Giving Councils + Giving Circles
Collective Giving = Collective Power
Contribute to a pooled fund, strengthening your investment impact to support women and girls in your community.
Give To What Matters To You
Engage with local nonprofits, ensuring your investments arrive where they’re most needed. You can bring fresh ideas, unique concerns, and new energy to philanthropic leadership and advocacy. Break barriers for the women and girls you care about and expand CFW’s grantmaking.
Why Giving Councils and Giving Circles?
Giving Councils and Circles link grassroots organizations to funding and the Foundation to new issues, leaders, and ideas. Through its giving councils and circles, Chicago Foundation for Women aims to:
- Exercise the power of giving individually and collectively to create an understanding of philanthropy within different cultures;
- Establish unique funds to provide additional support to the communities represented by the councils (proceeds generated through fundraising efforts by the councils go toward these special funds);
- Educate the public and take action on unique issues facing diverse communities in the Foundation’s areas of interest (economic security, freedom from violence, and access to health services and information);
- Increase awareness about the Foundation’s work within diverse communities;
- Provide leadership opportunities and;
- Amplify the voice of underrepresented women as philanthropists through democratic philanthropy.
Giving Councils
LBTQ Giving Council
Young Women’s Giving Council
Young Women’s Giving Council of CFW invests in and empowers girls and young women in the Chicago region to create social change. It is an extension of the work of the Foundation. We are young professionals committed to supporting young women and girls through philanthropic efforts. We utilize our strength as a network of young women to fundraise in order to make grants to local groups annually. In addition, we develop the potential of women as leaders and philanthropists, empowering them through educational programming, leadership opportunities, and professional development. Learn More
Giving Circles
North Shore Giving Circle
The North Shore Giving Circle of Chicago Foundation for Women (NSGC) is a group of Chicago-area women who combine their funds to address the needs of women and girls in the northern suburbs. By leveraging the power of collective gifts, our grants create meaningful impact and improve lives. Learn More
South Side Giving Circle
The South Side Giving Circle (SSGC) of CFW mobilizes philanthropic resources of women primarily on Chicago’s South Side and in the South Suburbs to invest in the economic, social and political power of black women and girls in metropolitan Chicago. We are a fierce group of women paving a path of investment into women-of-color-led community initiatives and have awarded close to $210,000 to organizations on the South Side since 2018. Learn More
West Side Giving Circle
The West Side Giving Circle (The Circle) envisions a Chicago where all Black women and girls, and their families, can thrive. The Circle seeks to support the development and well-being of Black women and girls who live in West Side communities, helping them to build collective power and achieve excellence. We fight against the toll that systemic racism, and decades of neglect and disinvestment has taken on these communities. We fight for deep and lasting transformation, and a reimagination of community leadership that centers Black women and advances racial, social, and economic justice. Learn More
Western Suburbs Giving Circle
The Western Suburbs Giving Circle (WSGC) of Chicago Foundation for Women is a group of Chicago-area women who combine their funds to address the needs of women and girls in the western suburbs with a special focus on economic security and freedom from violence. By leveraging the power of collective gifts, our grants create meaningful impact and improve lives. Learn More