ADVOCACY
Advocacy is defined as seeking to affect or inform the actions of community systems or any level of government expressed in laws, administrative practices, regulations, executive or judicial actions.

Access Living, $10,000
Established in 1980, Access Living is committed to fostering an inclusive society that enables Chicagoans with disabilities to live fully-engaged and self-directed lives. Access Living challenges stereotypes, protects civil rights, and champions social reform, and is nationally recognized as a leading force in the disability advocacy community. Governed and staffed by people with disabilities, Access Living combines knowledge and personal experience to deliver programs and services that equip people with disabilities to advocate for themselves. Access Living is at the forefront of the disability rights movement, removing barriers so people with disabilities can live the life they envision.

Chicago Workers Collaborative $30,000
Chicago Workers' Collaborative (CWC) organizes low-wage temporary workers to protect their rights. CWC established a coalition, Unifying Communities Against Gender Violence Alliance (UCAGEVA) to address the full continuum of gender based violence, from home to the workplace.  

Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI), $25,000
Community Organizing and Family Issues, a 21-year-old nonprofit organization, exists to develop the leadership and organizing capacity of low-income parents of color, mainly mothers and grandmothers, in Chicago’s (and, in the last few years, the state’s) low-income African-American, Latina, and racially diverse communities to strengthen the power and voice of low-income families at all levels of public life–from local communities to city, state and national arenas. COFI works intensively with moms, supporting them on personal goals and then working collectively to make their voices heard in policymaking to improve the life for low-income women, children, and families. COFI achieves its mission through leadership training, supporting the mothers in action and teaching other groups to do this work.

The Family Defense Center $20,000
The Mothers’ Defense Project advocates for mothers through legal services and education to challenge gender-plus discrimination in the child welfare that hinders mothers’ ability to raise their children.

Fund for Justice DBA Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, $15,000
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice is a social impact research and advocacy organization that identifies community injustices, conducts research necessary to develop proposed solutions, and advocates for their implementation. Chicago Appleseed is an affiliate of the Appleseed National Network of Social Justice Centers. Chicago Appleseed focuses on making court systems fair and effective for all persons.

Jane Addams Senior Caucus (JASC), $25,000
Jane Addams Senior Caucus is a multiracial, grassroots organization led by seniors in Chicago. Through leadership development, organizing and popular education, we use the power of our collective voice to work for economic, social and racial justice for all seniors and our communities.

Latino Union, $20,000
Latino Union collaborates with low-wage immigrant and U.S.-born workers to develop the tools to improve social and economic conditions. The organization wins improvements in working conditions, develops leadership and builds a larger movement for immigrants and workers rights. Immigrant women founded Latino Union in 2000 to organize against wage theft and sexual harassment in temporary employment agencies. Since their founding, Latino Union has worked with day laborers to pass labor protection laws, and with nannies, caregivers and domestic workers to pass the Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Midwest Academy, $15,000
The Midwest Academy is a national training institute committed to advancing the struggle for social, economic and racial justice. From local neighborhood groups to statewide and national organizations, Midwest Academy has trained over twenty-five thousand grassroots activists, staff, and leaders from hundreds of organizations and coalitions. Midwest Academy teaches an organizing philosophy, methods and skills that enable ordinary people to actively participate in the democratic process. The Academy has been instrumental in helping to build statewide coalitions and provides training to organizations of all sizes.

Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, $30,000
The Shriver Center provides national leadership in advancing laws and policies that secure justice to improve the lives and opportunities of people living in poverty. The organization achieves this mission through two interrelated programs: (1) Advocacy and (2) Advocate Resources & Training. Advocacy encompasses a broad agenda that includes promoting access to affordable health care, income supports and child care assistance, education equity, fair housing, employment and training, and civil rights/community justice. To achieve these aims, the Shriver Center utilizes a variety of strategies including impact litigation, policy development and advocacy, and racial equity advocacy. Through Advocate Resources & Training, the Shriver Center provides intensive training programs and resources that enable advocates across the U.S. to come together to enhance their skills, share knowledge, and advance anti-poverty advocacy campaigns and drive systems change.

SOPHIA FUND FOR ADVOCACY

Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, $20,000
Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE) addresses the culture, institutions and individuals that perpetrate, profit from or support sexual exploitation.End Demand Illinois focuses on transforming Illinois’ approach to prostitution, shifting criminal penalties to pimps and customers and providing those in prostitution with services and resources. CAASE’s sexual assault policy work addresses how the criminal justice system in Cook County responds to sexual assault.

Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, $10,000
Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network (The Network) is the only umbrella organization for the local domestic violence field. The Network operates the State of Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline, provides first response services, and trainings for the Chicago Police Department’s Domestic Violence Pilot Project and the Medical Response Collaborative.

Chicago Workers Collaborative, $5,000
Chicago Workers' Collaborative (CWC) organizes low-wage temporary workers to protect their rights. CWC established a coalition, Unifying Communities Against Gender Violence Alliance (UCAGEVA) to address the full continuum of gender based violence, from home to the workplace.  

Connections for Abused Women and their Children $15,000
CAWC provides free and confidential domestic violence services to all victims and survivors of domestic violence through its four programs: Greenhouse Shelter, the Humboldt Park Outreach Program, the Hospital Crisis Intervention Project and Domestic Violence Services at Haymarket Center.

Domestic Violence Legal Clinic, $15,000
Domestic Violence Legal Clinic (DVLC) works to increase the safety of victims with effective, full-service legal representation and emergency legal services related to Orders of Protection, child support and custody, U Visas and VAWA petitions.

Health and Disability Advocates: The Women’s Justice Initiative , $15,000
The Women's Justice Initiative (WJI) works to create and implement gender-responsive policies, practices and programs throughout the justice system to address the specific needs of women and girls around sexual and domestic abuse and trauma, and to prevent re-victimization.

National Immigrant Justice Center, $25,000
NIJC's Gender Justice Initiative works to advance protections for immigrant women and children.

UCAN, $15,000
The Phenomenal Woman female mentoring program helps young women impacted by trauma navigate the effects of community violence. Group and individual mentoring help young women develop health relationship skills.

Youth Outlook, $10,000
Youth Outlook celebrates, empowers, advocates for, and provides services to meet the ever-evolving needs of LGBTQ+ youth and their families, friends, and communities. The “Y Link” program addresses partner violence among LGBTQ+ youth.

 

Direct Service

Accion Chicago, $15,000
Accion is a nonprofit that helps communities grow by investing in people who build businesses and generate jobs in their neighborhoods. They provide customized capital solutions and one-on-one coaching to underserved entrepreneurs in Illinois and Northwest Indiana who cannot access traditional and affordable credit. Accion’s mission is to revitalize underserved communities through entrepreneurship, with a focus on supporting minority, women, and low-income entrepreneurs who address the economic distress of their communities by generating jobs and economic growth.

Apna Ghar $20,000
Apna Ghar provides holistic services and conducts advocacy across immigrant communities to end gender-based violence. Co-located services meet immediate safety needs and foster stability and self sufficiency of survivors.

Between Friends $20,000
Between Friends provides domestic violence crisis intervention services and prevention and education programs to individuals and communities throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs

Brave Camps, Inc. $2,500
Brave Camps, Inc. received a 2017 #GivingTuesday grant. At Brave Camps, girls learn to use coding, design and web development to make an impact on an issue or cause they care about.

Chicago House and Social Services, $20,000
Chicago House serves individuals and families who are disenfranchised by HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ marginalization, poverty, homelessness, and/or gender nonconformity by providing housing, employment services, medical linkage and retention services, HIV prevention services, legal services, and other supportive programs.

Chicago Women’s Health Center $25,000
Chicago Women’s Health Center’s mission is to empower women and trans people by a non-judgmental approach and emphasis on cultural competence that creates an environment in which diverse individuals can access quality, affordable health care.

Chicago Youth Centers, $15,000
For 4,000 children and families, Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) provides a pathway out of poverty and violence. CYC’s mission is to empower Chicago’s children to discover and experience their full potential. At seven Centers throughout Chicago, CYC equips children ages 3-18 with the tools needed to succeed in school and ultimately the workforce: innovative spaces to learn; engaged families and mentors; and programs that expand children’s abilities to think critically, create, communicate and collaborate. A robust STEM education program gives low-income students access to technologies, equipment and one-on-one instruction.

Crossroad Fund $5,000
CULTIVATE: Women of Color Led Collaboration for leaders of advocacy organizations.

Deborah’s Place, $20,000
Deborah’s Place opens doors for women experiencing homelessness in Chicago. Supportive housing and services ensure women can heal, achieve their goals and move on from the experience of homelessness. Through the years, Deborah’s Place has evolved to address the broader needs of women experiencing homelessness by expanding our housing options, adding wrap-around supportive services, and adopting a “Housing First” approach. Over 31 years and more than 4,000 women later, Deborah’s Place is Chicago’s largest provider of supportive and interim housing exclusively for women.

