African American Legacy Grants

The African American Legacy Grants, initiated by The Chicago Community Trust, aims to enhance the quality of life for Black communities in metropolitan Chicago. This program supports Black-led organizations focused on community wealth building, mobilization, and care. Grants range from $15,000 to $75,000 depending on the project's scope, promoting initiatives like worker cooperatives and mental health services. The grants prioritize organizations that are responsive to community needs and emphasize collective impact through shared ownership and democratic participation.

Background
African American Legacy (AAL), an initiative of The Chicago Community Trust, is a philanthropic and educational initiative led by Black civic and community leaders who share the common goal of improving the quality of life among Black people throughout metropolitan Chicago. AAL engages leaders in philanthropy, collectively and individually, and provides support to nonprofit organizations that work at the community level to educate and engage communities,  and to provide neighborhood-based services and solutions to address community problems. Grounded in the philosophies of collective giving, community engagement, and grantmaking, AAL serves as a convener and catalyst to promote significant impact in Black communities through the organizations that it supports. The ultimate goal of AAL’s grantmaking is to strategically assist organizations in their growth and development so they can leverage these funds to attract new, larger investments.
Focus Areas
AAL will support community organizations who share the common goal of improving the quality of life among Black people throughout metropolitan Chicago working in working in the following areas:

• Community Wealth Building:

We seek to support organizations focused on the shared wealth of their communities, as connected groups of people. It is the shared wealth, not the sum of wealth, of multiple households or whole communities. For this focus area, successful applicants approach economic development in a manner that promotes the local, democratic, and shared ownership and control of community assets. Such initiatives include:
Worker-Owned Cooperatives: Values-driven businesses that are collectively owned and democratically operated by their employees. Worker Cooperatives generate worker and community benefits.Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives: Housing that is collectively owned and democratically managed by residents and that aims to maintain permanent affordability, accessibility, and stability.Community Land Trusts: Community-based nonprofits that acquire and steward community land and assets for the explicit purpose of preserving affordability and mitigating displacement from residential and commercial properties.Community Investment Vehicles: Legal mechanisms for community investment in neighborhood assets based on shared values and development goals. In its ideal form, CIVs are designed, majority-owned, and majority-controlled by residents or local members.
Community Mobilization
We seek to support organizations doing work in the areas of voting rights/access activism, immigration reform, education inequity, and fighting the erasure of Black people, Black history, and Black stories.
Community Care
We seek to support organizations that actively respond to the disproportionate impact of issues such as employment instability, housing instability, and trauma on Black people and Black communities through the delivery of mental health and wellness services as their primary service.
Grantmaking Criteria
Black-Led or Black-Serving. AAL is committed to supporting Black leaders in organizations or organizations that serve underinvested communities whose residents or constituents are predominately Black. Black-serving means constituents are predominantly (51%) Black and/or from the African Diaspora (Africans brought primarily to the Americas as slaves who live around the globe—Brazil, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Europe, and Asia). Organizations that are older than five years will not be considered if the Executive Director and Board Chair are the same individual.Place-based. Primarily located in the Chicago metropolitan region (which includes Cook, DuPage, Kane, McHenry and/or Will Counties, Illinois), and accessed by Black people living in this region.People-driven. Program direction and design are grounded in the needs of the constituency and the community served. Using an asset-based approach means that the organization’s work is done not only for the people involved but also by them.
Funding Amount
Community Wealth Building Applicants Only:
Grants under these priority area for 2025 will range in size between $50,000 to $75,000 based on the scope of the applicant’s general operations or project-based needs. Community Mobilization and Community Care Applicants Only:
Grants under these priority areas for 2025 will range in size between $15,000 to $25,000 based on the scope of the applicants general operations or project-based needs.

Eligibility

Eligible organizations are Black-led or Black-serving, responsive and rooted in community, and whose work is focused in one of the three priority areas outlined above are eligible to apply.To be eligible for a grant award, an applicant must be:A nonprofit organization with evidence that ithas been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as an organization described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Code; oris fiscally sponsored by a Section 501(c)(3) organization; or is a governmental unit within the meaning of Section 170(c)(1) of the Code.Described in Section 170(b)(1)(A) of the Code, other than a “disqualified supporting organization” within the meaning of Section 4966(d)(4) of the Code.Located within or primarily serving residents of the Chicago metropolitan region, which includes Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and/or Will Counties, Illinois.All 2025 AAL grants will be for general operating support or project-based support of organizations or programs that align with the defined focus areas.

Ineligibility

Electioneering or political activities Contributions to any candidate for public office or political committee Campaigning on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office Grants to individuals