Deadline: 7-Sep-23
The Chicago Community Trust is seeking applications for the LGBTQ Community Fund to support a wide variety of projects that respond to identified community needs.
Focus Areas
2023 proposals must demonstrate the applicant’s commitment to the health and well-being of LGBTQ communities in the Chicago region. Specifically, the Fund seeks to support innovative initiatives that focus on one or more of the following priority areas:
- Housing: Proposals that address housing insecurity and homelessness in LGBTQ communities by supporting access to safe, affordable housing, including but not limited to case management, advocacy services, provider trainings, and renter literacy. Grants may not be used for capital campaigns or improvements.
- Health: Proposals that support high-quality, affordable, culturally responsive, comprehensive healthcare for LGBTQ individuals, including sliding scale services, education on substance misuse, healthcare navigation support, and services geared towards LGBTQ medical issues such as HIV testing, PrEP medication support, gender affirming care, and reproductive health support.
- Mental Health: Proposals that support high-quality, affordable, culturally responsive mental healthcare for LGBTQ individuals, including but not limited to therapeutic affinity groups, art therapy, and provider trainings.
- Intersectionality: Priority will be given to proposals that address the compounded effects of multiple (or intersecting) systems of oppression experienced by those holding multiple marginalized identities within the LGBTQ community (i.e. heterosexism and racism, heterosexism and ableism, heterosexism and cis-sexism, etc.).
- Inequities: Priority will be given to proposals focused on serving historically marginalized and underserved groups within the LGBTQ community, including older adults, people living with disabilities, youth, trans and gender non-conforming people, People of Color, and women/femmes.
Funding Information
- Support may be provided for specific projects, general operating support, or for project seed money. Grants will range from $10,000 to $50,000, and the Fund will award up to $400,000 in grants annually.
Eligible Applicants
To be eligible for funding from the LGBTQ Community Fund, the applicants must demonstrate the following:
- That it is a 501(c)(3) public charity in good standing in the state of IL.
- That it serves the LGBTQ community of the Chicago Metro area, which includes Chicago, suburban Cook County, and the Illinois counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will. LGBTQ is broadly defined as including questioning individuals.
- That grant funds will be used in one year. Multi-year funding is not supported.
- Faith-based and religious organizations are eligible to apply for project-specific grants, provided that the program supported does not promote or require religious doctrine and that the applicant otherwise complies with the Fund’s requirements and grantmaking focus.
- Sponsored organizations without 501(c)(3) status must identify their fiscal sponsor as soon as possible and ask them to complete an Organization Profile in The Chicago Community Trust’s grants management system prior to the sponsored organization’s application submission.
For more information, visit Chicago Community Trust.