Facing Forward to End Homelessness, $20,000
Facing Forward to End Homelessness (FF) transforms the lives of Chicago’s homeless and disabled families and individuals by empowering them with the stability of a real home and the tools they need to move toward independence. Through internal programming and referrals to resources in the community, residents receive the support needed to tend to their educational, familial, financial, healthcare (mental and physical), and life-skill needs. Facing Forward offers a “hand-up” not a “hand-out” because we know that our “Eleanor Women” do not lack desire, energy, or ambition, but need support. Through our programming, Chicago’s most vulnerable women are empowered and given the opportunity to put to work their skills and potential to transform their lives, their families and their communities.

Family Rescue $15,000
Family Rescue is the only single purpose domestic violence service organization and only emergency shelter on the south side of Chicago providing critical programs and services to victims and survivors.

GirlForward, $15,000
GirlForward is the first and only organization dedicated to creating and expanding opportunities for refugee girls who have resettled in the United States. Founded in Chicago in 2011, GirlForward provides adolescent refugee girls with individual mentorship, educational programs and leadership opportunities, creating a community of support that serves as a resource and empowers girls to be strong, confident and independent.

Hana Center $15,000
The Domestic Violence Prevention and Family Support Program is designed to support and empower Korean and Latina immigrant survivors of domestic violence, and reduce the barriers to breaking the cycle of violence through counseling, case management, advocacy, and education services.

KAN-WIN $25,000
KAN-WIN provides bilingual domestic and sexual violence services, through which it provides culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate support to survivors of gender-based violence in the Asian American and immigrant communities of the metropolitan Chicago area.

Latinos Progresando $20,000
The VAWA Project is part of Latinos Progresando’s flagship legal services program and focuses on immigrant victims of domestic violence, a population facing both unique and significant challenges.

Life Span $15,000
Life Span empowers survivors of domestic and sexual violence to demand safety as a human right through client centered services, and leads social change through accountability, community engagement, and systemic advocacy.

Literature for All of Us, $15,000
Literature for All of Us believes literacy is a basic and essential human need, and supports literacy growth and development through a unique book group model in which participants read and discuss culturally relevant literature. Starting with just fifteen low-income teen mothers in a single book group, over a nineteen-year span, Literature for All of Us has aided over 8,500 participants. Through collaborative relationships with schools and community-based organizations. Literature for All of Us offers a holistic approach to literacy that reflects best practices in literacy learning, the English Language Arts, social-emotional learning, and trauma-informed methodology. Literature for All of Us also facilitates a workforce Development Book Group with materials selected to reflect the lives of working women in traditionally-male jobs.

Love, Unity, Values (LUV) Institute, $15,000
The Love, Unity & Values (LUV) Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which supports young people, ages 11-24, who face challenges with college- and career-readiness. LUV provides the foundational skills young people need to be work-ready by using literacy, art and wellbeing as a pathway to the workforce of tomorrow. LUV’s mission is to provide hope, skills and opportunity to economically challenged young people to disrupt violence and other negative social behavior, while preparing them for academic success and sustainable employment. With the help of a staff of 15, the organization provides after school programs, job-readiness training, vocational skills development, workplace internships, entrepreneurship training, job placement and other intensive supportive services to nearly 500 youth annually.

Midwest Access Project $20,000
Midwest Access Project seeks to expand women’s access to reproductive health services by training health care providers on abortion care, expanding the network of trainers across the Midwest and educating the healthcare community and general public.

Muslim Women’s Alliance $10,000
Muslim Women’s Alliance received a 2017 #GivingTuesday grant. MWA’s core focus areas are development of women leaders, fostering community service, mentoring women to build confidence, and empowering the community through awareness and action on social issues.

New Moms, Inc., $15,000
Founded in 1983, New Moms is a 501(c)3 agency with a mission to express the love of God by surrounding young moms and their children with all they need to transform their lives—providing individualized case management; housing and supportive services; workforce development; parenting and life skills training; and child health and development monitoring. The Workforce Development Program serves homeless and high-risk adolescent mothers, equipping them with critical job-readiness training and paid transitional employment at New Moms’ social enterprise., Bright Endeavors.

Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative $19,000
The perinatal enhanced case management program is based on an intensive case management model and an established tracking system to ensure that enrolled HIV-positive mothers and their infants access care and treatment from referral to six months postpartum.

Project Exploration (PE), $15,000
Founded in 1999, Project Exploration (PE) uses science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education to address challenges to equity, access, and opportunity in public education, higher education, and the professional STEM world. PE is a nationally recognized science education and youth development organization. Project Exploration is guided by a mission to empower and mentor underrepresented youth through experiential STEM programs led by university students and skilled STEM professionals. PE’s Sisters4Science seeks to positively impact girls’ educational goals, career aspirations, confidence and attitudes towards science through after-school programming led by women in STEM.

RefugeeOne $15,000
To ensure that refugee women receive appropriate treatment and to fill a gap in services for refugees, RefugeeOne offers culturally competent medical case management and mental health services.

South Suburban Family Shelter $15,000
South Suburban Family Shelter works to ensure freedom from violence by providing direct services to victims and working to transform systems, policies, and cultures within the communities that we serve.

Target HOPE, $15,000
Target HOPE is a nonprofit organization with a mission to enhance educational opportunities for minority students attending public high schools in the Chicago metropolitan area. Healing, Opportunity, Pride and Empowerment are the concepts through which Target HOPE creates innovative academic retention strategies to combat the high school dropout crisis and increase minority graduation rates in higher education. Our close partnership with a consortium of colleges and universities based on strong academic preparation by our scholars increases the level of financial support for our students while decreasing the burden of student loans. Our goal is to address the academic under-preparation of minority students by creating a college-going culture of success, support and excellence.

Teen Parent Connection $15,000
The Doula Program empowers and supports pregnant teenage women in DuPage County through weekly home visits, education on pregnancy and childbirth, labor and postpartum support and connections to essential resources such as food, housing and medical care.

The Night Ministry, $15,000
Founded in 1976, The Night Ministry is a Chicago-based organization whose mission is to provide housing, healthcare and human connection to youth and adults struggling with poverty or homelessness. The Night Ministry operates a youth shelter network, a street-based youth outreach team and a health outreach program. The Night Ministry serves some of the most vulnerable communities in Chicago including homeless or precariously housed, at-risk individuals. All Ministry programs are non-denominational, and open to all regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Traffick Free $2,500
Traffick Free received a 2017 #GivingTuesday grant. Traffick Free is a faith-motivated organization that provides the greater metropolitan area of Chicago with tools and sustainable programs to combat human trafficking and transform the lives of survivors and communities.

Triton College Foundation, $15,000
Triton’s innovative and unique STEM program, GADgET (Girls Adventuring in Design, Engineering and Technology), is open to girls ages 12-16. The program operates in the Chicagoland area and focuses on recruiting young women living in near-west Chicago (Austin and North Lawndale) and nearby Proviso Township (Bellwood, Stone Park, Maywood, and Melrose Park), in order to build a pipeline to STEM careers for underrepresented women. GADgET strengthens each participant's sense of self-efficacy through the ownership of an idea, from the concept phase through the build phase, by employing practices, methods, and tools used in a variety of STEM careers.

YWCA of Evanston/North Shore $15,000
Domestic Violence Services, the YWCA Evanston/ North Shore’s largest and oldest program, is the only comprehensive domestic violence program serving the northeastern metropolitan Chicago area.

Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center $15,000
The sexual assault prevention education programs provides free, age-appropriate safety workshops for students of all ages to teach them about recognizing the warning signs of sexual abuse and dating violence.

Irene Bayrach Anti-Violence Legacy Fund

A Safe Place, $15,000
A Safe Place provides services to survivors of domestic abuse and their children as the sole provider exclusively addressing domestic violence in Lake County. Services are designed to meet the immediate crisis and long-term needs of survivors and their children, as well as to prevent future domestic violence.

Sarah’s Inn, $15,000
Sarah’s Inn Advocacy and Counseling Program provides essential supports for victims of domestic violence. Services include: emergency support (24- hour crisis line, emergency transportation and housing assistance); individual and group counseling and advocacy; life skills (financial literacy, parenting skills, etc.); legal advocacy; children/teen individual and group counseling.

Eva Janzen Powell and Smith T. Powell Health Series

Become $5,000
Caring and Reigniting our Empowerment (CARE) brings together women and girls in the Auburn Gresham community to come together for a day of self-care, mutual learning and conversation.

EverThive Illinois, $5,000
EverThrive Illinois increases awareness of women’s health issues, with an emphasis on reproductive justice, through outreach, advocacy, and education

Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force $2,000
The Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force’s mission is to save women’s lives by eliminating health disparities in Illinois, through the lens of breast cancer.

TRAINING
The Foundation seeks to fund programs whose primary focus is to help women develop the skills and education they need in order to secure a living wage job with benefits and a career path or to advance up an existing career ladder to secure a living wage with benefits.

