Paving the Path to Homeownership for Housing Choice Voucher Holders
Since the mid-20th century, homeownership has been one of the most important vehicles for building wealth in the United States. According to research from the…
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.
Explore Our Discretionary Grants
Showing 1431–1438 of 4630 results
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Grant Recipient
Ladies of Virtue NFP
Ladies of Virtue (LOV), is a mentoring and leadership program for girls, ages 9-18, living in Chicago's under-resourced communities. We prepare our girls for leadership through character development, career readiness and civic engagement. In addition, we offer our LOV for Life alumni program for our graduates ages 18 to 24. In the wake of the pandemic, the girls we serve need more empathy, nurturing, and social-emotional learning than ever. During the isolation of remote learning, many of our parents reported that their girls seemed depressed or withdrawn. Parents were also under enormous stress. When surveyed, over 70 percent of parents said they wanted mental health supports for themselves or their children. Furthermore, recent research shows that the suicide rate of Black females ages 15 - 24 increased by 59 percent (Black males ages 15 to 24 years old rose by 47 percent) but it decreased in white youth. As such, we realized that girls and their parents needed and will continue to need even more intensive and ongoing support to further their healthy development and cope with the challenges of parenting in underserved communities. Ladies of Virtue is requesting funding to provide mental health workshops, small group and individual mental health counseling to girls as well as workshops to their parents. In addition, we will provide mental health training to the 75 leaders and mentors in our program. Mental health supports would support emotional well-being and social-emotional learning. Adult workshops will cover trauma-informed care, adolescent mental health, social-emotional development in young people, and other topics requested by parents. All counseling and mental health workshops would be delivered either in person or via videoconference by a licensed mental health professional.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) respectfully requests renewed funding for its advocacy work to prevent and end homelessness. As a systemic advocacy nonprofit, CCH leads campaigns to address the causes of homelessness, including lack of affordable housing, fair wage jobs, health care access, and equal opportunity for systemically marginalized communities. By combining organizing, policy advocacy, and legal aid, CCH strives to center the experiences and expertise of people with lived experience to build power and make change. General operating support from the Trust would support: Bring Chicago Home (BCH): BCH advocates a progressive real estate transfer tax (RETT) increase on property sales over $1 million, with funds dedicated to permanent supportive housing and homeless services. State Legislation: CCH is leading advocacy on HB5265 (waives school fees for low-income charter school students); HB4432 / SB3123 (increases in grant amounts / equity reforms to TANF); HB2775 (removes source of income discrimination in housing); and SB3747/HB4242 (ensures childcare for parenting youth in the child welfare system). State Budget: CCH advocates level or increased funding to all homelessness line items in the Illinois state budget (Homeless Youth, Homeless Prevention, Emergency and Transitional Housing, Permanent Supportive Housing).
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Grant Recipient
Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago
Access Living respectfully requests $150,000 in support of our policy and advocacy work advancing the rights and promoting equity for people with disabilities in Chicago. Our efforts embody our philosophy of “nothing about us without us,” prioritizing the participation and leadership of people with disabilities in all aspects of our campaigns (i.e. strategy and tactics, circulating petitions, involvement in demonstrations, meetings with government officials, offering testimony etc.). Our goal is to build the collective power of the disability community to create systems changes that positively impact the well-being of Chicagoan’s with disabilities.
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Grant Recipient
Association House of Chicago
Association House of Chicago respectfully requests $50,000 in general operating funding from The Chicago Community Trust to support essential services offered at the agency. Services are designed to address unemployment and lack of income, food insecurity, lack of health insurance, health/mental health needs, and youth trauma. Throughout a 123-year history in the city of Chicago, Association House has remained dedicated to providing high-quality services in areas of high economic hardship. Using a trauma-informed, culturally responsive service model, we fill the gaps that leave low-income individuals and families struggling. Association House serves thousands of community members each year through direct services in four divisions that work collaboratively to meet the varied needs of those we serve: Association House High School, Child Welfare, Behavioral Health, and Community Health & Workforce Development.
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Grant Recipient
Southland Human Services Leadership Council
The Southland Human Services Leadership Council has been in existence for 10 years and incorporated for the last 4. The Council has achieved enormous successes for the region, networking 70+ human services agencies, coordinating a news and advocacy resource for members and the populations they serve, and getting people to think regionally about the South Suburbs. But in 2019, the SHSLC hit a plateau - and COVID-19 has been a near-death experience for service coordination in the region. The organizations directed by Board leaders have been in survival mode, and this application describes discovering a path to greater sustainability and impact. This funding proposal is being submitted because since its inception, the capacity has not existed for the SHSLC to define needs more comprehensively with the participation of those who are being served.
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Grant Recipient
Economic Security for Illinois
In response to the worsening economic climate, there is growing public and political support for using cash to help Americans make ends meet. Research has shown that when given unconditional cash, the financially vulnerable take care of their needs and focus their energy on climbing up the economic ladder. As the leading organization in Chicago/Illinois focused on cash, Economic Security for Illinois is leveraging its IL Cost-of-Living Refund Coalition and IL Guaranteed Income Community of Practice to put more cash in the pockets of low- and middle-income Chicagoans by expanding the Illinois Earned Income Credit (EIC) as the Cost-of-Living Refund and securing other forms of cash-based support.
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Grant Recipient
International Neighborhood Collaborative
From Spring 2022 to Spring 2023, The Dovetail Project will focus on revamping our fatherhood programming and increasing our recruitment efforts to safely return to pre-pandemic application, enrollment, and graduation levels. As a family-centered organization that takes a place-based, people-of-color-led, intergenerational approach to fatherhood services -- impacting two generations of youth at once (young fathers ages 17-24 and their children ages 0-5) -- we would be honored to receive general operating support from the Chicago Community Trust to support us in re-scaling our programming to impact more students. Among the pandemic's many long-term effects is increased stress for young parents, and this summer we are amplifying our recruitment efforts to get more young men back in the classroom and back to work to strengthen themselves, their children, their families, and their communities.
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Grant Recipient
ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS
Despite our significant successes in policy advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels, permanent immigration policy solutions are still needed. ICIRR’s evolving analysis and approach is now focused on developing innovative partnerships that support not only immigrants and refugees but all low-income BIPOC communities. We believe an integrated strategy that lifts all boats is the way to create economic equity. We will: 1. Develop the capacity and leadership of our institutional members; 2. Conduct intentional relational organizing with BIPOC-led organizations and people directly impacted by immigration policies and the racial/ethnic wealth gap; and 3. Build integrated campaigns that support Black/Brown unity and economic justice.