Capacity Building Grant

Capacity Building Grant

Funder: Advocates for Urban Agriculture (AUA) in partnership with Food:Land:Opportunity (F.L.O.)

Purpose: A community-led grant fund designed to support urban farms and community gardens to enrich the local food economy, production and distribution throughout the Chicago area.

Geographic Scope

Operations must be located in one of the following Illinois counties: Cook, Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will, or Kankakee.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants must meet ALL of the following criteria:

Size Requirements:

Less than 5 growing acres

Annual budget less than $250,000

Mission and Partnership Focus - Must have ONE of the following:

Focused on providing food for the local community, especially BIPOC, trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and/or disabled communities

Developed strong partnerships with the local community

Employ people from the community where they grow

Have existing community partners and incorporate those partnerships into project proposals

Provide educational resources within their community

Organizational Requirements:

Must be a legal entity or will be within a year (For-profit, Non-profit, or DBA)

Can be fiscally sponsored

Must be a farm, community garden, or collective made up of farms and/or community gardens

Priority Populations

Grant prioritizes farms and community gardens which are owned and led by:
• BIPOC individuals
• People with disabilities
• Transgender, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary individuals

Selection Process

Recipients are selected by an Advisory Committee composed of community residents who are past grantees, growers, or supporters of earth stewardship.

Guiding Documents

The grant is grounded in four co-created documents:
• Guiding Values
• Practical Applications
• Blocks to Urban Agriculture
• Wave of Urban Agriculture

Equal Opportunity Statement

AUA works affirmatively to foster inclusive programming and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disability, income, marital status, or any other dimension of identity. AUA strongly encourages applications from historically under-represented voices in the food system.

Contact

Grant Administrator: Bea Fry (bea@auachicago.org)