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 5211–5218 of 4229 results
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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
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
Commercial Club Foundation
Chicago’s vibrant economy remains the anchor of the American heartland, generating nearly $1 trillion in annual economic activity. These impressive macro numbers mask an underlying dynamic; though minority residents constitute nearly one-third of Illinois’ population, they are grossly underrepresented in corporate supply chains. That’s why the Civic Committee launched an economic inclusion strategy called the Business Diversity Initiative (BDI). Our vision is to make Chicagoland the most economically inclusive and prosperous region in the country by increasing spend with underrepresented businesses, hiring residents from underinvested areas of the South and West sides, and creating an ecosystem of organizations working collectively to sustain change. The Civic Committee commissioned research from McKinsey that revealed that Illinois’ future favors 4 high-growth sectors; Professional Services, Financial Services, Manufacturing and Technology. These high-growth sectors drive more than 40% of Illinois’ GDP, 30% of jobs and have margins of 5-45%. Civic Committee member organizations spend annually in excess of $70B on Professional Services and $40B on Technology. Although more than 33% of Illinois residents are Black or Hispanic, their businesses account for <1% of total revenues. There is a significant gap in Chicago between high-growth sector demand and underrepresented business supply. In 2022, the Civic Committee launched the BDI Task Force, led by co-Chairs, John Rogers, Founder, Chairperson and Co-CEO of Ariel Investment and Scott Santi, former CEO, and non-Executive Chairperson of Illinois Tool Works. This twenty-person senior executive group is charged with addressing Chicago’s underrepresented business supply gap and adjacent wealth gap. In 2024, the Civic Committee hired Regina Heyward as Senior Vice President of Economic Inclusion to provide BDI executive leadership. At the invitation of the Chicago Community Trust, the Civic Committee requests support to implement the full scope of the BDI Task Force’s implementation plan. A complete budget and explanation of expenses is included herein.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Trust
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Community Foundation
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Grant Recipient
South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association
SSMMA seeks to accelerate community wealth and sustainability though intentional investment and policy implementation. We seek grant resources to address systemic issues and historic environmental injustices within the south suburban Chicago region. SSMMA, by working with our municipal members and with other civic and government partners, seeks to address inequities that affect disproportionately impacted communities and the individuals that reside within them, in order to accelerate community wealth and foster economic resiliency.
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Grant Recipient
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum Annual Gala is the Museum's single most important fundraising event, typically generating more than $2 million for museum operations, including research, collections care, education and environmental conservation.