Launched in 2021 and guided by the collective wisdom of an advisory group, the Prince Charitable Trusts’ Aya Initiative seeks to support Black-led and Black-serving organizations committed to nature and the environment and actively engaging Chicago neighborhoods/communities and the people who thrive in them.

For more information visit our Aya Initiative page.

Some of Chicago’s most vulnerable youth are those who experience homelessness or housing instability. LGBTQ, African American and Latinx youth make up a disproportionate percentage of this population; many are pregnant and/or parenting. These young people need housing and support services that respond to their unique strengths and challenges, providing them with the resources and skills they need to mature into healthy, productive adults.

We invest in organizations and special initiatives to end homelessness among unaccompanied youth. Our funding prioritizes:

• Organizations providing shelter to homeless youth as well as services that prepare them to live independently
• Organizations providing holistic, trauma-informed programming for youth experiencing homelessness with an emphasis on groups that utilize positive youth development principals and comprehensive mental health supports
• Special initiatives exploring innovative approaches to meeting the needs of youth experiencing homelessness

Inspired by a trustee’s positive experience with sports as a youth, PCT provides general operating support grants to sports-based youth development (SBYD) organizations in Chicago. SBYD combines best practices from youth development, mentoring, athletics and physical fitness, and academic enrichment. It contributes to improved health and fitness, and just as importantly, helps youth become better at planning, coping with stress, and engaging in positive relationships with peers and adults. Such benefits may prove particularly crucial for youth who face risks and challenges like concentrated poverty, higher rates of obesity and other chronic health conditions, exposure to violence, and limited availability of afterschool and recreational activities. PCT gives preference to organizations serving middle-school-age youth and to those that provide coaches trained in youth development and implement trauma-sensitive approaches to service delivery.

SBYD organization requirements
PCT will consider SBYD organizations that:

• Have SBYD as their primary focus
• Have operated at least three years
• Deliver services to a program population in which 75% or more of youth have family incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level or in schools where 75% or more of students are eligible for free and reduced price school lunch
• Have at least one professional program staff person
• Serve a consistent group of school-age youth in most or all of its programming
• Provide at least 90 minutes of programming per week for at least 20 weeks of the school year
• Promote physical and emotional well-being
• Foster an age-appropriate and positive environment when competition is part of the program
• Train coaches and program staff to deliver a consistent program model or curriculum and build positive relationships with youth
• May provide or connect participants to academic supports and/or help them access higher education.

If you have additional questions about our SBYD requirements, please review the FAQ’s.

The people of Chicago need and deserve a thriving cultural life.  The arts reflect and demonstrate the richness and diversity of the city’s people and, by representing the basic human truths, help us to connect.  The Trusts support the core missions of outstanding arts organizations with general operating support and occasional project grants to enhance their creative artistic products.

The Prince Arts Program supports arts groups in the city of Chicago with annual budgets above $2,000,000.

Large operating support grants
Application for large operating support is by invitation only. Unsolicited proposals cannot be accepted.

These grants reward organizations with budgets over $10,000,000 that meet the highest standards of artistic quality, professional and financial management, good planning and community participation. These are the leaders in the arts community that provide models of best practice. Grants of up to $25,000 per year may be awarded. Application to this category is by invitation only.

Mid-sized operating support grants
Grants of $20,000 may be awarded to companies with budgets between $2,000,000 and $10,000,000 that meet similarly high standards of artistic excellence, organizational strength and service to the community.

Special project grants
Each year the Trusts make a small number of special project grants to grantees who are of particular significance to the cultural life of Chicago. They may support programs or positions that strengthen the management or artistic capacity of the organization. Please contact Benna Wilde, Program Director, Arts and Culture to discuss the project before applying. These grants are not available to grantees of the MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince.

The people of Chicago need and deserve a thriving cultural life.  The arts reflect and demonstrate the richness and diversity of the city’s people and, by representing the basic human truths, help us to connect.  The Trusts support the core missions of outstanding arts organizations with general operating support and occasional project grants to enhance their creative artistic products.

