As 2025 Winds Down…

A Note from Our CEO

As 2025 winds down and we gather for holiday celebrations, I’ve been reflecting with friends and colleagues on the challenges we faced this year. Each conversation ends with gratitude for the ways in which Chicagoans are stepping up — checking on neighbors, supporting families, showing up for local businesses, and investing in the nonprofits that strengthen our community.

Through this year of uncertainty and heartbreak, the power of our active care for one another has been Chicago’s greatest strength.

Our team has the privilege of seeing this care translated into real, measurable progress. Across the goals that guide our work — expanding homeownership and home equity, increasing income and financial assets, and driving neighborhood investment while minimizing displacement — communities are making meaningful strides. Here are just a few milestones from this year:

• Increasing homeownership: This year, through Connecting Capital and Community (3C), community partners in East Garfield Park and Humboldt Park helped 72 area residents become new homeowners. In partnership with Habitat for Humanity and Reclaiming Chicago, 100 new homes were built and sold to new homeowners in Austin, Back of the Yards, and Chicago Lawn, with 90 more underway.
• Strengthening financial well-being: Participation in Trust-supported financial coaching and counseling with organizations such as LIFT Working Credit surpassed expectations by more than 150 percent. More than 600 people reached a meaningful financial milestone, from improving credit to building savings, while 2,500 residents secured employment — bringing steady paychecks and stability into homes across the city.
• Advancing neighborhood investment: 15 community-driven projects have advanced on the South and West Sides, including clustered efforts in South Shore and Little Village. Earlier investments are also coming to life: Forty Acres Fresh Market, which opened this fall in Austin, began with a Trust Pre-Development Fund grant in 2021.

Even as these community-led efforts gain momentum, Chicagoans and the nonprofits that serve them continue to face significant challenges. We are deeply grateful to everyone who is stepping up to help. Individual donors and foundations responded with special gifts and grants to expand access to housing, food, childcare, legal services, and more. In 2025, individual donors contributed more than $2.3 million to the Unity Fund to address residents’ urgent needs. And together with philanthropic partners, we helped deploy more than $30 million in direct and aligned grantmaking to respond to unexpected challenges, strengthening nonprofit capacity, supporting essential services, and bolstering neighborhood business corridors. Additionally, philanthropic partners invested $20 million into the Resilient Chicago Fund to advance innovation to help limited human services resources go further.

As we look ahead to a new year, we do so with continued hope and deep pride in our community. The resilience we saw this year demonstrates that Chicago is not defined by its challenges but by the people who rise to meet them.

If we continue to stand together, guided by empathy and a shared commitment to our city’s future, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

Here’s to a new year of healing, progress, and the unwavering power of community! Thank you, all, for doing your part.