What more can we do to create real, lasting change in Chicago?
An open letter to our grantee partners announcing a two-year transition toward three new goals
Dear Grantee Partners,
What more can we do to create real, lasting change in Chicago?
That question is at the heart of your work every day. We see it in how you dedicate time, resources, and tireless effort to the people and neighborhoods of Chicago, how you bring your full hearts and minds to this difficult work, and how you bring meaningful change to our city.
And you inspire us to hold ourselves to the same level of accountability — to think more boldly about what more we too can do.
For 35 years, Polk Bros. Foundation has focused on addressing poverty and access to opportunity in Chicago. In 2016, in an effort to strengthen this work, we began a deeper examination of the systemic inequities in our city to understand why — despite the committed and impactful work of our many grantee partners — intractable racial and ethnic gaps persist and Black and Latine communities face unequal access to resources and opportunities. This led us to develop some racial equity pilots, work that expanded greatly with our increased payout during the pandemic. By deeply listening to what you and other community leaders were telling us, we committed to the hard work of change and have been sharing some of that journey through recent blog posts.
Building A New Chapter
Today, Polk Bros. Foundation is making a significant move forward in our journey to center more explicitly on racial equity and racial justice in our work.
After two years of intentional planning that engaged all Foundation staff and board and drew on research and lessons and input shared by many grantee partners and community leaders, Polk Bros. Foundation will be changing in some key ways.
New Goals. For the Foundation’s resources to truly help dismantle racial inequity in Chicago, we will be orienting our grantmaking around three goals:
- Building Community Wealth Across Generations to create pathways out of poverty and toward economic opportunity for residents of Chicago’s historically disinvested communities, which are largely Black and Latine, through more equitable housing, education, and income.
- Closing the Life Expectancy Gap to address the root causes of stark disparities in health equity and personal and community safety across different neighborhoods in Chicago.
- Fostering Participatory, Multiracial Democracy to ensure that the diverse voices of our city are heard and can influence the decisions that affect their lives.
New Funding Approaches. Historically, our grantmaking has been largely focused on support for direct services. While we continue to believe attention to immediate interventions that help Chicagoans access resources and services is critical, we will elevate the role of systems change work to a more meaningful part of our grantmaking. That means we will increase our support for work that helps to build community power and influence, strengthens the ecosystem for social change (through research, convenings, and leadership and sector development), and fosters community innovation and new ideas.
We also hope to direct resources to community-driven, community-responsive, and community-led approaches. As our focus evolves, one thing remains constant. Community leads, and we are proud to follow.
Honoring Our History Together
We are profoundly aware that the changes we make will have real consequences for you, our grantee partners, and we don’t take this responsibility lightly.
Refining our grantmaking goals and strategies to better confront systemic racism in Chicago means we cannot continue to financially support many organizations that we hold dear, but we remain committed to positioning you to continue your vital work.
So, before we begin to put any of the Foundation’s resources toward our new goals, we will first enter a two-year transition period to provide you with time and resources to enable you to plan for upcoming changes.
All current grantee partners will receive two years of substantive funding, with minimal paperwork or requirements. The transition period for our grantee partners in the arts will be extended for a third year, recognizing the extreme vulnerability and change occurring in the sector.
The work you do is essential, and we hope to minimize disruption to your work and the people who count on you.
Each of you will receive a personalized note from the Foundation’s program staff today with more details about the transition grants and timing.
The transition period will also provide an opportunity for us to continue conversations with you and other community leaders, so we can further refine our new grantmaking strategies and ensure the efforts we support are responsive to community visions and needs.
We are making a commitment to meet individually with each of our 400 current grantee partners. We hope you will accept our invitation, if you are interested, to begin an open dialogue. We want to answer any questions about our plans and hear your reactions and ideas.
We will share our full strategies and new grantmaking processes toward these new goals at the end of our two-year transition period, in late 2026. We are not entering this phase with preconceived notions, but we expect that many of our grantees will experience a change in their Polk Bros. Foundation funding.
In the meantime, while our resources are committed to transition grants, we will not be able to accept any unsolicited proposals.
A Shared Vision for Chicago
In Chicago, there exists a powerful shared vision for the city — one where Chicagoans most affected by historic disinvestment and racial injustice can thrive in a city that values and nurtures them. This vision is bold and rooted in a deep commitment to racial equity, justice and community power.
Thank you for your partnership and for all the deeply important work you do toward making our city a place where everyone can live with dignity, security and joy.
We look forward to our next chapter and to deepening our contributions toward a Chicago where racial equity and increased opportunity are not just aspirations but realities.
With deepest respect and gratitude,
Gillian Darlow
CEO, Polk Bros. Foundation
Evette Cardona
Vice President of Programs
Anna Miran Lee
Vice President of Strategic Initiatives