At Chicago Scholars, we envision a vibrant Chicago empowered by diverse leaders from every neighborhood. Our Scholars come from low-income households, are first-generation college students, and do not have the social capital or information to navigate the unfamiliar, complex transitions into college and career. Our theory of change is that targeted investments toward these critical transitions can enable Scholars to overcome the barriers they face and succeed. Through college counseling, mentoring, and providing a supportive community to our Scholars, we ensure that these promising students realize their full potential as students and leaders. We are currently working to improve our service delivery and support specifically for our young men of color. By cultivating a positive in-school environment, we want all young men of color to feel holistically supported (socially, emotionally, and academically) and feel like they are a part of a community with similar backgrounds and goals. We envision a system and structure that would significantly improve this population through what is currently referred to as “The Warm Hand-Off.” As we build this intentional collaboration between Chicago Scholars and high-performing nonprofit organizations that serve young men of color in middle school, we believe we can better care for Chicago’s young talent by seeing them through the many milestones toward graduation and careers. By connecting earlier and engaging these young boys in pathways of purpose, we believe we can improve their college matriculation.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Trust
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Grant Recipient
NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING SERVICES OF CHICAGO INC
In recognition of each partner’s own individual success in the field of housing, and our shared interest in addressing lending inequity and racially based disinvestment, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS), the Chicago Urban League, and Self-Help Federal Credit Union have joined together to plan and design innovative loan product(s) and outreach programs to reach Black and Brown potential homebuyers to help them obtain a fairly-priced home loan. Responsible, affordable homeownership is still the main driver of household and generational wealth, and is a driver of mixed-income, sustainable neighborhoods. Through the support of the Chicago Community Trust’s 2023 Advancing Innovative Homeownership Financing Solution grant opportunity, this collaborative partnership will design a meaningful solution, weaving in the talents and expertise of client-facing housing counselors from the Chicago Urban League and NHS, coupled with mission-focused and neighborhood-based CDFI lending expertise from Self-Help Federal Credit Union and NHS’ lending arm, Neighborhood Lending Services. This solution will provide a pathway to equitable financing for homebuyers of color, and help connect homebuyers with the homebuying process.
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Grant Recipient
Urban Growers Collective Inc
This project requests $200,000.00 in continued support of Urban Growers Collective’s Grower Apprenticeship program to support UGC and BSO partners’ capacity to develop curriculum that meets emerging growers’ and farm cooperative business’ need for capital access. UGC’s Grower Apprenticeship Program prepares emerging growers through workshops and hands-on engagements to develop their farm technical and farm business management basics across the 3 year curriculum, until they ultimately graduate from the program with a solid network and foundation of skills to launch their own businesses. As UGC develops curriculum for year 3 in the program and pathways for Apprentices after program completion, we acknowledge the need for land and financing capital. UGC aims to build our collective social and knowledge capital during the project period to support Grower Apprentices’ navigating of farm business administration, safety, and compliance necessary to unlock capital resources
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Grant Recipient
Southland Development Authority NFP
The Harvey Housing Initiative (HHI) is a financing LLC created in 2021 as a subsidiary wholly-managed by the Southland Development Authority (SDA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. HHI’s purpose is to revitalize and stabilize the housing market of Chicago’s South Suburbs by redeveloping vacant and abandoned homes, starting with the city of Harvey. By making carefully targeted investments in housing redevelopment, we are strengthening the physical and social fabric of the region. There is demand for affordable home-ownership opportunities and affordable high-quality workforce rental housing in the Southland, and HHI is working to provide those opportunities to the community. HHI is currently redeveloping three single-family homes in Harvey, with several properties in the pipeline as a part of a redevelopment agreement with the city of Harvey. Beyond that, HHI has targeted 100 homes to rehab in the next year of its operations – and has begun raising capital to execute the plan. There are four general contractors that oversee the development projects. TAJ Development and Pink Hats Construction are both women-owned, black-owned construction firms each overseeing one of the three current re-development projects. SAFS Group is a black-owned firm overseeing the remaining project. D.A.S Capital is the fourth black-owned general contractor working with HHI who will be involved in re-developing three of the next seven properties. We are requesting $100,000 in pre-development funds to assist in the re-development of those properties, which should each take approximately 9 months to complete. There are some adjustments to this second-round application from our initial application per city guidance to align with updated community plans, an engineering report on 15808 Park Avenue that greatly expands what we can do with the building, and some clerical errors from city hall which resulted in one of our properties mistakenly being demolished by the city. This will nearly double the budget of the project but the added expected revenue will more than make up for that. The changes are that first, instead of 176 w 154th street, we will now redevelop on 172 w 154th street, and second, that now two of the properties (172 w 154th and 15405 Myrtle) will be redeveloped into multi-family housing. Additionally, 15808 Park Avenue has room for nearly twice as many apartments as previously quoted. We are seeking the same amount of grant money and are still well within the original scope of the project. Now four of the properties will be single-family homes, two will be multi-family homes (172 w 154th and 15405 Myrtle), and our final property will be mixed-use with office space and multi-family homes (15808 Park). Though the addition of new multi-family units to our plan will increase our construction costs, but the original $100,000 we applied for will still make them economically viable. Originally, we applied for $12,500 per single-family property and $25,000 for the one mixed-use multi-family property. Both predevelopment figures include developer fees for the GCs and SDA’s developer partners, which are essential to enabling cash-constrained project participants to get these projects off the ground.
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Grant Recipient
Small Business Advocacy Council
This project will recruit local businesses with an interest in transitioning to physical spaces in the communities supported by We Rise Together, connect them with property owners, provide services such as workshops and coaching to prepare them to transition into physical spaces, and provide funding to businesses that participate in this project.