The Future of Our City Depends on All of Us, and It Is Time to Redouble Our Efforts

Chicago is a city with limitless potential. We are the center of the nation’s transportation network, headquarters to diverse Fortune 500 companies, and we have an engaged civic and business community as well as community leaders who have dedicated their lives to making their neighborhoods better.  

Yet the history of segregation and disinvestment in Black and Latinx communities is holding us back from achieving our full potential. This is a current state but does not have to be a future state. A focus on equitable development across the city will help to unlock our potential for a vibrant future. 

For example, we know that in addition to education and employment, the built environment is a key factor in the social determinants of safety. That is, the brick-and-mortar buildings, technology and infrastructure that form the backbone of our neighborhoods and determine how the community looks and feels, and the amenities and services available—all of that is key to thriving communities. Each of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods has or has had a commercial corridor serving to build social cohesion. If we focus on these corridors, ensuring that needs are met in every community, small businesses are thriving, and meaningful employment opportunities are available, we will unleash the limitless potential of Chicago.   

That has been the work of We Rise Together since we launched in 2020: to do community investment at scale by supporting community-led development projects, strengthening local employment, and supporting Black and Latinx-owned businesses. Housed at The Chicago Community Trust and started during the pandemic as a five-year accelerator initiative to help close the widening racial and ethnic wealth gap, this funders collaborative has more than 160 different individual, corporate, and philanthropic donors, and many key partners. The interest in this effort has shown that Chicagoans understand the benefit of equitable development. Mid-way through this five-year initiative, we have learned a few important lessons: 

Every sector has a role to play, and when their work is coordinated the impact is greater.  

There’s more work to be done than any single sector can afford on its own; pooling resources and knowledge is the only way to tackle equity at any meaningful scale.  

Financing development projects in disinvested communities typically requires numerous funding sources including government, philanthropy, corporate philanthropy, and capital campaigns. It’s good for various sectors to have a lens into how and where other sectors are investing. For example, understanding how the City of Chicago and corporate philanthropic partners were tracking potential investments helped We Rise Together determine where to put flexile philanthropic capital to unlock stalled projects.  

Building leadership and implementing change across sectors also makes change more sustainable and lasting. For example, our work with 5/25 Move to Action is connecting the challenges of equitable community investment with business leaders whose hiring, expansion, and investing decisions could pull levers that make measurable change for Black and Latinx workers and communities.  

Focusing is important to make and communicate measurable change.  

Equitable development is difficult and requires intentionality. We Rise Together is layering multiple types of investments (in brick and mortar, workforce, and support for small businesses) to build healthy economic ecosystems. Concentrating multiple reinvestment strategies in specific geographies is intended to pull multiple levers for change to create more traction.  

In addition to focusing our investments, we’re also taking a focused approach with evaluating our impact. New sources of data, such as mobile phone data, are providing real-time, granular ways to understand and leverage the impact of our work, alongside longer-term data stories. Understanding the real-time value of the work and the longer-term trends are both important to identify key strategies to replicate and adapt for future equity accelerator efforts.  

To achieve real equity, community voice must be at the center of everything. 

Community members are the experts on their own experiences. Their voices must center the work all of us do on equity.  

There is no shortage of visionary projects in Black and Latinx communities. We’re finding that these investments are just the starting point for much broader visions that local leaders and communities have. More resources are needed to bring these full visions to reality.  

We invite all Chicagoans to join in the work and invest in We Rise Together. There is so much more work to be done. Through donations to the Trust or direct investments to projects vetted and championed by We Rise Together, all interested people, corporations, and foundations can help support more equitable economic development in the Chicago region.