grey slant background

Chicago Community Trust

Chicago, Illinois

Grants

2023 (2 years)
$500,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (CCT) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago by awarding grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. As part of its efforts to ensure an equitable and inclusive economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, CCT manages a grantmaking strategy to help smaller and less resourced community-based organizations successfully apply for, deploy, and meet the compliance requirements of grants funded through federal resources, such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This award enables CCT to provide additional capacity-building grants to organizations challenged with either accessing or complying with government grants.

2021 ( 4 months)
$2,500

Local business leaders established the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates in 1915 to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. The Chicago Community Foundation (CCF), which is the corporate affiliate of the Trust, manages donor-advised funds and other grants. CCF serves as the host agency for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. Established with support from the W. F. Kellogg Foundation in 2017, Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) of Greater Chicago at CCF strives to unearth and jettison the deeply held, often unconscious, beliefs created by racism. This award supports the professional development and training of staff on the TRHT project. 

2021 (1 year)
$250,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (CCT) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. Established with support from the W. F. Kellogg Foundation in 2017, the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Endowment Fund at CCT strives to unearth and jettison the deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs created by racism. This award contributes to the endowment fund, facilitating an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in Chicago and increasing the presence of historically marginalized residents and their narratives in recovery efforts.

2020 (1 year)
$250,000

The Chicago Community Trust, which seeks to mobilize people, ideas, organizations and resources to advance equity and opportunity in the Chicago region, is host to the Fund for Equitable Business Growth. This funder collaborative aims to markedly improve the sustainability and growth of entrepreneurs of color in the Chicago region by funding experienced business support organizations that provide technical assistance and business consulting to assist with crisis recovery and longer term challenges, with a particular emphasis on Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. MacArthur support for this collaborative effort boosts the capacity of business support organizations that are already generating results and impact within the existing Chicago entrepreneurial ecosystem, thus enabling these organizations to move with scale and speed in providing mentorship, specialized business services and access to networks for entrepreneurs of color in the Chicago region during this time of crisis. The fund aims to support at least 4,000 small businesses from underserved communities, including Black-, Latinx-, or Women-owned small businesses and small businesses in low- and moderate-income areas.

2019 ( 2 months)
$25,000

The Chicago Community Trust is a community foundation that aims to support and improve the Chicago region through grant making and civic engagement. This planning grant will support the Chicago Journalism Fund, a funding collaborative launched in partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, The Field Foundation, and The Joyce Foundation, which aims to stabilize and strengthen the local news and information sector by attracting more philanthropic resources into the local journalism ecosystem. The focus of the Fund will be organizations and collaborations, which may include nonprofit, social enterprise, and for-profit groups serving Chicago’s African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American communities. The funded activities will include the development of a charter and governance structure, a development plan, and a strategic framework.

2018 (1 year 10 months)
$125,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (Trust) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. With this award the MacArthur Foundation collaborates with the Chicago Community Trust to bring an online volunteer matching platform, called Catchafire, to nonprofits and social enterprises in Chicago.

2018 (1 year)
$100,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (Trust) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. A program of the Trust, ADA25 Advancing Leadership (ADA25) is designed to fully engage individuals with disabilities in civic life by encouraging service in elected and appointed positions, on boards, and in other roles that advance equal opportunity. With this award, ADA25 continues to offer its Leadership Institute to 16-20 emerging leaders each year; identifies board participation opportunities for individuals with disabilities; and develops a program designed to identify public service opportunities for disabled persons with the state, county, and city.

2017 (1 year 4 months)
$125,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (Trust) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. A program of the Trust, ADA25 Advancing Leadership (ADA25) is designed to fully engage individuals with disabilities in civic life by encouraging service in elected and appointed positions, on boards, and in other roles that advance equal opportunity. With this award, ADA25 pilots two new initiatives. First, it offers training in board service and matches emerging leaders with disabilities to organizations where they can serve. Second, it commissions a review of the hundreds of public sector positions in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, such that ADA25 can design programs to ensure its members are eligible to serve in these roles.

2017 (1 year)
$2,600,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (Trust) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. Through a variety of funding mechanisms, the Trust manages donor-advised funds. The Trust also supports the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities, a coalition of funders committed to reducing gun violence in Chicago by coordinating their grant making to achieve greater impact. This award supports two such collaborative efforts aimed at reducing gun violence, implemented by Metropolitan Family Services and Heartland Alliance.

