Chicago Foundation for Women

Grantmaking: cfw remains at the forefront of identifying the next challenges for Women, girls, trans, and gender nonbinary individuals with deep roots in the community. In fiscal year 2023, working with nearly 3,000 donors and local partners on the front lines, cfw invested a total of $3,449,750 through 238 grants, supporting 161 organizations working to advance health, economic security, and safety of chicago-area Women, girls, trans, and gender nonbinary individuals. Cfw supports organizations and their leaders throughout the greater Chicago area, including cook, lake, dupage, will, mchenry, and kane counties. Over the past year, cfw grants served 287,774 people, of which 222,007 (83%) identified as Women or girls, 39,417 (15%) identified as male, and 4,608 (2%) identified as transgender or gender nonbinary. Of those served, 36% identify as african american, 35% as latinx, 20% as caucasian/white, 4% as asian/pacific islander, 1% as arab american/middle eastern, 2% multi-racial, 1% as american indian/indigenous peoples, and 1% as other.cfw is more committed than ever to doing more of what we are best at, providing strategic and flexible investments to the most critical organizations improving the lives of Chicago's most vulnerable Women and their families.

Capacity building: cfw intentionally couples its grantmaking with a broad range of high-quality, no-cost programs ranging from board development, to fundraising to executive coaching for emerging Women leaders on the frontlines of the gender equity movement. Through this work, cfw builds the strength of women-led organizations and ensures that organizational and leadership development is applied with a gender lens, particularly when organizational leaders are working to address poverty and inequity. Cfw's giving councils and circles represent groups of energized and diverse people who have come together around shared interests to raise money and award grants according to these interests. Cfw hosts three giving councils, all of whom focus their giving on specific groups of Women and girls in the Chicago region. They engage in grantmaking by and for their respective communities as indicated by the name of the giving council: lbtq giving council (lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning) Women of color united giving council young Women's giving council in addition, cfw hosts four geography-based giving circles. These giving circles focus their grantmaking for Women and girls in their respective communities, using hyper-local geography, as indicated by the name of the giving circle: the western suburbs giving circle the north shore giving circle the south side giving circle west side giving circlelastly, cfw is also consciously building its capacity to ensure that the organization serves all who identify as female in the Chicago region and is one where all Women, girls, trans, and gender nonbinary individuals see themselves. As such, cfw is intentionally creating the space to build and sustain an institution that is aware of and addresses its own structural racial biases. As a first step, cfw has convened an anti-racism transformation team, a cfw body comprised of 16 internal and external stakeholders representing cfw's vast network who will lead the effort to transform cfw into an anti-racist institution. This team will do that by engaging in continual analysis and essential restructuring of cfw to ensure that the Foundation's way of being is one that wields a shared power with, and holds itself accountable to, racially oppressed groups to achieve its goal of gender equity. The anti-racism transformation team is now reflected in cfw's organizational chart, reporting directly to the president & ceo.in fy22, cfw launched the reproductive justice champions, which seeks to elevate the expertise, leadership, and lived experiences of black, indigenous, people of color (bipoc) and africana, latin, asian, and native american (alana) groups in Illinois working at the intersections of reproductive and sexual justice and other social justice movements. Cfw will implement a strategy that will lead to a region-wide safe-haven for reproductive health access and improved health outcomes. This initiative will be a regional model for how to create a sanctuary while building the movement to ensure reproductive and sexual justice and access during a time of increased attack.the black women-led capacity building (bloc) program is a data-driven funding model that supports black women-led organizations, measures impact and begins to make the case to other funders (regional and national) to strategically fund targeted capacity building efforts. Cfw will work side by side with grantees, and with the support of our program and hr departments, grantees will be positioned to implement systematic care structures that include comprehensive benefits packages for organizations and their staff.

Outreach, advocacy and communications: thanks to the past, sustained support of these movements and their infrastructure, even in times of more intense political opposition, cfw and our partners have been able to harness the opportunity of the current political climate to drive progressive change. Cfw's investments in coalitions, advocacy, and building the leadership development of advocates have contributed to over 55 pieces of pro-women-and-girls legislation passed over the past six years. This has included the equal rights amendment in Illinois, the no salary history law that strengthens the Illinois equal pay act, the Illinois reproductive health act, and a statewide sexual harassment law. As a result, Illinois is increasingly becoming a bastion for Women's rights in a nationally polarizing and oppressive sociopolitical context.cfw also leverages the strength of several external partners to ensure the long-term sustainability and success of its work. In partnership with the office of the city clerk of Chicago, cfw hosted a 2020 virtual girls summit, and several smaller focused virtual conversations in 2021 as a continuation of the girls summit, bringing together over 400 participants from across the city to have a conversation about the safety and wellbeing of all young Women, girls, trans, and nonbinary individuals ages 13-24. In addition, cfw is a member of the closing Women's wealth gap (cwwg), we demand more coalition, and a host of funders' collaboratives and works in close partnership with local government leaders.

Strategic initiatives: cfw is uniquely positioned to coordinate and lead collective impact work. for example, cfw has supported a cohort of 10 grantee partners as part of the eleanor network (en). Individually, these nonprofit organizations work to address the economic security of low- to moderate-income Women and families throughout the region. In 2017 cfw, building on the success of the eleanor network, launched the englewood Women's initiative (ewi), a place-based, community-centered and holistic approach to Women's economic security. These initiatives contribute to the larger body of cfw's expertise, discovery, and partnerships.cfw has an ambitious goal to advance gender equity for the region as part of its strategic plan. This work takes a number of forms, including large-scale policy change and advocacy, as well as work to transform the culture and systems within organizations. Cfw is host to the willie's warriors leadership initiative, a unique leadership development program named in honor of the late civil rights leader, rev. Willie t. barrow. Willie's warriors, established in 2018, offers black Women from all sectors and backgrounds a space to gain a deeper sense of themselves as leaders, strengthening their personal leadership style and bringing their whole selves to the table. Warriors explore the idea of leadership, personal growth and transformation, and how to sustain themselves while moving our communities forward. In 2023, the Foundation graduated the fifth cohort of warriors and will soon welcome the sixth cohort.