University of Chicago Establishes Grant Program to Catalyze Non-profit Work
University of Chicago Establishes Grant Program to Catalyze Non-profit Work
BY KATHERINE NEWMAN
The University of Chicago Office of Civic Engagement recently announced the winners of their new Urban America Forward Catalyst Grant program that awards a $35,000 grant to two racial justice or social justice non-profit organizations. The two grant winners are Sunshine Enterprises and the Chicago Jobs Council.
The Catalyst Grant is part of the Urban America Forward conference hosted by the University of Chicago. The conference was designed to bring policymakers, practitioners, scholars, academics, and community leaders together to identify the challenges that urban communities currently face and the best practices and solutions to help address those challenges, according to Derek Douglas, vice president for civic engagement and external affairs at the University of Chicago.
“The idea behind the Catalyst Grant was to provide some seed funding to organizations that were part of the dialogue at the Urban America Forward conference to help catalyze work that they are doing to address economic mobility and economic inclusion targeting low-income communities,” said Douglas. “These are not huge grants but they are important grants.”
The Chicago Jobs Council is a non-profit organization that works to move people out of poverty through employment with the help of their member organizations, according to Carrie Thomas, executive director of the Chicago Jobs Council.
The Chicago Jobs Council will use the Catalyst Grant money to expand their research and strategic work of their Transit Table coalition that addresses how a lack of transportation can create a barrier to employment that many people experience, according to a press release from the Office of Civic Engagement at the University of Chicago.
“This grant is going to support the work of our Transit Table. We want to expand the Transit Table to include more non-traditional partners and some job seekers to participate in problem-solving and advocacy work. We also want to do more communications related work to get the word out about these knotty transportation problems and how they are directly related to employment outcomes for people,” said Thomas.
The other grant recipient, Sunshine Enterprises, is an organization that supports small business and entrepreneurs on the south and west sides of Chicago. Their money will be used to continue empowering local entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and transform their under-served communities, according to a press release from the Office of Civic Engagement at the University of Chicago.
“Our neighborhoods have so many really wonderful, creative folks who have dreams to build their businesses locally,” said Joel Hamernick, executive director of Sunshine Enterprises. “We are just delighted, you can’t help but be inspired by our entrepreneurs and their dreams and ideas and to have an opportunity to get behind people's dreams like this is just really a privilege.”
For more information on Sunshine Enterprises visit www.sunshineenterprises.com, and for more information on the Chicago Jobs Council visit www.cjc.net.
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