2016 (3 years 2 months)
$1,350,000

The Chicago Community Trust, a community foundation dedicated to improving the Chicago region through strategic grant making, civic engagement and inspiring philanthropy, has agreed to retain key personnel to oversee the coordinating work for Benefit Chicago, a collaboration of the Trust, MacArthur and the Calvert Foundation. Benefit Chicago has the goal of mobilizing $100 million for place-based investing in those nonprofits, intermediaries and social enterprises dedicated to addressing critical problems throughout the region. Benefit Chicago as a collaborative tests a replicable model for a place-based approach that presents an innovative, simple and customizable mechanism for retail and institutional investors to help support high-impact investments, and furthers the Foundation’s deep and enduring commitment to strengthen its home city of Chicago.

2014 (1 year)
$136,000

Founded in 1915, the Chicago Community Trust and Affiliates (Trust) was established by local business leaders to support the residents of Chicago with grants to arts, social service, education, and community organizations. In an effort to spur the vitality of neighborhood business corridors in economically-depressed areas of Chicago, the Trust will use this grant for business planning to establish Chicago TREND (Transforming Retail Economics for Neighborhood Development), a city-level intermediary that will house a range of technical and financial tools to support neighborhood commercial corridor development.

2014 (1 year)
$300,000

To develop a neighborhood business corridor revitalization project in Chicago.

2013 ( 3 months)
$40,000

The Chicago Community Trust, the region’s community foundation, connects donor contributions with community needs by making grants to organizations focused on improving metropolitan Chicago. This grant funds a pilot demonstration, focused on education spending, of an analytical framework that has been developed to understand how programs perform as part of the Budgeting for Results project in Illinois. The Trust will work with Mission Measurement, a strategic consulting firm, to build a model to help the State of Illinois measure the performance of education-sector programs. The project is expected to contribute to the legislatively-mandated effort to improve budgeting processes in Illinois.

2011 (1 year)
$100,000

The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, one of the most important events in the field of peacemaking, is held each year in a different location around the world. Chicago -- the first U.S. city ever chosen -- has been selected to host the 2012 World Summit, which will bring together hundreds of delegates, students, organizations, and media representatives, highlight the role of leadership in peacemaking, and connect past laureates with their natural constituencies. The Chicago Community Trust is fiscal agent for local funding for the 2012 Summit, and this grant is part of the local contribution to the Summit’s cost.

2011 (1 year 10 months)
$150,000

The Chicago Community Trust is the Chicago region’s community foundation. It supports efforts that improve the quality of life and the prosperity of the people of the Chicago region. This grant will support the Community News Matters initiative, a grantmaking program to expand the gathering and dissemination of local news and community information in the Chicago by identifying and supporting the best entrepreneurial, community-oriented, online, niche news and information projects. In addition, the grant will help support work to develop new ways to distribute and advertise this reporting and to help these innovative local news projects achieve self-sustainability.

2010 (1 year)
$100,000

To support the Community News Matters initiative, a grantmaking program to expand the gathering and dissemination of local news and community information in the Chicago region.

2010 (1 year)
$500,000

In support of the Unity Challenge 2010.

2010 (1 year)
$500,000

In support of the Unity Challenge 2010.

2009 (1 year)
$100,000

In support of the Community News Matters initiative, a new grantmaking program to promote innovation in the gathering and dissemination of local news and community information in the Chicago region.

1999 (2 years 10 months)
$50,000

To support the Jane Addams Juvenile Court Foundation.

1997 (1 year)
$50,000

To support the Chicago Mexico Leadership Initiative, which seeks to strengthen the social, economic, and political ties between Chicago and Mexico.

1993 (1 year)
$75,000

To support the pre-development of a mid-sized theater for the performing arts in downtown Chicago.

1993 (1 year)
$34,500

To support the Arts and Culture Task Force of the Chicago Initiative.

1991 (1 year)
$100,000

To support the Chicago Performing Arts Theater project.

1984 (1 year)
$15,000

To support a conference.

1980 (1 year)
$200,000

To support the Joint Foundation Energy Conservation Fund, which offers Chicago-area nonprofit agencies both grants for energy audits and low-interest loans for plant modifications or improvements recommended by the audits.