These are the 2025
Leaders for a New Chicago

They are artists, community developers, educators, journalists, storytellers, and organizers. Like our previous Leaders for a New Chicago awardees, ALL of them serve as powerful examples of what transformative change looks like at the community level.

The Leaders for a New Chicago Award recognizes leaders from outside the city’s traditional power structure with the aim of bringing new voices, creativity, and innovation into the systems that shape Chicago. This year, the award will provide $50,000 no-strings-attached prizes to eight individual leaders—doubling funding from previous years—as well as $25,000 general operating grants to the leaders' affiliated not-for-profit organizations.

This program is unique because leaders select leaders. A selection committee of community leaders led the process to identify the 2025 cohort.

Meet the 2025 Leaders for a New Chicago, who are redefining civic leadership and reimagining our city’s future.