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
Jane Addams Resource Corporation
The Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC) was established in 1985. Over the last 38 years, JARC has collaborated with stakeholders across various sectors to assess the needs of the community and the clients we serve. We promote economic development by training low-income adults in the skills they need to earn a living wage. We do this through a combination of technical manufacturing training and wraparound supportive services. We believe that everyone who works has the right to a living wage; that training leads to better paying jobs; and that the key to long term, substantive change for people is a focus on careers. We promote economic empowerment through training low-income adults in the skills they need to secure entry into a manufacturing career pathway. We do this by integrating our manufacturing job training and bundled supportive services, including financial literacy and one-on-one long-term financial coaching. We offer free technical training in welding, computerized machining, and assembly at our two Chicagoland locations. We focus on these occupations because they offer career path employment with family sustaining wages, and full benefits. All trainees in our programs also receive one-on-one coaching, case management, transportation assistance, and access to supportive service funds. We screen trainees for additional needs such as accessing health insurance, housing, food, childcare, mental health support, substance abuse counseling, and domestic violence assistance. All these supports continue when our clients start working to help them advance along a career path and continue to reach their long-term goals. All our training programs offer industry recognized credentials and job placement assistance. Last calendar year, we served 135 clients overall through our Careers in Manufacturing Programs. We provided direct financial counseling to 52 clients (which includes both new trainees and graduates). We had 51 new trainees start in training, and 56 trainees earn 79 industry credentials. During this same time, we placed 35 clients in fulltime jobs at an average starting wage of $20.19. In addition to funding for our training programs and wrap-around supportive services, we are also seeking support for our expansion into an additional training facility on the west side. This will allow us to expand our commitment to west side communities and further build upon the strengths in those neighborhoods. JARC is working with other West Side partners to renovate the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation in the Austin community. Construction is scheduled to be completed in November 2024, with JARC then beginning to operate in the space in early 2025. JARC will be moving our CNC program to this new location which will allow us to expand our welding program in our current west side location within Freedman Seating. Over the next year, JARC is also expanding our impact through offering a Spanish language training option. In an effort to be responsive to the needs of Spanish speaking New Arrivals, JARC is piloting a Spanish language Mechanical Assembly training program in April of 2024. The program will be 10-12 weeks long and offer technical training and job placement to participants. We have already received great interest from New Arrivals in the program, so we anticipate adding additional cohorts after the pilot session. Social inclusion is a key initiative of our agency strategic plan. We are committed to actively and continuously working to dismantle systemic barriers. Our goal is that neither race, gender, nor LGBTQ+ identity will be predictors of our clients’ outcomes and success.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Scholars Foundation
Chicago Scholars offers a transformative 7-year, holistic program where we begin working with students the summer after their junior year of high school and support them through critical transitions to and through college, and into careers. The program goes beyond college achievement. It provides Scholars with the resources, skills, and networks to become the next leaders of Chicago and drive economic growth. Our Scholars receive guidance from mentors and individualized college counseling, attend professional development workshops, design and launch social justice projects, and gain essential work experience through internships. Unlike other college access organizations, Chicago Scholars focuses on under-resourced students who excel academically but do not have the resources to develop strong social networks to propel them into purposefully and financially fulfilling careers. Chicago Scholars candidates are academically ambitious, motivated, and committed students as evidenced by strong academic performance. The average Scholar’s GPA is 3.6, and they actively participate in extra curriculars and take on leadership roles. Even though these students have exceptional grades and potential, too often, their economic and social standing prevent them from excelling economically and becoming leaders in their community. Our new Young Men of Color initiative is called 'A Space for Us'. 'A Space for Us' was born out of the success and lessons learned of the young men of color pilot initiatives deployed across the entire CS organization. Data gathered from those experiences supports our programming focusing on sense of belonging and leadership development – we are establishing a community for the males of color across the organization and city to deepen their connection with each other through open dialogue each month along with other intentional engagement activities.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Jobs Council
A good job should be within reach for everyone, regardless of where they start or where they’ve been. But it’s not that simple. For generations, the systems and policies intended to serve us — including workforce, education, housing, and criminal justice — have created an inherent set of disadvantages for people of color. That’s why Chicago Jobs Council (CJC) works with lawmakers and community leaders to redesign policies that rectify the historical and intergenerational way in which multiple systems, including not only the workforce but also education, housing, criminal justice and others, have created an inherent set of disadvantages for people of color. We aim to improve workforce services and skill-building programs, eliminate systemic barriers to employment, and foster employment access that benefits those who need it the most. We work with our member organizations and advocacy partners to advance policies that increase access to family-sustaining jobs and remove structural barriers to employment that disproportionately affect people of color. This grant would support CJC to convene the Illinois Skills for Good Jobs Agenda table and partner with the Fines & Fees Coalition (previously the Transit Table). We will integrate our anti-racist workforce development framework into our policy initiatives. This framework envisions a workforce development system that prioritizes every worker's future financial stability, career pathway, and economic security. Our anti-racist approach to policy development and design seeks to address past harms and failures by redesigning policies with a racially equitable and just lens. It honors the humanity of all people and centers those most impacted by systemic racial injustice. We will build transformative relationships between people and systems, providing quality jobs, and removing funding obstacles that inhibit progress. We share information with partners to energize and help expand partnerships. Ultimately, we look to build partnerships with organizations that also work to eliminate wealth inequality and racial disparities that exist in the labor market. According to the Advancing Workforce Equity in Chicago report, “the Chicagoland regional GDP could have been about $136 billion larger” in 2018 “if racial gaps in employment and wages were eliminated.” And while Illinois’s clean energy workforce grew by 5% in 2021, that workforce is still only 7.7% Black in a state with a population that is 14.7% Black. The 2024 Color of Wealth in Chicago report from the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School revealed numerous disparities between city residents of different races. “White families in Chicago have drastically better wealth outcomes than all others with over five times the amount of wealth as Mexican American families, the group with the next highest level of wealth,” the report states. “Black families have a net worth (or wealth) of $0, which means that at the median, Black families’ debts cancel out their assets.” While there are a variety of factors that contribute to these disparities, we believe that increasing employment and economic outcomes with a focus on racial justice is a key to creating a more just and equitable future. CJC envisions a workforce development system where racism has no place, where opportunities are equally accessible, and where every person can flourish professionally and personally.
