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.
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Grant Recipient
Metropolitan Planning Council
MPC is committed to building equity in Chicago's built environment by tackling systemic challenges that have historically marginalized communities of color. This organizational grant will support three key initiatives: 1. Great Rivers Chicago focuses on collaborative governance and community engagement to improve riverfront development and environmental stewardship. MPC will work with the River Ecology and Governance Task Force to enhance co-governance, community involvement, and long-term river asset management. 2. The Chicago Citywide Land Use & Zoning Assessment aims to facilitate comprehensive land use planning and reform Chicago's zoning regulations. MPC will conduct public engagement, evaluate Planned Developments, and develop accessible resources to guide community stakeholders and policymakers. 3. The Home Lending Partnership Implementation Program is part of MPC's Change Lab and seeks to create equitable pathways to homeownership for underserved communities. By fostering collaboration between financial institutions and community-based organizations, the program will address systemic barriers to economic stability and homeownership for residents of color. The requested general operating support will enable MPC to sustain and expand these initiatives, driving lasting community revitalization and economic inclusion for communities of color.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance
During year 1 of our program, CAFHA, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, and NHS built a new program, as part of the 3C initiative, from the ground up. The HCV Homeowner Mentor Program, was designed by and for housing choice voucher holders. Homeowner Mentors are housing choice voucher holders who have the lived experience of using a voucher to purchase a home of their own. They serve as guides for prospective homeowners and provide one-on-one support throughout the homebuying process by working with their housing counselor counterparts to help participants meet program requirements and set personal goals. An additional component of this program was the establishment of a Homeowner Club for Housing Choice Voucher Homeowners to offer peer support, tips, and resources on an ongoing basis. The Club is a place for HCV Homeowners to access trusted resources and recommendations for everything from grant programs and free homeowner resources, to home maintenance and reliable and affordable contractors for home repairs. For our year 2 of the program, we will continue our main services of mentorship and building up the Homeowner Club, all while creating greater efficiencies and nimbleness into the program design. Year 1 was defined by building and learning; we envision Year 2 as a time for deepening and expanding our impact.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Foundation/Scaling Community Violence Initiative
As an essential piece of a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence, Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago (SC2) builds on promising evidence that CVI is effective in reducing violent behavior and victimization among individuals at highest risk. Our preliminary hypothesis is: If SC2 successfully facilitates peace among groups in conflict, integrates the delivery of CVI's five core services, uses data to inform decision-making, and reaches at least 75 percent of the highest-risk individuals in a community, then there will be fewer shootings and homicides and, through spill-over effects, the overall environment will change, further reducing shootings and retaliatory shootings, the incentive to carry weapons, and other conditions that fuel gun violence. CVI organizations currently are active in 37 of the city’s 77 communities but serve only 10-15% of the estimated 20,000 of the city’s highest-risk individuals. Building on lessons from an initial effort to integrate and scale CVI in North Lawndale, SC2’s goal is to reach 50 percent in five years and 75 percent in 10 years through fully-resourced, locally-led, at-scale efforts in the communities most affected by gun violence. Our hope is that successfully scaling CVI will make a significant contribution to an ambitious goal of reducing shootings and homicides citywide by the same amount – 50 percent in five years and 75 percent in 10 years. We urge broad adoption of this goal and a “one-table” approach where government, philanthropy, the corporate community, and the social sector commit to a shared plan that includes long-term strategies and investments in local communities and more immediate interventions, including CVI.
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Grant Recipient
Carole Robertson Center for Learning
The Carole Robertson Center for Learning (the Center) seeks support for our TransformED, apprenticeship model that allows us to recruit, train, and provide educational and credentialing opportunities to individuals from the communities we serve. TransformED addresses both a need for qualified employees within the early childhood sector, and a need for employment and education opportunities for Chicago residents. By addressing the needs of both families and the workforce in tandem, the Center promotes socioeconomic mobility across multiple generations within our communities, while also providing our youngest learners with high-quality, culturally responsive teachers and support staff. Grant funding will enable us to continue offering this initiative as well as pursue expansion of the model to the youth development sector.
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Grant Recipient
LiftUp Communities
This project grant will support the employer practice innovation efforts of the LiftUp platform, comprised of LiftUp Communities NFP and LiftUp Enterprises for-profit MBE-certified social enterprise, specifically to: 1.) fortify our ability to pilot, iterate, and scale our suite of employee benefits and wrap-around services to accelerate the stability and mobility of low-wage workers and their families and social fabric, 2.) launch LiftUp Advice to formally codify insights from our management approach grounded by dignity-based operating principles, that demonstrate improved growth, profitability, and scalability of social enterprises, and 3.) aid working capital needs and directly impact our ability to unlock our Benefit Chicago $750,000 credit enhancement joining multiple sources including MacArthur and McCormick Foundation that believe in testing and scaling our dignity-based employment model.
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Grant Recipient
North Lawndale Employment Network
North Lawndale Employment Network is requesting an additional $225,000 from We Rise Together to retire its remaining debt and loan with IFF. NLEN previously received $495,000 as part of the first cohort of We Rise Together grantees, which significantly contributed to the successful completion of our new 20,000-square-foot Workforce Campus at 1111 S. Homan Ave. This state-of-the-art campus now serves as a thriving community hub, providing workforce development, financial literacy, and digital skills programs. It also hosts NLEN’s social enterprises, including Sweet Beginnings LLC and the Beelove Café, alongside a community event space, pop-up retail for local entrepreneurs, and a Wintrust Bank branch. Since moving into the campus, all programs and activities have been thriving, with the campus serving over 1,100 individuals annually. The new funds will ensure the full repayment of NLEN's construction loan with IFF, allowing us to close this final financial gap and continue our mission without debt constraints. Our goal remains aligned with reducing North Lawndale's unemployment rate by 10% by 2027 and contributing to the broader revitalization of the community through critical job training and economic development initiatives.
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Grant Recipient
Julie's Test Organization
GO renewal application summary.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Trust