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
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.
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Grant Recipient
Better Government Association, Inc.
In 2020, through a Media Maker grant, The Chicago Community Trust made a high-impact investment in the Better Government Association’s ability to deepen its coverage of underserved and minority neighborhoods. This funding allowed us to hire a Manager of Partnerships and Local Content who forged partnerships and reporting relationships with news organizations and residents in under-resourced neighborhoods in the West and South Sides of Chicago. This role focuses on engaging with partners and audiences with innovative tools, storytelling and programming that promotes community understanding of, and activation around, critical civic issues and the impact of government on their lives. The Trust’s investment in the MPLC position has allowed the BGA to establish authentic connections with underserved communities across Chicago and raise the voices of residents that often go unheard. Led by Olivia Obineme, Manager of Partnerships and Local Content, the BGA’s community engagement work in the last year included a virtual discussion with former Cabrini-Green residents to discuss the city’s broken promises in its Plan for Transformation; a collaborative effort with the Village Free Press, Austin Weekly and Catchlight to expose barriers faced by Black-owned businesses on the South and West Sides in seeking Paycheck Protection Program funding; a follow-up to publication of “The Circuit,” an unparalleled collaboration with Injustice Watch to collect Cook County Courts data, which has led to the compilation of stories from 60 community members about their interactions with the courts. And more than 110 residents have responded to an MPLC community query about how implementation of illegal drug laws affects their lives. We know that building authentic, community relationships is a critical part of ensuring our public service journalism is serving the people who need it most. The MPLC role has allowed the BGA to move beyond transactional relationships and cultivate partnerships with smaller newsrooms that have their fingers on the pulse of local communities across Chicago, and these connections have expanded audience and reach for our partners. As just one example, Austin Weekly News editor and Village Free Press founding publisher Michael Romain indicated that it was direct outreach from the MPLC that led to a partnership with the BGA, noting that the BGA’s visible efforts to connect directly with the communities the BGA covers and serves was a key factor in his decision to collaborate with the BGA. With continued investment from the Trust, the BGA will strengthen and grow our community partnerships. Our growth in the immediate future, thanks to increased funding from the Trust and others, will enhance the BGA’s storytelling and help us involve our local partners more deeply in news gathering, audience outreach, community engagement and participation in a thriving nonprofit news ecosystem. We will reach more deeply and authentically into underserved communities, work with partners to localize reporting for stories and share them more broadly, and host events that highlight the impact of government's actions and inactions on communities–informing people and empowering them with facts that hold government accountable and ultimately improve their lives.
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Grant Recipient
The Galley Chicago LLC
Request for pre-development funds for project to convert vacant bank building into a culinary studio offering Chef-led instruction, Hands on Cooking/Baking Workshops and Bootcamps, Cooking Demonstrations, Health and Wellness Workshops - Food is Medicine among others, event space rental and private dining services.
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Grant Recipient
California Institute of Technology
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Grant Recipient
Juneteenth Productions
Juneteenth Productions requests funding support for Season 3 of Change Agents. This season’s primary programmatic goals include the following: 1. To cultivate the skills of our emerging journalists that enable them to tell unbiased stories, that give voice to the unheard and that can be used as a vital tool to help build a more just society. 2. To establish a pipeline of journalistic leaders who will direct the industry toward a more just and equitable brand of news gathering. 3. To tell compelling stories of community activists who are creating grassroots change. To accomplish this, we’re adding two new elements to the program: media anti-stereotyping & anti-bias training and inclusion of emerging white journalists. The training will run for 12 weeks and will continue to pair emerging journalists with community activists to tell stories of grassroots change in an authentic voice.
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Grant Recipient
Spanish Coalition for Housing
Spanish Coalition for Housing (SCH) aims to provide bilingual (English and Spanish) HUD certified housing counseling to support affordable and sustainable homeownership for low to moderate income households (Latinx and Black) across Chicago and Cook County Illinois through its Comprehensive Housing Counseling Program, (includes Homebuyer Education/Pre-purchase Counseling, Post Purchase/Foreclosure Prevention to existing and new homeowners and owner occupied two to four unit small landlords, supported by ongoing Financial Education and Coaching). SCH serves as a regional market conduit preparing households on their path to affordable and sustainable homeownership and wealth creation that includes increased access to affordable capital.
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Grant Recipient
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
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Grant Recipient
EVANSTON REBUILDING WAREHOUSE
The Rebuilding Exchange seeks to launch an Alumni Services Education Program, aimed at engaging and supporting graduates of our transitional employment and pre-apprenticeship programs as they advance their careers in the building trades. Trainees within our programs earn a range of middle-skills credentials that support placement and retention into living wage jobs. This includes the OSHA-10 Construction Certification; First Aid/CPR; the EPA’s Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting credential (Transitional); Forklift (Transitional); and the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) Core (Pre-Apprenticeship). Graduates are then placed into full-time employment in the building trades with average starting hourly wages ranging from $15 - $18.75 for our Transitional Employment program and $15 - $20 for our Pre-Apprenticeship. We currently provide retention-focused coaching for up to two years. Funding from Bridges to Brighter Futures we will pilot a broader range of alumni services, including continuing education, professional networking and development, supportive services, and more.
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Grant Recipient
Annie B. Jones Civic Arts Center
Over the 3-year grant period, ABJ will provide civic leadership development and training to 120 emerging adults and leaders between the ages of 19-35 years old from Chicago's South Side. The ABJ Civic Arts Circle is an intensive practice-based program that engages members in understanding the tenets of leadership and the power of the collective voice. The program promotes experiential learning and the use of creative processes to help members self-reflect, translate inner thoughts to external action while building a strong sense of community connectedness. The program will be expanded to provide current alumni of the Circle Training the opportunity to shadow ABJ's President/CEO and gain hands-on skills in community organizing, grant writing, and cross-community collaboration. Also, current graduates that started their businesses will assist with organizational marketing and civic education.