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Grant Recipient
FOLDED MAP PROJECT
The purpose of this application is to secure funding to use Tonika Johnson/Folded Map’s existing projects to create at least 4 Englewood community-based events and activations as well as forge or strengthen at least two partnerships with Chicago-based cultural institutions, thus laying the foundation for building a long-standing Arts and Culture Hub in the Englewood neighborhood. We seek to help re-shape the story about Englewood so that it includes being a destination for innovative and meaningful resident-lead arts and cultural experiences.
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Grant Recipient
Hope Chicago
Through a unique two-generation approach, Hope Chicago provides the resources and support for families to access and complete postsecondary education and workforce development opportunities, increasing family income, building household wealth, and addressing economic disparities. This project centers on Hope Chicago’s support for both student and parent Scholars.
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Grant Recipient
NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING SERVICES OF CHICAGO INC
The 3C Developer Alliance is a group of BIPOC and mission-focused developers collaborating to leverage financial resources and explore utilizing complex capital structures to support the acquisition of 100 city-owned vacant lots in the geographic areas of East Garfield Park and Humboldt Park in Chicago as well as the development newly constructed residential homes on those parcels. The Chicago 3C Initiative seeks to revitalize these once historically disinvested, but now gentrifying neighborhoods and counteract the displacement of its long-time residents by creating a housing ecosystem that supports the construction and sustainable ownership of affordable, new homes in these areas. This application requests funding to assist these mission-focused and BIPOC developers in the 3C Developer Alliance with funding that strengthens their balance sheet and that they may use to either secure competitive construction financing or use to fund developer cost gaps enabling them to build at scale to reach their collective goal of 25 homes for the 3C Initiative.
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Grant Recipient
Latino Policy Forum
The programs and initiatives to be carried out through this proposal will advance four vital outcomes – Closing the Latino wealth gap, Reducing homelessness and housing insecurity, Supporting the wellbeing and flourishing of asylum seekers, and Developing skilled multicultural leaders who collaborate toward civic betterment. The Latino Policy Forum will pursue those outcomes in the research-based, highly collaborative ways that are consistent with the Forum’s stated mission – Through advocacy and analysis, the Forum builds a foundation for equity, justice, and economic prosperity for the Latino community.
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Grant Recipient
Common Ground Foundation, Inc.
During our program year, mentees are introduced and participate in one of the six disciplines listed below: Dance: Mentees will be exposed to a wide range of dance styles, such as Contemporary, Hip Hop, Jazz, Lyrical, Modern, and more. Hip Hop / Spoken Word: Mentees will participate in lessons that will include rap, poetry, and production. Sessions will highlight free writing and interpreting lyrics which will provide participants with a better understanding of how creative writing (rap/poetry) can have a variety of purposes as well as be beneficial to your emotional wellness. Music / Vocals: Mentees will explore the world of vocal music, singing various genres of music, discussing the value of being an original composer and songwriter, as well as the importance of joining a performance rights organization to ensure that each songwriter's rights are safe and secure. Photography: Mentees will learn about photography and how it connects with the world around them. Mentees will also explore the power of "use what you have" by learning how to take pictures using their cell phone devices. Video Production: Mentees will learn the fundamentals that go into making videos as well as entrepreneurship in film. Using a cellphone, participants will learn the skills needed to capture, direct, and edit videos. Visual Arts: Mentees will learn to use art as a way to express different ranges of emotions and feelings. Participants will also be exposed to different artistic techniques as well as learn about the fundamentals of art. The activities and instructions are the building blocks of the year-end celebration’s final performances for each group, where students will present their talents to peers, parents, and partners during our End of Year Celebration next summer 2025.