The Cara Program (TCP), $30,000
Cara was founded in 1991 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Tom Owens in order to empower adults affected by homelessness and poverty to find quality employment through job training and placement The Eleanor Career Advancement Program advances Cara's mission in that it helps to prepare employed Cara women for the next step in their professional journeys, whether that be additional training, enrolling in formal educational programs, or finding a more suitable job through which they can advance their pay.

Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), $65,000
CWIT’sTechnical Opportunities Program (TOP) and welding training programs prepare women for high-wage and high skilled nontraditional careers. These programs target construction apprenticeship programs and welding jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Grow Your Own Teachers Illinois (GYO), $35,000
GYO is a teacher training program designed to help low-income community members become teachers in their neighborhood schools. GYO's teacher candidates, 85% of which are women and often mothers, are low-income and working full-time in low-wage jobs.

Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC), $75,000
JARC’s Women in Manufacturing Program (WMP) provides job skills training in a high-demand sector and intensive job placement services with a focus on secure, living-wage employment with benefits and a career path.

Kinzie Industrial Development Corporation/Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (KIDC/ICNC), $75,000
KIDC will provide training, support & job placement services to working women in Chicago as a means of providing career pathways in the EMT/Paramedic/other medical fields which will lead to higher wages, job advancement and fulfillment.

Upwardly Global, $40,000
Upwardly Global’s (UpGlo) mission is to eliminate employment barriers for skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate this population into the professional U.S. workforce. UpGlo is an award-winning workforce organization with offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Silver Spring (MD). UpGlo operates an innovative online training platform with over 1,000 active volunteers and 355 employer partners. UpGlo has been at the forefront of solving the “brain waste” challenge and has assisted over 3,767 skilled immigrants and refugees, including over 1,806 women, in securing professional positions in high-demand sectors nationwide.

 STABILIZATION

Stabilization grantees provide support to training grantee participants in the following areas: housing, childcare and financial education/credit repair.

All Chicago Making Homelessness History, $50,000
All Chicago Making Homelessness History effectively combines immediate resources with strategies to address the complex issue of homelessness, leading the city’s long-term strategy to end and prevent homelessness. The Emergency Fund program provides critical financial assistance to people experiencing an emergency that could lead to homelessness. We quickly provide payments on a person’s behalf, for things like rent or even bus passes. Funding from Chicago Foundation for Women supports the Flexible Financial Fund, which allows All Chicago to provide targeted funds for women and fill gaps in the social safety net. The objective of the Flexible Financial Fund and the Emergency Fund is to provide financial assistance needed to help each person or family achieve and maintain stability.

Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS), $50,000
Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS) has 128 years of experience providing the most vulnerable populations with the services they need to build a stable, successful life. HHCS’ mission is to achieve freedom from want, fear, and injustice for people marginalized by poverty, displacement, or situations of vulnerability by developing and providing a continuum of services that meet basic needs, safeguard human rights, and provide opportunities for positive change.
HHCS’ IDEA program is the cornerstone of its asset building services. IDEA promotes the economic stability of women and their families by increasing women’s financial capability and access to affordable products and services, and helping them build assets.

CATALYST FUND FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE GRANTS AWARDED

A Long Walk Home, $15,000
A Long Walk Home (ALWH) is a women-led nonprofit that uses art to educate, engage and empower young people to end violence against women and girls. The Girl/Friends Young Leaders Institute, located in the North Lawndale community, is the only program in Chicago to equip and empower cis, queer, and trans girls of color to 1) advocate for themselves and other girls and 2) create systematic change to end gender violence. ALWH recognizes the lack of representation of girls of color in leadership roles in the movement to end violence. The goal of the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute is to transform adolescent girls into advocates, policymakers and key stakeholders in order to ultimately change and diversify the face of leadership in the women’s rights movement.

Black on Both Sides (BOBS), $25,000
Black on Both Sides (BBS) provides training, mentorship and support in community organizing for Black foster youth and parents through a rigorous curriculum in community organizing focused on the history and tactics of the foster care and prison systems in the United States. For the past three years, the central program has been the youth cohort. BBS recruits and trains a cohort of youth leaders who are dual-system involved - they have had contact with both the foster care system and the criminal justice system -- for a four-month curriculum that focuses on developing and practicing the skills of leadership development, team building, participatory research, creative writing, civic participation and restorative justice.

Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CLAIM), $43,000
Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) pursues justice and mercy for those impacted by the criminal justice system by providing legal services and advocating for systemic change that strengthens lives, families, and communities. CGLA, which acquired Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM) and its critical programming in 2014, is Illinois' leading expert and advocate on real-life effects of the criminal justice system. The advocacy work is organized into two overarching campaigns: Reunite Moms & Kids, which focuses on achieving reproductive justice and addressing the needs of incarcerated mothers and their families, and Breaking Down the Barriers, which tackles a range of collateral consequences affecting people's abilities to live full and meaningful lives.

Chicago Freedom School, $21,000
The mission of the Chicago Freedom School (CFS) is to create new generations of critical- and independent-thinking young people who use their unique experiences and power to create a just world. CFS provides educational opportunities for youth and adult allies to develop leadership skills through the lens of civic action and through the study of the history of social movements and their leaders. CFS operates in the spirit of the original freedom schools in Mississippi in the 1960s, serving as a catalyst for young people across Chicago to discover their own power to make change. Project HealUs activates and prepares young people of color ages 14-20 from marginalized communities to explore, engage and expand the work of the reproductive justice movement within their communities.

EverThrive Illinois, $40,000
EverThrive Illinois works to improve the health of women, children and families over their lifespan through community engagement, partnerships, policy analysis and advocacy. EverThrive trains students as youth peer educators in order to increase the capacity of young people to share reproductive health information with their peers and community.The Health Reform Initiative will provide training and education related to programs and policies affecting access to coverage and care. EverThrive IL will continue to train youth on advocacy topics, but this year will also engage low-income women who are consumers of state and federally funded maternal and child health (MCH) programs from Englewood and neighboring communities in the advocacy efforts.

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), $43,000
Founded in 1977, the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH) is a network of empowered youth and allied adults who transform public consciousness and increase the capacity of family, school, and healthcare systems to support the sexual health, rights, and identities of youth. For more than three decades, ICAH has organized and trained young people to advocate for issues that directly affect their lives and communities. ICAH emphasizes building youth leadership skills and serving marginalized populations.

Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force, $48,000
The mission of the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force is to save women’s lives by eliminating health disparities for women of color in Illinois, through the lens of breast cancer. We address women’s health holistically with the goal of eliminating inequities in prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship for all women.

National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, $15,000
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) continues to be the only national Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women’s multi-issue advocacy organization in the United States, organizing AAPI communities for reproductive justice through an intersectional lens. By growing a base of AAPI champions, NAPAWF can strengthen the community’s reproductive rights, health, and justice advocacy efforts and amplify the voices and leadership of AAPI women and girls.

Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), $20,000
Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ) was founded in 2009 to transform work in the distribution industry from poverty-level temp jobs into living wage jobs with dignity that can sustain families. Their mission is to shape policies that improve the lives of low-income people, engage and activate communities to support workers taking action to resolve systemic inequities, and promote economic justice and racial and gender equality. Warehouse Workers for Justice looks at the intersection of economic justice and reproductive justice and how the lack of family-supporting jobs limits women’s reproductive justice. A woman cannot raise a family with unstable scheduling, low wages, lack of access to health benefits, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace. WWJ has made significant progress on developing legislation and organizing support of its passage in the coming year.

POLK BROS. FOUNDATION FUND FOR EMERGING ORGANIZATIONS GRANT AWARDED

Black Youth Project,  $2,500
The BYP100 Chicago Chapter is a local chapter of the BYP100 Education Fund, a national organization of Black 18-35 year olds, dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. We do this through building a collective focused on transformative leadership development, direct action organizing, advocacy and education. BYP100 Chicago exists as one of the few base-building, young Black, queer and feminist organization in the Chicago-area.

Chicago Books to Women in Prison, $1,250
Chicago Books to Women in Prison is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that provides paperback books free of charge to incarcerated women (including transwomen).

Chicago Desi Youth Rising, $1,500
Chicago Desi Youth Rising (CDYR) seeks to elevate and empower Chicago youth to combat racial, economic, and social inequity and to create an intergenerational community of Desi leaders through a weekend summer leadership retreat for youth who want to grow as changemakers. Participants draw upon their diverse experiences and intersectional identities while they examine and challenge the underlying causes of their communities’ problems and conditions to become agents for social change.

Healing to Action, $1,000
Healing to Action advanced a worker-led movement to end gender-based violence by strengthening capacity in community and grassroots organizations, cultivating worker leadership, coalition building and increasing access to justice for survivors.

Midwest Access Coalition, $600
Abortion has become increasingly difficult to obtain, particularly for low-income women, around the Midwest due to a range of factors, including restrictive laws on abortion providers, mandatory waiting periods, lack of providers, and rising and inconsistent costs. MAC assists low-income people in gaining access to safe, legal abortion. 

