Deadline: 15-Sep-20
Applicants are now invited to submit applications for the Field Foundation’s 2020 Grant Program.
The Field Foundation awards grants to organizations working in the fields of Justice, Art, Media & Storytelling, and Leadership Investment. They primarily fund work being done to serve the people of Chicago with a focus on communities commonly divested in.
The Field Foundation seeks to invest in organizations working to address systemic issues in divested communities. At the center of the Field Foundation’s work is the idea of community empowerment.
Funding Information
- Typically grants range in size from $10,000-$50,000
Program Areas
- Justice
- The Field Foundation seeks to level the playing field across Chicago by using Field Foundation dollars to address the root causes of inequity, be it in community environment, health, housing or other issue areas. Rather than funding direct service, they will fund organizations working to address problems at a systemic and policy level.
- Examples:
- Community organizing
- Alliance network building and coalition support
- Local policy/advocacy work being done by communities for communities
- Communication-based issue reform
- Goals: Build the capacity of organizations working in advocacy, justice and system change so that they can increase the visibility of critical issues and impact the root causes of those issues, with an eventual goal of creating effective systems of change and improving community conditions.
- Art
- The Field Foundation seeks to create an art-centric city where each community has a robust investment in creativity and local cultural activities and artists. They want to focus dollars on supporting creative spaces inside chronically divested communities to spark cultural identity, creative expression and cultural connections. Preference will be given to community-based organizations who are deeply entrenched in community work. “Art” will remain an open and evolving term allowing to learn through their funding of creative enterprises.
- Examples:
- Community-based art organizations within the heat map
- Nonprofit organizations supporting artists from and/or working within heat maps
- Community defined forms of art, creative expression, and creative production happening within nonprofit spaces
- Goals: Expand creative production in divested areas of Chicago by investing in a range of art forms in specific neighborhoods and advancing the capacity of emerging artists in Chicago. This support will create safe “third spaces” for creative production, foster community bonds, and increase access to cultural experiences within Chicago communities. The eventual goal is supporting community identity through the arts while advancing hubs of creativity and innovation in divested neighborhoods of Chicago.
- Media & Story telling
- The Field Foundation seeks to change how news production and storytelling reflect Chicago and create a more equitable, connected and inclusive local media ecosystem in which the stories of all Chicagoans are told accurately, fairly, authoritatively and contextually. To that end, the foundation will fund African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American (ALAANA) media, journalists and storytellers to support narratives by, for and about ALAANA communities.
- Examples:
- Partnerships and collaborations
- Content creation
- Capacity building
- Training and leadership investment
- Rapid response funding
- Goals: Create more just and inclusive narratives about Chicago that foster policy change; amplify the voices and impact of ALAANA journalists, media and storytellers in the local media landscape, and support more reporting and storytelling by traditional and alternative journalism platforms about the root causes of the city’s inequities.
- Leadership Investment
- The Field Foundation seeks to recognize, honor, and support the deep bench of visionary leaders across Chicago. The following opportunities are aimed at promoting visionaries across Chicago by building their social capital, skillsets, networks and exposure. By creating a network, they aim to act as a connector, supporter, and investor in leaders who have the potential to transform Chicago. The Field Foundation offers three opportunities in Leadership Investment.
- Goals: Increase individual leadership capacity by supporting leaders and their organizations. Strengthen connections between rising and existing leaders across communities by growing leaders’ networks and social capital. Utilize a risk learning strategy to discover what successful leaders need by giving leaders the room and capital to discover their most productive self; with an eventual goal of racially diversifying and thereby strengthening civic leadership in Chicago.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Field Foundation of Illinois primarily offers funding to 501(c)(3) organizations. Requests for support that are outside of a traditional 501(c)(3) model may be considered but should be discussed with Field Foundation staff before submitting a proposal.
- Support for capital grants should be discussed with Field Foundation staff before submitting a proposal.
For more information, visit https://fieldfoundation.org/how-to-apply/program-grants/