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.