Federal Recovery Funds Dashboard

Summary

Congress appropriated trillions of dollars toward relief and recovery from COVID-19 and its economic impact. Several federal funding sources, including the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), provided flexible resources and long-term opportunities for the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois to invest in their economic recovery. But the degree to which these investments lead to an equitable and inclusive economic recovery will require more than just dollars.

The Trust’s Equitable and Inclusive Economic Recovery strategy consists of a three-part approach to ensure federal funds reach communities that need them the most and that the lessons learned from COVID-19 relief and recovery lead to long-term systemic reform.

1. Tracking Federal Funds: The Trust, in partnership with the Urban Institute, launched the Federal Recovery Funds Dashboard* to foster greater transparency and provide a comprehensive landscape of dollars appropriated toward the following purposes: Community Investment, Community Safety, Household Supports, Housing, Workforce, and Infrastructure Investment.
2. Grant Making: Community-based organizations play a crucial role in ensuring federal funds reach the communities impacted by the pandemic the most. Applying for, deploying, or meeting compliance requirements of government grants can be challenging for smaller, less-resourced organizations. The Trust’s Open Call for Capacity Building for Government Grant and Procurement Opportunities provides grant support to help organizations overcome these challenges.
3. Advocacy: Simply adding funds into an inequitable system will never lead to equitable outcomes. With the learnings gathered from tracking federal funds and supporting organizations to overcome challenges in the government grant-making process, the Trust will develop an advocacy strategy aimed at reforms to government procurement and a grant making processes to promote greater access among less-resourced organizations.

*The dashboard was developed with support from the Kresge Foundation through the Shared Prosperity Partnership.

What’s in the Dashboard

The dashboard now tracks two types of federal funds separately, economic recovery funds and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Funds.

The economic recovery funds page tracks how $6.5 billion in federal recovery funds have been appropriated by topic areas tracked in the dashboard.

Note: The total amount tracked in the dashboard is $11.5 billion. Currently, the data for the remaining $5 billion in CARES Act funds is unavailable. As more information becomes available, the dashboard will be updated.

The new Infrastructure Funds page tracks about $4.5 Billion that have been allocated or awarded to the State of Illinois and Chicago region local jurisdictions for support infrastructure improvements for airports, roads, bridges, transit, water, and other major projects, and promote access and the infrastructure of electric vehicles.