Celebrating our Fall 2022 Grantees

We are so pleased to announce our Fall 2022 Grantees. In this grant cycle, we awarded slightly more than $1 million to 33 organizations—including new and returning grantee partners. As always, the majority of our dollars are directed to the South and West Sides of Chicago, and to ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American) organizations that are at the center of policy debates, activism, and front-line service to Chicagoans. Congratulations to all our grantees, whose impact in the areas of Art, Justice, and Media & Storytelling continues to transform communities across Chicago.

ART

Albany Park Theatre Project creates transformative experiences that forge an inclusive community of youth artists, adult artists, and audiences to envision and build a more just, equitable, and joyful world.

Ballet Folklorico de Chicago is a nonprofit organization that provides cultural and artistic dance instruction in Chicago.

Elastic Arts Foundation supports a community of local, independent, and creative musicians and artists in the Avondale/Logan Square neighborhood and throughout the city of Chicago.

Floating Museum is an art collective that creates new models, exploring relationships between art, community, architecture, and public institutions.

Free Street Theatre creates performances by, for, about, with, and in Chicago’s diverse communities; challenges ideas of where theater belongs and who belongs in a theater; and uses theater to ask questions, prompt dialogue, and build communities.

in c/o: Black women invites makers of color, invested in community-centered visual arts production, to build and activate archives, art objects and physical spaces as sites of care.

International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago is a Pan-Latino, 501(c)(3) nonprofit multidisciplinary arts and cultural organization dedicated to developing, promoting, and increasing awareness of Latino cultures among Latinos and other communities.

Kehrein Center for the Arts Foundation is a home for storytelling through music, theatre, dance, spoken word, and creative expression that animates and engages the human spirit.

Kuumba Lynx is committed to the lives of youth using urban art and performance to cultivate strong communities built on a foundation of love.

Puerto Rican Arts Alliance is a community-based organization that is dedicated to preserving Puerto Rican culture by maintaining traditions, showcasing Puerto Rican arts and music, providing arts and music education, and cultivating pride in heritage.

Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center  realizes its mission to preserve and promote appreciation of the culture and arts of Puerto Rico and Latin America, with a focus on its African heritage.

South Chicago Dance Theatre is a multicultural organization seamlessly fusing classical and contemporary dance styles as well as preserving historic dance work.

South Side Community Art Center is the oldest and longest running independent art center in the nation, whose mission is "to conserve, preserve, and promote the legacy and future of African American art and artists while educating the community on the value of art and culture."

Stomping Grounds Literary Arts Initiative engages criminalized and justice-involved youth in professionally focused literary, visual, and recording arts programs that provide creative resources & opportunities for students to explore their creativity and support their life-affirming futures.

Threewalls fosters contemporary art practices that respond to lived experiences, encouraging connections beyond art.

JUSTICE

#LetUsBreatheCollective is an alliance of artists and activists organizing through a creative lens to imagine a world without prisons and police.

Chicago Torture Justice Center seeks to address the traumas of police violence and institutionalized racism through access to healing and wellness services, trauma-informed resources, and community connection.

Chicago United for Equity honors the civic power of everyday people, and connects and amplifies civic love to transform Chicago into a city that is responsive and accountable to communities of color.

Children’s Best Interest Project aims to prevent incarceration and childhood trauma by organizing to win full implementation of sentence mitigation under the Children’s Best Interest Act (PA 101-0471).

Healing to Action has a mission to end gender-based violence by building the leadership and collective power of the communities most impacted: survivors from immigrant, BIPOC, low-income, disability, and LGBTQ communities.

IL Muslim Civic Coalition is a partnership of hundreds of activists, influencers and organizations, which convenes, collaborates, and amplifies social and civic efforts with diverse and underrepresented races, faiths, and communities towards civic justice for all.

Latino Union of Chicago collaborates with low-income immigrant and US-born workers to develop the tools necessary to collectively improve social and economic conditions.

Not Me We organizes Black, poor, and working class community members in order to build grassroots infrastructure that allows for collective and individual repatriation of resources & power in South Shore and adjacent neighborhoods.

Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality: Northside is a mixed-income, multi-ethnic, intergenerational organization that unites our diverse communities, building collective power to eliminate injustice through bold and innovative community organizing.

Safe Work Coalition seeks to make sex work safer—particularly for Black, Brown, & Trans sex workers—by reducing the criminalization of sex work in Illinois.

MEDIA & STORYTELLING

American Indian Association of Illinois is an urban-based nonprofit dedicated to transforming American Indian development into an experience founded in Native culture, language, and history, fused with traditional Native knowledge and tribal values, and designed as a model to enhance all urban/off reservation Native communities.

Borderless Magazine is a nonprofit news outlet that is reimagining immigration journalism for a more just and equitable future.

Cicero Independiente provides bilingual, accurate reporting, connects residents to important resources and information, and equips our neighbors with journalism skills to engage in local democracy.

Girls Like Me Project helps African-American girls, ages 11-17, to critically examine social, cultural, and political ideologies in media so that they will be able to overcome stigmas and negative stereotypes.

Invisible Institute is a journalism production company on the South Side of Chicago, working to enhance the capacity of citizens to hold public institutions accountable.

Public Media Institute is a nonprofit 501(c)3, community-based art & culture organization with a mission to create, incubate and sustain innovative and equitable cultural programming through the production of socially engaged projects, festivals, spaces, exhibitions, and media.

Rebellious Magazine for Women produces feminist, solutions-focused, social impact journalism and coverage of underrepresented artists.

True Star Foundation provides training and real-world work experience for urban youth that teaches them how to develop, create, and market digital content on a platform that empowers them to forge their own paths.