Areas of interest
*PCT’s Chicago Grantmaking to Focus Primarily on the Arts and Environmental Justice Beginning in 2025.
In 2023, PCT’s giving in Chicago was approximately $2.3 million. Click here to see a breakdown of Chicago giving.
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 presenting basic human truths, help to connect us.
Following a strategic-planning process during which The Trusts continued to support our longstanding grantee partners, in 2025 we introduce a new arts grantmaking approach. Moving forward, we will consider general operating support for theater, music, and dance organizations with budgets between $300,000 and $2 million that have engaged in performance and presentation for at least five years. The new arts program will prioritize work that:
- Expands the voices and representation of ALAANA (African, Latiné, Asian, Arab, and Native American) organizations in theater, dance, and music
- Supports young people’s own storytelling Including spoken word, theater, and other performance disciplines
- Centers joy, healing, and celebration
The Trusts will update this guidelines page by late spring when we expect to open a letter-of-intent submission process for the first grant cycle. Recommendations for support will be considered at our fall meeting.
In 2024, Prince Charitable Trusts made multi-year grants in our Chicago environmental justice program that continue through 2025. We do not anticipate accepting new unsolicited proposals in the Chicago environmental justice program in 2025. Please note that PCT now reviews environmental justice proposals during our spring grant cycle. We expect to update this page with additional information on the 2026 application process by early February 2026.
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. The Aya Wisdom Council recommended 17 grants totaling $100,000 in 2024, all of which were approved at Prince’s Spring board meeting.
For details on the 2025 Aya Initiative Application, please refer to the Request for Proposals document available here or visit our Aya Initiative page.
Beginning in 2025, PCT will focus primarily on two programs – environmental justice and the arts. However, inspired by a trustee’s positive experience with sports as a youth, we will also maintain a small program that makes general operating support grants to four to six sports-based youth development (SBYD) organizations in Chicago. We will prioritize emerging community-based SBYD organizations – those that are just starting out but have operated for at least one year – that deliver a strong program for youth ages 10-14.
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 the risks and challenges of living in historically disinvested communities and the related concentration of poverty, higher rates of obesity, exposure to violence, and other chronic public health conditions, and limited availability of afterschool and recreational activities.
PCT will consider support for organizations that:
- Deliver community-based SBYD services in Chicago as their primary focus
- Have total expenses of $2 million or less in their most recently completed fiscal year
- Have operated for at least one year
- 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
- Provide at least 18 weeks of service each year to a consistent group of participants. This may be a consistent group in each season or program session if the organization offers more than one season or program session
- Foster an age-appropriate and positive environment when competition is part of the program
- Train coaches and program staff to build positive relationships with youth and deliver a consistent program model or curriculum that promotes physical and emotional well-being
Preparing to apply
About GOapply: As of January 2023, proposals to Prince Charitable Trusts are only accepted through the GOapply application and report portal (see “GOAPPLY” button below). All applicants will be required to register when visiting GOapply for the first time using their organization’s EIN#. However, if you are a previous grant recipient your grants history remains in our records.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Environmental Law
