Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Breakthrough

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of National Museum for Mexican Art

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Donna Baiocchi, courtesy of the Chicago Botanic Garden

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow, Court Theatre

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Howard Brown Health

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Angélique Kidjo, courtesy of Harris Theater for Music and Dance

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Breakthrough

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Yuli Zhao, courtesy of Trust for Public Land

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of SCA (Student Conservation Association)

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of La Casa Norte

Chicago, IL

The Prince Charitable Trusts support a broad array of services to keep Chicago vibrant and enhance the quality of life in its residents. Grants are awarded within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago. We also make a limited number of invitation-only grants to organizations that support the field of philanthropy or its areas of interest.

Photo Credit: Adrienne, courtesy of Hubbard Street Dance

Areas of interest

In 2022, PCT’s giving in Chicago was approximately $2.6 million. Click here to see a breakdown of Chicago giving.

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.

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.

In 2025, PCT will announce our giving plans for Sports-Based Youth Development with updated eligibility criteria and guidelines.

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.

In 2025, PCT will announce our plans for increased Arts and Culture giving, a new participatory grantmaking program, and updated eligibility criteria and guidelines.

Please note: PCT is not accepting new proposals in its Environmental Justice program in 2024. Only organizations that received funding in 2023 may apply. 

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.

*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)

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. 

Application Guidelines - Chicago
GOAPPLY

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Environmental Law