Traffick Free, $1,400
Traffick Free is a faith-motivated organization that provides the greater metropolitan area of Chicago with tools and sustainable programs to combat human trafficking and transform the lives of survivors and communities.

The Viola Project, $5,000
Using the works of William Shakespeare, The Viola Project unites and empowers girls from diverse backgrounds so they can grow up to be whoever they want to be.  Theatre programming combines performance, text analysis, creative experiences, and exploration of contemporary issues with the aim of empowering a new generation of young women to take part in shaping a future with social, economic and political equality for all. 

Youth for Black Lives, $1,000
Youth for Black Lives is a collective that plans to unify and uplifts youth voices through art and organizing various safe and accessible events.

Enterprise Fund
Between Friends, $5,000
Between Friends is dedicated to breaking the cycle of domestic violence and building a community free of abuse. The organization centers its work to be responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities across Chicagoland. To break the cycle of domestic violence, Between Friends offers crisis intervention and support services for survivors, as well as comprehensive prevention and education programs for youths and adults.

Korean American Resource & Cultural Center $7,000
Korean American Community Services (KACS) and the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (KRCC) have decided to merge and become the Hana Center, effective January 1, 2017. The mission of the Hana Center is: To empower Korean American and immigrant communities through social services, community organizing, culture and education to advance human rights.

DORIS & HOWARD CONANT FUND FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Arab American Family Services $15,000
AAFS’ Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program (DVIPP) provides direct services to domestic violence survivors, as well as advocacy and community outreach. The program is designed to meet the special needs of Arab-American women and girls to live free from violence.

HEART Women and Girls  $15,000
HEART Women & Girls builds the sexual health literacy of Muslim communities by offering sex education and anti-sexual assault advocacy. HEART promotes sexual health and sexual violence awareness through culturally-sensitive sexual health education, advocacy, research and training to help organizations better serve the sexual health needs of Muslims.

Mujeres Latinas en Acción $15,000
Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Mujeres) focuses on gender based violence prevention and community engagement with programs addressing domestic violence and sexual assault education/intervention, positive parent support, leadership development, economic self-sufficiency and academic success.

Planned Parenthood $15,000
Planned Parenthood of Illinois’ (PPIL) mission is to be the leader in providing and promoting compassionate, comprehensive reproductive health care, education, and rights. The Teen LARC Access Campaign is a multi-faceted, youth-informed outreach and service delivery campaign to help reduce unintended teen pregnancy in Chicago and Illinois.

Rape Victim Advocates $25,000
RVA is dedicated to the healing and empowerment of sexual assault survivors in Chicago through crisis, advocacy, counseling, prevention education, and professional training services as well as changing social norms through public awareness and policy advocacy.

Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU, Inc.  $25,000
The Roger Baldwin Foundation’s Reproductive and Women’s Rights Project (RRP) is the leading legal advocate for reproductive freedom, gender equality, and bodily autonomy in Illinois.

Mikva Challenge $15,000
Mikva Challenge develops youth to be informed, empowered, and active citizens and community leaders.

FAY CLAYTON DONOR ADVISED FUND
Apna Ghar $1,000
Center for Reproductive Rights $3,000
Chicago Abortion Fund $750
Chicago Community Bond Fund $5,000
Human Rights Watch $5,000
Mujeres Latinas en Accion $1,000
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation $1,000
Planned Parenthood of Illinois, $5,000
Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU $5,000
Women Employed $1,000

Nancy M. Goodman Donor Advised Funds
CommunityHealth, $1,500
CommunityHealth is a leader in delivering comprehensive, high-quality, patient-centered health care at NO cost to low-income, uninsured individuals, and is the largest free clinic in Illinois for the uninsured. CommunityHealth provides primary care and over 20 specialty services for over 9,000 patients every year.

Healing to Action, $1,500
Healing to Action advanced a worker-led movement to end gender-based violence by strengthening capacity in community and grassroots organizations, cultivating worker leadership, coalition building and increasing access to justice for survivors.

Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing, $1,500
Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing offers an array of services aimed at fulfilling its mission of promoting decent, safe, affordable housing for low-income Chicagoans through legal representation, education and advocacy.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois, $1,500
For nearly 90 years, Planned Parenthood of Illinois has been a leader in protecting reproductive rights and providing and promoting affordable, comprehensive reproductive health care and education.

 Elick and Charlotte Lindon Fund
Planned Parenthood of Illinois $7,500
The Night Ministry $7,500
UNICEF $20,000

Evelyn Appell Lipkin Endowed Fund
John Marshall Law School $5,500

ELEANOR PETERSEN LEGACY FUND
Affinity Community Services  $15,000

Berta Waese Endowed Fund
Girls in the Game  $10,000
Options for Youth  $10,000

Strategic Response Fund

AIDS Foundation of Chicago/Pride Action Tank, $1,000
Pride Action Tank (PAT) organized a summit focused on the experiences and needs of LGBTQ older adults. OUTAging aimed to create a platform that centers the voices and experiences of LGBTQ older adults to shed light on the issues they face and gaps in services, resources and opportunities, provide a diverse and inclusive forum for redefining aging and care and develop an agenda for advocacy, resources and inclusion with and for LGBTQ older adults.

Arise Chicago, $2,500
Arise Chicago builds partnerships between faith communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education, organizing and advocating for just public policies. Arise Chicago Worker Center is a resource for low-wage workers to learn their rights and to organize other workers to improve workplace conditions.

Center for Advancing Domestic Peace, $7,500
The mission of the Center for Advancing Domestic Peace is to stop domestic violence where it starts by helping those who abuse take responsibility for their behavior, create healthier relationships and strengthen their community. Through nearly two decades of evidence-based practice, the Center has established itself as one of the Chicago area's leading resources in intervention. The Center is the only agency in Cook County solely dedicated to rehabilitating perpetrators of domestic violence.

Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network, $7,000
Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network (The Network) is the only umbrella organization for the local domestic violence field. The Network operates the State of Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline, provides first response services, and trainings for the Chicago Police Department’s Domestic Violence Pilot Project and the Medical Response Collaborative.

Illinois Birth Justice, $1,350
Illinois Birth Justice is dedicated to supporting incarcerated pregnant women and new mothers before, during, and after birth to help them build positive futures for themselves and their families. 

KAN-WIN, $3,500
KAN-WIN provides bilingual domestic and sexual violence services, through which it provides culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate support to survivors of gender-based violence in the Asian American and immigrant communities of the metropolitan Chicago area.

Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force, $4,500
The Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force’s mission is to save women’s lives by eliminating health disparities in Illinois, through the lens of breast cancer.

Mujeres Latinas en Accion, $7,500
Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Mujeres) focuses on gender based violence prevention and community engagement with programs addressing domestic violence and sexual assault education/intervention, positive parent support, leadership development, economic self-sufficiency and academic success.

Northlight Theatre, $1,800
Northlight Theatre aspires to promote change of perspective and encourage compassion by exploring the depth of our humanity across a bold spectrum of theatrical experiences. The Speak Up! Theatre for Social Change residency asks students to address issues impacting their community. 

Northwest Side Housing Center, $2,650
The mission of the Northwest Side Housing Center is to engage, educate and empower the community, working towards the common goals of affordable homes, safe neighborhoods, great schools, and a place to age well

Progressive Inc., $2,500
The Progressive Media Project helps activists and nonprofit groups advance their issues, providing access, training, professional editing, resources and infrastructure needed to stimulate local, regional and national dialogue on critical issues, reflecting under-reported perspectives and marginalized communities.

Research
Voices for Illinois Children
Voices for Illinois Children is an independent advocacy organization that champions strong public policies and investments for all children in Illinois. Voices for Illinois Children conducts analysis on the current state of investment in women and girls, and the impact of state budget
cuts.

THE 100 DAY FUND

{she crew}, $2,500
SHE CAST is an intersectional-feminist podcast created by adolescent girls and trans-spectrum youth to discuss current events and national and local issues.

Affinity Community Services, $710
Affinity Community Services is creating a guide that highlights how the wage gap disproportionally impacts LGBTQ women of color.

Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, $1,900
The 100 Days of Filipina Domestic Worker Empowerment project lifts up the voices and stories of Filipina Domestic Workers who are fighting to end labor exploitation and gender-based violence in the workplace.

Arise Chicago, $1,900
Arise Chicago will produce materials and trainings for immigrants workers to plan in case of workplace raids and attempted illegal document re-verification, educating them about their rights and how to protect themselves. Arise Chicago will also produce materials and trainings for working women to address gender discrimination and sexual harassment at work.

Between Friends, $2,500
The REACH Team’s youth leadership offering, Youth Creating Allies for Relationship Equality (Y-CARE) Program, fosters peer leadership skills for youth to address gender based violence.

Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, $1,000
CAASE works with college men to become leaders on campus who understand how the commercial sex industry harms women, and who work to oppose exploitation and violence against women in their community.