The Prince Arts Program supports arts groups in the city of Chicago with annual budgets above $2,000,000.

Large operating support grants
Application for large operating support is by invitation only. Unsolicited proposals cannot be accepted.

These grants reward organizations with budgets over $10,000,000 that meet the highest standards of artistic quality, professional and financial management, good planning and community participation. These are the leaders in the arts community that provide models of best practice. Grants of up to $25,000 per year may be awarded. Application to this category is by invitation only.

Mid-sized operating support grants
Grants of $20,000 may be awarded to companies with budgets between $2,000,000 and $10,000,000 that meet similarly high standards of artistic excellence, organizational strength and service to the community.

Special project grants
Each year the Trusts make a small number of special project grants to grantees who are of particular significance to the cultural life of Chicago. They may support programs or positions that strengthen the management or artistic capacity of the organization. Please contact Benna Wilde, Program Director, Arts and Culture to discuss the project before applying. These grants are not available to grantees of the MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince.

Prince Charitable Trusts Chicago Environmental Justice Program

Program Overview
Prince Charitable Trusts’ Chicago Environmental Justice*  Program acknowledges and supports Chicagoans’ right to healthy communities where the air, land, and water are clean and people have abundant access to open spaces and natural areas for growing food, healing, learning, health and well-being, gathering, and recreation. We recognize that this is not the reality for many ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American) residents in our highly segregated city where persistent racism leads to disproportionately poor air and water quality and unhealthy living conditions resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations and/or government laws, regulations, and policies.

We trust these residents’ knowledge about their neighborhoods, the issues they face, and the policies and resources they need to secure healthy and thriving communities. We understand achieving and sustaining environmental justice involves responsiveness to opportunities and a willingness to take risks coupled with long-term commitment and steady financial resources.

Eligibility
In order to apply for a grant in the program area your organization must:

• Have its offices and a majority of its programming within the Chicago city limits
• Have a mission dedicated to environmental justice, the environment or nature
• OR be a community-based organization with a strong environmental justice, environment, or nature-based program or project

Program Strategy
We seek proposals that correspond to at least one of these strategies:

1. Nurture, strengthen, or promote community control and stewardship of land and/or water resources in neighborhoods experiencing historic disinvestment
2. Draw attention to environmental racism and/or the disproportionate impact of climate change in ALAANA communities and advocate for community-led solutions
3. Support the next generation of environmental leaders, urban farmers and gardeners, and advocates

PCT welcomes innovative, cross-sector, and/or unique community-generated and community-led approaches to addressing one of our strategies.

Priorities
Prince Charitable Trusts’ Chicago Environmental Justice Program prioritizes addressing the mounting impact of historical and ongoing environmental racism through:

• Giving the majority of our funding to organizations that center people harmed by racial and environmental injustice and those that are led by and developing the leadership of people of color
• Support for Chicago-based organizations whose efforts focus on benefits to Chicago’s Black and Latine residents
• Support for community-based organizations with an environmental justice program or project that corresponds to one of PCT’s strategies
• Consistent, multi-year, general operating support in most cases

A recording of an information session on this program is posted below.

If you have additional questions about our Environmental Justice Program, please review the FAQ’s.

Please direct program questions to Mignon Stewart at mstewart@princetrusts.org. If you have questions about eGrant, contact Teri Fron at tfron@princetrusts.org or at 312-216-1963.

*Prince Charitable Trusts looked at many definitions of environmental justice and borrowed directly from Wikipedia and Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice in landing on our definition. We are also grateful to Chicago Frontlines Funding Initiative for informing our perspective. For Prince Charitable Trusts: environmental justice addresses the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms associated with resource extraction, hazardous waste, and land and water use resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations and/or government laws, regulations, and policies.

https://detroitenvironmentaljustice.org/what-is-environmental-justice/ (Viewed April, 20, 2022)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_justice (Viewed April 20, 2022)
https://www.chicagofrontlines.org (Viewed April 20, 2022)

For an important update visit MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity and the Arts at Prince.