Chicago Home Theater Festival $2,000
The Festival centers the leadership of women, femmes and gender nonconforming people, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and artists with disabilities to curate performances which disrupt injustice and build towards collective action.

Communities First Association $1,000
The Black Women of the Diaspora Book Club explores female literary voices of color, creating community around creativity, building deeper relationships with each other, as well as their own voices.

Demoiselle 2 Femme, NFP $2,500
The Young Women’s Project for Educational and Economic Equity in Englewood (E4) is a grassroots campaign which promotes educational and economic equity for African American women aged 18-24 in the Englewood community

First Lutheran Church of the Trinity $500 
Grant funds were used to offset the cost of transportation to the Women’s March on Chicago, in order to include the young women and men of First Lutheran Church in this historic march to experience the empowerment of mass civic engagement.

Gilloury Institute dba Silk Road Rising $2,500
Silk Road Rising took their animated video "The Four Hijabs" to a series of venues throughout Chicagoland. Developed with a Chicago Foundation for Women Strategic Response grant in 2015, "The Four Hijabs" helps non-Muslims explore the meaning of the "hijab” by carrying it beyond the simple binary of "to veil or not to veil."

Girls Like Me Project $2,350
“A Girl Shall Lead,” is an intergenerational exchange series that intentionally creates space for dialogue, models and inspires civic engagement, community empowerment, as well as promotes self-determination among the next generation of girl voters.

Global Girls $1,400
Letters to Leaders is a letter writing campaign teaching girls the power of written words to advocate for issues that impact their lives.

Healing to Action $2,500
Coalition Against Workplace Sexual Violence is a cross-movement collaboration between Chicago’s rape crisis centers, workers’ centers and legal aid providers.

IMPACT Chicago $1,500
IMPACT Chicago offers free active bystander support workshops, providing participants with the opportunity to develop and practice speaking up for themselves and for others.

Jane Addams Senior Caucus $2,500
JASC created bi-monthly places for older women and other seniors to take public action together to focus attention on the issues of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, including a strong gender and racial justice lens on the issues impacting senior women.  

KAN-WIN $1,340
KAN-WIN staff attended the Women’s March on Washington as part of the National Korean American Coalition to End Domestic Abuse (NKACEDA).

Ladies of Virtue $2,000
Ladies of Virtue serves girls living in under-resourced communities, instilling purpose, passion and perseverance in girls to ensure they have the confidence to succeed in every aspect of their lives. LOV Sisters United is a project to engage men and boys, women and girls in conversations about gender equity.

Latino Union of Chicago $2,500
Latino Union engages domestic workers and their allies in spreading the word about protections included in the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, highlighting the bill’s protections against workplace sexual violence.

liftUPlift Worldwide $1,000
liftUPlift Worldwide engages communities in preventing sexual violence and eliminating rape culture through Sexual Assault Prevention Week, as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Mujeres Latinas en Accion $2,500
Cafes en Accion gather community members in Pilsen and North Riverside to share their concerns and develop a plan of action to mobilize the community.

Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality: Northside $2,000
ONE Northside organizes people and institutions from Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown, Ravenswood, North Center, Lake View and Lincoln Park to eliminate injustice and create a diverse, united North Side of Chicago.

Rape Victim Advocates $565
Rape Victim Advocates (RVA) hosted postcard writing events to encourage the community to write their representative about the critical importance of services for survivors of sexual violence.

Ravenswood Community Council $600
The Ravenswood’s Women Leaders in Business 2017 Roundtable brought together an intergenerational group of women professionals from diverse backgrounds to discuss topics like equal pay, work-life balance, and how to navigate the current professional climate.

Restored Hope 1,500
Restored Hope combines the tools of yoga, art, gardening and activism to engage women and girls to mindfully heal from trauma often caused by violence.

The Partnership for a Safer Lake County, $2,500
The Partnership for a Safer Lake County, with the County Board President and State’s Attorney, convened a Summit to dialogue with leaders and to address a recent rise in activity targeting women and girls of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people and those with disabilities.

The Viola Project $1,460
The Viola Project offered a week-long, tuition free day camp where young women explored Shakespeare’s play “Measure for Measure,” which deals with issues of justice, the struggle for power and the importance of representation in government.

Victory Gardens Theater,  $1,775
Victory Gardens Theater is dedicated to engaging a diverse community by programming events centered around its plays’ themes that reflect the current local and national cultural climate.

YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, $1,000
YWCA Metropolitan Chicago sent a contingent of 14 staff members to Washington D.C., and gathered additional supporters in Chicago, to advocate for working women, mothers, immigrants, people of diverse religious faiths, LGBTQIA people, people of color, people with disabilities and survivors of sexual assault.

 

ADVOCACY
Advocacy is defined as seeking to affect or inform the actions of community systems or any level of government expressed in laws, administrative practices, regulations, executive or judicial actions.

Access Living, $10,000
Established in 1980, Access Living is committed to fostering an inclusive society that enables Chicagoans with disabilities to live fully-engaged and self-directed lives. Access Living challenges stereotypes, protects civil rights, and champions social reform, and is nationally recognized as a leading force in the disability advocacy community. Governed and staffed by people with disabilities, Access Living combines knowledge and personal experience to deliver programs and services that equip people with disabilities to advocate for themselves. Access Living is at the forefront of the disability rights movement, removing barriers so people with disabilities can live the life they envision.

Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI), $25,000
Community Organizing and Family Issues, a 21-year-old nonprofit organization, exists to develop the leadership and organizing capacity of low-income parents of color, mainly mothers and grandmothers, in Chicago’s (and, in the last few years, the state’s) low-income African-American, Latina, and racially diverse communities to strengthen the power and voice of low-income families at all levels of public life–from local communities to city, state and national arenas. COFI works intensively with moms, supporting them on personal goals and then working collectively to make their voices heard in policymaking to improve the life for low-income women, children, and families. COFI achieves its mission through leadership training, supporting the mothers in action and teaching other groups to do this work.

Fund for Justice DBA Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, $15,000
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice is a social impact research and advocacy organization that identifies community injustices, conducts research necessary to develop proposed solutions, and advocates for their implementation. Chicago Appleseed is an affiliate of the Appleseed National Network of Social Justice Centers. Chicago Appleseed focuses on making court systems fair and effective for all persons.

Jane Addams Senior Caucus (JASC), $25,000
Jane Addams Senior Caucus is a multiracial, grassroots organization led by seniors in Chicago. Through leadership development, organizing and popular education, we use the power of our collective voice to work for economic, social and racial justice for all seniors and our communities.

Latino Union, $20,000
Latino Union collaborates with low-wage immigrant and U.S.-born workers to develop the tools to improve social and economic conditions. The organization wins improvements in working conditions, develops leadership and builds a larger movement for immigrants and workers rights. Immigrant women founded Latino Union in 2000 to organize against wage theft and sexual harassment in temporary employment agencies. Since their founding, Latino Union has worked with day laborers to pass labor protection laws, and with nannies, caregivers and domestic workers to pass the Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Midwest Academy, $15,000
The Midwest Academy is a national training institute committed to advancing the struggle for social, economic and racial justice. From local neighborhood groups to statewide and national organizations, Midwest Academy has trained over twenty-five thousand grassroots activists, staff, and leaders from hundreds of organizations and coalitions. Midwest Academy teaches an organizing philosophy, methods and skills that enable ordinary people to actively participate in the democratic process. The Academy has been instrumental in helping to build statewide coalitions and provides training to organizations of all sizes.

Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, $30,000
The Shriver Center provides national leadership in advancing laws and policies that secure justice to improve the lives and opportunities of people living in poverty. The organization achieves this mission through two interrelated programs: (1) Advocacy and (2) Advocate Resources & Training. Advocacy encompasses a broad agenda that includes promoting access to affordable health care, income supports and child care assistance, education equity, fair housing, employment and training, and civil rights/community justice. To achieve these aims, the Shriver Center utilizes a variety of strategies including impact litigation, policy development and advocacy, and racial equity advocacy. Through Advocate Resources & Training, the Shriver Center provides intensive training programs and resources that enable advocates across the U.S. to come together to enhance their skills, share knowledge, and advance anti-poverty advocacy campaigns and drive systems change.

Direct Service

Accion Chicago, $15,000
Accion is a nonprofit that helps communities grow by investing in people who build businesses and generate jobs in their neighborhoods. They provide customized capital solutions and one-on-one coaching to underserved entrepreneurs in Illinois and Northwest Indiana who cannot access traditional and affordable credit. Accion’s mission is to revitalize underserved communities through entrepreneurship, with a focus on supporting minority, women, and low-income entrepreneurs who address the economic distress of their communities by generating jobs and economic growth.

Chicago House and Social Services, $20,000
Chicago House serves individuals and families who are disenfranchised by HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ marginalization, poverty, homelessness, and/or gender nonconformity by providing housing, employment services, medical linkage and retention services, HIV prevention services, legal services, and other supportive programs.

Chicago Youth Centers, $15,000
For 4,000 children and families, Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) provides a pathway out of poverty and violence. CYC’s mission is to empower Chicago’s children to discover and experience their full potential. At seven Centers throughout Chicago, CYC equips children ages 3-18 with the tools needed to succeed in school and ultimately the workforce: innovative spaces to learn; engaged families and mentors; and programs that expand children’s abilities to think critically, create, communicate and collaborate. A robust STEM education program gives low-income students access to technologies, equipment and one-on-one instruction.

Deborah’s Place, $20,000
Deborah’s Place opens doors for women experiencing homelessness in Chicago. Supportive housing and services ensure women can heal, achieve their goals and move on from the experience of homelessness. Through the years, Deborah’s Place has evolved to address the broader needs of women experiencing homelessness by expanding our housing options, adding wrap-around supportive services, and adopting a “Housing First” approach. Over 31 years and more than 4,000 women later, Deborah’s Place is Chicago’s largest provider of supportive and interim housing exclusively for women.

Facing Forward to End Homelessness, $20,000
Facing Forward to End Homelessness (FF) transforms the lives of Chicago’s homeless and disabled families and individuals by empowering them with the stability of a real home and the tools they need to move toward independence. Through internal programming and referrals to resources in the community, residents receive the support needed to tend to their educational, familial, financial, healthcare (mental and physical), and life-skill needs. Facing Forward offers a “hand-up” not a “hand-out” because we know that our “Eleanor Women” do not lack desire, energy, or ambition, but need support. Through our programming, Chicago’s most vulnerable women are empowered and given the opportunity to put to work their skills and potential to transform their lives, their families and their communities.

GirlForward, $15,000
GirlForward is the first and only organization dedicated to creating and expanding opportunities for refugee girls who have resettled in the United States. Founded in Chicago in 2011, GirlForward provides adolescent refugee girls with individual mentorship, educational programs and leadership opportunities, creating a community of support that serves as a resource and empowers girls to be strong, confident and independent.

Literature for All of Us, $15,000
Literature for All of Us believes literacy is a basic and essential human need, and supports literacy growth and development through a unique book group model in which participants read and discuss culturally relevant literature. Starting with just fifteen low-income teen mothers in a single book group, over a nineteen-year span, Literature for All of Us has aided over 8,500 participants. Through collaborative relationships with schools and community-based organizations. Literature for All of Us offers a holistic approach to literacy that reflects best practices in literacy learning, the English Language Arts, social-emotional learning, and trauma-informed methodology. Literature for All of Us also facilitates a workforce Development Book Group with materials selected to reflect the lives of working women in traditionally-male jobs.

Love, Unity, Values (LUV) Institute, $15,000
The Love, Unity & Values (LUV) Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which supports young people, ages 11-24, who face challenges with college- and career-readiness. LUV provides the foundational skills young people need to be work-ready by using literacy, art and wellbeing as a pathway to the workforce of tomorrow. LUV’s mission is to provide hope, skills and opportunity to economically challenged young people to disrupt violence and other negative social behavior, while preparing them for academic success and sustainable employment. With the help of a staff of 15, the organization provides after school programs, job-readiness training, vocational skills development, workplace internships, entrepreneurship training, job placement and other intensive supportive services to nearly 500 youth annually.

New Moms, Inc., $15,000
Founded in 1983, New Moms is a 501(c)3 agency with a mission to express the love of God by surrounding young moms and their children with all they need to transform their lives—providing individualized case management; housing and supportive services; workforce development; parenting and life skills training; and child health and development monitoring. The Workforce Development Program serves homeless and high-risk adolescent mothers, equipping them with critical job-readiness training and paid transitional employment at New Moms’ social enterprise., Bright Endeavors.

Project Exploration (PE), $15,000
Founded in 1999, Project Exploration (PE) uses science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education to address challenges to equity, access, and opportunity in public education, higher education, and the professional STEM world. PE is a nationally recognized science education and youth development organization. Project Exploration is guided by a mission to empower and mentor underrepresented youth through experiential STEM programs led by university students and skilled STEM professionals. PE’s Sisters4Science seeks to positively impact girls’ educational goals, career aspirations, confidence and attitudes towards science through after-school programming led by women in STEM.

Target HOPE, $15,000
Target HOPE is a nonprofit organization with a mission to enhance educational opportunities for minority students attending public high schools in the Chicago metropolitan area. Healing, Opportunity, Pride and Empowerment are the concepts through which Target HOPE creates innovative academic retention strategies to combat the high school dropout crisis and increase minority graduation rates in higher education. Our close partnership with a consortium of colleges and universities based on strong academic preparation by our scholars increases the level of financial support for our students while decreasing the burden of student loans. Our goal is to address the academic under-preparation of minority students by creating a college-going culture of success, support and excellence.

The Night Ministry, $15,000
Founded in 1976, The Night Ministry is a Chicago-based organization whose mission is to provide housing, healthcare and human connection to youth and adults struggling with poverty or homelessness. The Night Ministry operates a youth shelter network, a street-based youth outreach team and a health outreach program. The Night Ministry serves some of the most vulnerable communities in Chicago including homeless or precariously housed, at-risk individuals. All Ministry programs are non-denominational, and open to all regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Triton College Foundation, $15,000
Triton’s innovative and unique STEM program, GADgET (Girls Adventuring in Design, Engineering and Technology), is open to girls ages 12-16. The program operates in the Chicagoland area and focuses on recruiting young women living in near-west Chicago (Austin and North Lawndale) and nearby Proviso Township (Bellwood, Stone Park, Maywood, and Melrose Park), in order to build a pipeline to STEM careers for underrepresented women. GADgET strengthens each participant's sense of self-efficacy through the ownership of an idea, from the concept phase through the build phase, by employing practices, methods, and tools used in a variety of STEM careers.

 

TRAINING
The Foundation seeks to fund programs whose primary focus is to help women develop the skills and education they need in order to secure a living wage job with benefits and a career path or to advance up an existing career ladder to secure a living wage with benefits.

The Cara Program (TCP), $30,000
Cara was founded in 1991 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Tom Owens in order to empower adults affected by homelessness and poverty to find quality employment through job training and placement The Eleanor Career Advancement Program advances Cara's mission in that it helps to prepare employed Cara women for the next step in their professional journeys, whether that be additional training, enrolling in formal educational programs, or finding a more suitable job through which they can advance their pay.

Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), $65,000
CWIT’sTechnical Opportunities Program (TOP) and welding training programs prepare women for high-wage and high skilled nontraditional careers. These programs target construction apprenticeship programs and welding jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Grow Your Own Teachers Illinois (GYO), $35,000
GYO is a teacher training program designed to help low-income community members become teachers in their neighborhood schools. GYO's teacher candidates, 85% of which are women and often mothers, are low-income and working full-time in low-wage jobs.

Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC), $75,000
JARC’s Women in Manufacturing Program (WMP) provides job skills training in a high-demand sector and intensive job placement services with a focus on secure, living-wage employment with benefits and a career path.

Kinzie Industrial Development Corporation/Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (KIDC/ICNC), $75,000
KIDC will provide training, support & job placement services to working women in Chicago as a means of providing career pathways in the EMT/Paramedic/other medical fields which will lead to higher wages, job advancement and fulfillment.

Upwardly Global, $40,000
Upwardly Global’s (UpGlo) mission is to eliminate employment barriers for skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate this population into the professional U.S. workforce. UpGlo is an award-winning workforce organization with offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Silver Spring (MD). UpGlo operates an innovative online training platform with over 1,000 active volunteers and 355 employer partners. UpGlo has been at the forefront of solving the “brain waste” challenge and has assisted over 3,767 skilled immigrants and refugees, including over 1,806 women, in securing professional positions in high-demand sectors nationwide.

STABILIZATION
Stabilization grantees provide support to training grantee participants in the following areas: housing, childcare and financial education/credit repair.

All Chicago Making Homelessness History, $50,000
All Chicago Making Homelessness History effectively combines immediate resources with strategies to address the complex issue of homelessness, leading the city’s long-term strategy to end and prevent homelessness. The Emergency Fund program provides critical financial assistance to people experiencing an emergency that could lead to homelessness. We quickly provide payments on a person’s behalf, for things like rent or even bus passes. Funding from Chicago Foundation for Women supports the Flexible Financial Fund, which allows All Chicago to provide targeted funds for women and fill gaps in the social safety net. The objective of the Flexible Financial Fund and the Emergency Fund is to provide financial assistance needed to help each person or family achieve and maintain stability.

Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS), $50,000
Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS) has 128 years of experience providing the most vulnerable populations with the services they need to build a stable, successful life. HHCS’ mission is to achieve freedom from want, fear, and injustice for people marginalized by poverty, displacement, or situations of vulnerability by developing and providing a continuum of services that meet basic needs, safeguard human rights, and provide opportunities for positive change.
HHCS’ IDEA program is the cornerstone of its asset building services. IDEA promotes the economic stability of women and their families by increasing women’s financial capability and access to affordable products and services, and helping them build assets.

CATALYST FUND FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE GRANTS AWARDED

A Long Walk Home, $15,000
A Long Walk Home (ALWH) is a women-led nonprofit that uses art to educate, engage and empower young people to end violence against women and girls. The Girl/Friends Young Leaders Institute, located in the North Lawndale community, is the only program in Chicago to equip and empower cis, queer, and trans girls of color to 1) advocate for themselves and other girls and 2) create systematic change to end gender violence. ALWH recognizes the lack of representation of girls of color in leadership roles in the movement to end violence. The goal of the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute is to transform adolescent girls into advocates, policymakers and key stakeholders in order to ultimately change and diversify the face of leadership in the women’s rights movement.

Black on Both Sides (BOBS), $25,000
Black on Both Sides (BBS) provides training, mentorship and support in community organizing for Black foster youth and parents through a rigorous curriculum in community organizing focused on the history and tactics of the foster care and prison systems in the United States. For the past three years, the central program has been the youth cohort. BBS recruits and trains a cohort of youth leaders who are dual-system involved - they have had contact with both the foster care system and the criminal justice system -- for a four-month curriculum that focuses on developing and practicing the skills of leadership development, team building, participatory research, creative writing, civic participation and restorative justice.

Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CLAIM), $43,000
Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) pursues justice and mercy for those impacted by the criminal justice system by providing legal services and advocating for systemic change that strengthens lives, families, and communities. CGLA, which acquired Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM) and its critical programming in 2014, is Illinois' leading expert and advocate on real-life effects of the criminal justice system. The advocacy work is organized into two overarching campaigns: Reunite Moms & Kids, which focuses on achieving reproductive justice and addressing the needs of incarcerated mothers and their families, and Breaking Down the Barriers, which tackles a range of collateral consequences affecting people's abilities to live full and meaningful lives.

Chicago Freedom School, $21,000
The mission of the Chicago Freedom School (CFS) is to create new generations of critical- and independent-thinking young people who use their unique experiences and power to create a just world. CFS provides educational opportunities for youth and adult allies to develop leadership skills through the lens of civic action and through the study of the history of social movements and their leaders. CFS operates in the spirit of the original freedom schools in Mississippi in the 1960s, serving as a catalyst for young people across Chicago to discover their own power to make change. Project HealUs activates and prepares young people of color ages 14-20 from marginalized communities to explore, engage and expand the work of the reproductive justice movement within their communities.

EverThrive Illinois, $40,000
EverThrive Illinois works to improve the health of women, children and families over their lifespan through community engagement, partnerships, policy analysis and advocacy. EverThrive trains students as youth peer educators in order to increase the capacity of young people to share reproductive health information with their peers and community.The Health Reform Initiative will provide training and education related to programs and policies affecting access to coverage and care. EverThrive IL will continue to train youth on advocacy topics, but this year will also engage low-income women who are consumers of state and federally funded maternal and child health (MCH) programs from Englewood and neighboring communities in the advocacy efforts.

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), $43,000
Founded in 1977, the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH) is a network of empowered youth and allied adults who transform public consciousness and increase the capacity of family, school, and healthcare systems to support the sexual health, rights, and identities of youth. For more than three decades, ICAH has organized and trained young people to advocate for issues that directly affect their lives and communities. ICAH emphasizes building youth leadership skills and serving marginalized populations.

Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force, $48,000
The mission of the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force is to save women’s lives by eliminating health disparities for women of color in Illinois, through the lens of breast cancer. We address women’s health holistically with the goal of eliminating inequities in prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship for all women.

National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, $15,000
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) continues to be the only national Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women’s multi-issue advocacy organization in the United States, organizing AAPI communities for reproductive justice through an intersectional lens. By growing a base of AAPI champions, NAPAWF can strengthen the community’s reproductive rights, health, and justice advocacy efforts and amplify the voices and leadership of AAPI women and girls.

Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), $20,000
Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ) was founded in 2009 to transform work in the distribution industry from poverty-level temp jobs into living wage jobs with dignity that can sustain families. Their mission is to shape policies that improve the lives of low-income people, engage and activate communities to support workers taking action to resolve systemic inequities, and promote economic justice and racial and gender equality. Warehouse Workers for Justice looks at the intersection of economic justice and reproductive justice and how the lack of family-supporting jobs limits women’s reproductive justice. A woman cannot raise a family with unstable scheduling, low wages, lack of access to health benefits, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace. WWJ has made significant progress on developing legislation and organizing support of its passage in the coming year.

POLK BROS. FOUNDATION FUND FOR EMERGING ORGANIZATIONS GRANT AWARDED
Healing to Action, $1,000
Healing to Action advanced a worker-led movement to end gender-based violence by strengthening capacity in community and grassroots organizations, cultivating worker leadership, coalition building and increasing access to justice for survivors.

Enterprise Fund
Between Friends, $5,000
Between Friends is dedicated to breaking the cycle of domestic violence and building a community free of abuse. The organization centers its work to be responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities across Chicagoland. To break the cycle of domestic violence, Between Friends offers crisis intervention and support services for survivors, as well as comprehensive prevention and education programs for youths and adults.

Nancy M. Goodman Donor Advised Funds
CommunityHealth, $1,500
CommunityHealth is a leader in delivering comprehensive, high-quality, patient-centered health care at NO cost to low-income, uninsured individuals, and is the largest free clinic in Illinois for the uninsured. CommunityHealth provides primary care and over 20 specialty services for over 9,000 patients every year.

Healing to Action, $1,500
Healing to Action advanced a worker-led movement to end gender-based violence by strengthening capacity in community and grassroots organizations, cultivating worker leadership, coalition building and increasing access to justice for survivors.

Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing, $1,500
Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing offers an array of services aimed at fulfilling its mission of promoting decent, safe, affordable housing for low-income Chicagoans through legal representation, education and advocacy.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois, $1,500
For nearly 90 years, Planned Parenthood of Illinois has been a leader in protecting reproductive rights and providing and promoting affordable, comprehensive reproductive health care and education.

Strategic Response Fund
Arise Chicago, $2,500
Arise Chicago builds partnerships between faith communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education, organizing and advocating for just public policies. Arise Chicago Worker Center is a resource for low-wage workers to learn their rights and to organize other workers to improve workplace conditions.

Center for Advancing Domestic Peace, $7,500
The mission of the Center for Advancing Domestic Peace is to stop domestic violence where it starts by helping those who abuse take responsibility for their behavior, create healthier relationships and strengthen their community. Through nearly two decades of evidence-based practice, the Center has established itself as one of the Chicago area's leading resources in intervention. The Center is the only agency in Cook County solely dedicated to rehabilitating perpetrators of domestic violence.

Progressive Inc., $2,500
The Progressive Media Project helps activists and nonprofit groups advance their issues, providing access, training, professional editing, resources and infrastructure needed to stimulate local, regional and national dialogue on critical issues, reflecting under-reported perspectives and marginalized communities.

Research
Voices for Illinois Children
Voices for Illinois Children is an independent advocacy organization that champions strong public policies and investments for all children in Illinois. Voices for Illinois Children conducts analysis on the current state of investment in women and girls, and the impact of state budget
cuts.

ADVOCACY
Advocacy is defined as seeking to affect or inform the actions of community systems or any level of government expressed in laws, administrative practices, regulations, executive or judicial actions.

Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), $20,000
CWIT has a unique opportunity to strengthen and expand one important arm of its advocacy and policy work, namely building the capacity of apprenticeship programs and pipeline training and workforce development providers to recruit and retain aspiring tradeswomen through its role as DOL's newly designated Technical Assistance Center in the Midwest.

Community Organizing & Family Issues (COFI), $25,000
COFI’s Citywide Public Policy Leadership and Advocacy Project seeks to develop the policy leadership skills of hundreds of low-income women of color and engage them in campaigns that address the root causes of family poverty and help to strengthen family economic security.

Fund for Justice DBA Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, $15,000
Chicago Appleseed has been working with the Circuit Court of Cook County to bring about a new model of adjudication that will increase the effectiveness, the fairness, and the efficiency of the current system dealing with child support adjudication - and particularly the IVD program which focuses on unmarried women seeking child support. Specifically, Chicago Appleseed will develop and implement a community courts model in the Domestic Relations Division to make child support adjudication more effective - and thereby bring needed additional resources to women and their children.

Jane Addams Senior Caucus (JASC), $15,000
The Strengthen and Protecting Retirement and Economic Justice Campaign will build relationships, power and skills among a multigenerational movement of women so they can discuss how to create retirement security and economic policies that works to the benefit of women and society as a whole. They will develop campaign strategies and actions that come out of a gender analysis and are grounded in the real problems that women face.

Latino Union, $25,000
The Latino Union’s Chicago Coalition of Household Workers is a transformative program for women day laborers, domestic workers, and other women workers to create just conditions in the workplace, home, and community. Members are housekeepers, nannies, and caregivers for the elderly and people with disabilities who work in private homes.

Midwest Academy, $20,000
The Women's Legislative Leadership Project (WLLP) is an intensive policy training program that equips women, their allies, and their organizations with the capacity to advocate successfully for sound policies that ensure economic stability, equity, and justice for women in Illinois, with a focus on benefiting older women of color and their communities.

Women Employed, $15,000
Women Employed will continue a systems-change effort with City Colleges of Chicago to expand bridge programming; create an on-ramp within City Colleges from adult education into post-secondary education and training; and extend this on-ramp to include community-based organizations.

BEST PRACTICE
The Foundation supports exemplary programs that have consistently demonstrated superior results and illustrates the effectiveness of the program.

Deborah’s Place, $20,000
Teresa's Interim Housing Program is a 120-day residential program that assists approximately 40 women each year in transitioning from homelessness to housing.

Facing Forward to End Homelessness, $20,000
Facing Forward to End Homelessness’ Housing First program provides housing and comprehensive case management to homeless women and children. The program relies on collaboration within the interdisciplinary team of case managers, nurse practitioners and supervisory staff as well as an outside referral network of service professionals and organizations to achieve the desired outcomes.

Project Exploration (PE), $15,000
PE’s Services for Girls, which includes Sisters4Science, Outdoor Leadership Retreats, and Girls Health and Science Day (GHSD), is a series of girls-only science education programs offered year round and designed to recruit and retain minority middle and high school girls into science.

INNOVATION
The Foundation supports the development of programs that are experimenting with new models of service delivery, are addressing gaps in current systems, and testing new approaches.

Chicago House & Social Services, $20,000
Chicago House's innovative TransWorks Program is the only employment program in the Midwest specifically addressing the barriers that transgender people face in the workforce. Anchoring the TransWorks program is our TransLife Center that offers comprehensive, wrap-around support services: supportive housing, legal services and representation, linkage to culturally competent medical providers, a drop-in medical clinic, a safe and affirming resource center, and employment services. The majority of the participants will be transgender women of color.

GirlForward, $15,000
GirlForward's Mentorship Program matches refugee girls ages 14-19 with women volunteers who commit to one year of mentoring, meeting weekly with girls to set and achieve short and long-term goals and build crucial assets. Girls participating in the Mentorship Program also receive one-on-one support from GirlForward staff, including assistance with college and scholarship applications and job placement.

Literature for All of Us, $15,000
Literature for All of Us’ Workforce Development Book Groups is a collaboration with Chicago Women in Trades. The program will target women participating in job-readiness training programs. The program will inspire and empower those who struggle and feel voiceless, the community of tradeswomen-in-training organically became part of the community of book group participants who have benefited from the program.

New Moms, $15,000
New Moms’ Academy of Professional Development (the Academy) equips young mothers (aged 16-24) with the skills and resources necessary to obtain and retain quality employment. The Academy begins with individualized career planning. Clients attend 5 weeks of daily, career-oriented life skills and job-readiness training before advancing to paid transitional jobs at Bright Endeavors, a social enterprise.

The Night Ministry, $15,000
The Night Ministry’s Response-Ability Pregnant and Parenting Program (RAPPP) provides safe shelter to eight young women, and their infants, at a time and offers non-judgmental support services, including health care, domestic violence prevention, and reproductive justice education and resources.

Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC), $20,000
WBDC’s Women's Vetrepreneurship Program (WVP) was recently launched to meet the needs of women veterans who want to pursue self-employment or business ownership as a pathway to economic security and independence.

PATHWAYS TO ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY
Designed by the former Eleanor Foundation, the Pathways model focuses on workforce development as an essential economic security initiative.

The combination of training opportunities and comprehensive support services is designed to allow women to fully participate in programming that will lead to living wage jobs with benefits—and have clear pathways for career advancement and professional development.

Upwardly Global, $40,000
UpGlo's Women's Program is designed to provide participants with a direct path to careers with higher wages and opportunities for advancement through targeted employment readiness curricula and on-going skills development.

Women Employed Institute (WE), $75,000
WE’s Complete the Degree targets low-income women who have some college, but have dropped out before obtaining a credential. Through individual advising participants choose the right college and program, transfer their existing credits, seek prior learning credits, re-enroll, access financial aid, fit courses into their schedules, and stay on track to graduate. They work with students to map out career paths, and help them address specific barriers such as defaulted loans, childcare needs, and transportation issues.

Youth Job Center of Evanston, $75,000
YJC’sWILL program is a comprehensive, holistic approach to supporting young, working women move forward on their career path to economic self-sufficiency.

 

TRAINING
The Foundation seeks to fund programs whose primary focus is to help women develop the skills and education they need in order to secure a living wage job with benefits and a career path or to advance up an existing career ladder to secure a living wage with benefits.

The Cara Program (TCP), $60,000
TCP’s Eleanor Career Advancement Program (ECAP) helps to prepare employed Cara women for the next step in their professional journeys, whether that be additional training, enrolling in formal educational programs, or finding a more suitable job through which they can advance their pay.

Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), $50,000
CWIT’sTechnical Opportunities Program (TOP) and welding training programs prepare women for high-wage and high skilled nontraditional careers. These programs target construction apprenticeship programs and welding jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Grow Your Own Teachers Illinois (GYO), $50,000
GYO is a teacher training program designed to help low-income community members become teachers in their neighborhood schools. GYO's teacher candidates, 85% of which are women and often mothers, are low-income and working full-time in low-wage jobs.

Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC), $85,000
JARC’s Women in Manufacturing Program (WMP) provides job skills training in a high-demand sector and intensive job placement services with a focus on secure, living-wage employment with benefits and a career path.

Kinzie Industrial Development Corporation/Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (KIDC/ICNC), $90,000
KIDC will provide training, support & job placement services to working women in Chicago as a means of providing career pathways in the EMT/Paramedic/other medical fields which will lead to higher wages, job advancement and fulfillment.

STABILIZATION
Stabilization grantees provide support to training grantee participants in the following areas: housing, childcare and financial education/credit repair.

Emergency Fund, $50,000
The Emergency Fund’s Flexible Financial Fund program responds to the needs of the participants in the training organizations. The Emergency Fund will distribute funds to ensure a minor crisis does not derail a participant’s chances of graduation and of securing quality employment.

Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS), $50,000
HHCS’ Imagine, Dedicate, Earn, Achieve (IDEA) is an established asset building and financial literacy program for low-wage working women. Participants from resource/training grantee organizations will have access to individual consultations as well as workshops throughout the year.

Illinois Action for Children, $30,000
Illinois Action for Children's Enhanced Referrals and Outreach offers mothers comprehensive support in choosing a childcare program.

Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO), $25,000
MTO helps to locate and stabilize housing for women in the training programs and providing information to empower women to maintain their housing. MTO's Stabilizing Rental Housing for Women and Children project Organizer works directly with women referred to inform them of their rights, provide resources and help in negotiations with landlords.

CATALYST FUND FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE GRANTS AWARDED

Black on Both Sides (BOBS), $20,000
BOBS will train 14 young women between the ages of 14 and 20 in Black Youth Training (BYT). Training topics will include Issue choice and root cause, democracy and accountability, power analysis, effective outreach and advocacy, networking and coalition building, direct action campaigns, and media and direct advocacy. In addition, participants will become familiarized with the use of a number of different information and communications technologies to support their outreach and campaigning.

Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CLAIM), $57,500
CLAIM's Visible Voices and policy advocacy work provides legal and educational services to maintain the bond between imprisoned mothers and their children, and advocates for policies and programs that benefit families of imprisoned mothers and reduce incarceration of women and girls.

EverThrive Illinois, $57,500
EverThrive’s Englewood Empowerment Project continues to be committed to improving the lives of women and girls in Englewood. The work of the Englewood Empowerment Project ties directly to the organization’s overall policy agenda, reflecting EverThrive’s commitment to ensuring the voices of communities impacted by the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion, lack of access to healthcare, and other institutional directives are heard and their needs are prioritized.

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), $57,500
ICAH is an advocate for sound policies and practices that support a positive approach to adolescent sexual health and parenting. ICAH works from a sex positive model to provide comprehensive sex education to vulnerable communities and to engage young people in advocacy work.

Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force, $57,500
The Task Force's mission and all of its programs are designed to address these systemic barriers to care and thereby reduce the racial, ethnic, and class disparity in breast cancer death rates in Metropolitan Chicago (Cook and Collar counties).

Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), $20,000
WWJ's Women's Committee works to end the systemic gender discrimination, sexual harassment and violence in the workplace women in this industry face. The WWJ Committee will conduct training and leadership development to 500 women and men on how to identify and stop sexual harassment and discrimination against women.

POLK BROS. FOUNDATION FUND FOR EMERGING ORGANIZATIONS GRANT AWARDED
Manufacturing NEXT, $2,750
Manufacturing NEXT’S Women NEXT program will provide a direct path for women to succeed in the high growth manufacturing industry. The program will work help participants gain hands-on CNC Technology and Quality Control training and paid internship program to obtain real-life work experience.