Healing Youth Racial Trauma

Overview

_NOTE: No new LOIs/Proposals will be accepted in 2025._

Our Mission

Bright Promises Foundation’s mission is to identify, fund, and share solutions to underrecognized needs of children and youth most adversely impacted by inequity. Our vision is for a Chicagoland where all children and youth reach their full promise and potential.

Healing Youth Racial Trauma

Building on a decade of work to advance the field of childhood trauma, Bright Promises Foundation launched the Healing, Leading, Changing initiative in 2021 to provide community organizations with funding and support to develop, test, implement, document, and disseminate strategies for addressing childhood trauma caused by racism.

The purpose of this initiative is to improve the capacity of youth-serving organizations to address youth trauma caused by racism, and to facilitate a cross-organization Youth Council that will develop tools and resources to share with other organizations so that more youth can heal, become more resilient, and thrive.

Over the next five years, Bright Promises will invest more than $2 million in community organizations to help scale existing programs, create new programs, and broadly share best practices for addressing childhood trauma caused by racism.

Grant Amounts and Available Terms

Organizations can apply for two-year grants of $20,000 per year, or $40,000 over the course of two years. Second year grant installments will only be released if Bright Promises has determined that grantee organizations are meeting objectives and making sufficient progress. Organizations may also apply for a third and fourth-year grant.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* Applying organizations must meet the following criteria:
* Be an eligible 501 c(3) tax-exempt organization
* Have programs for 7th-12th grade youth and may also include young adults up to the age of 25 that explicitly address racial trauma
* Be respectful of youth voices and give them a platform where much of the work is youth-led
* Use a trauma-informed approach and use specific activities and methods to address how racism impacts youths’ mental and physical health.
* Have a youth program that meets regularly with a core group of youth (mostly the same students stay with the program over the year, not drop-in programs.).
* A significant portion of this program should occur during the academic year (September – June).
* Have staff dedicated to the particular youth program.
* Be passionate about equity, social justice, and promoting an anti-racist culture.

Ineligibility

* Bright Promises Foundation will not fund:
* Proposals from individual schools.
* Proposals from external organizations that work in schools either during the school day or out-of-school time are eligible to apply.
* General operating requests.
* Programs that occur outside of the Metropolitan Chicago Area.
* National organizations can only apply if the funded program occurs within our area of geographic focus and there is a local office with dedicated staff.
* Organizations that do not have 501(c)3 IRS designated nonprofit status unless there is a fiscal agent.
* Organizations that do not have a strong track record of promoting children and youths’ well-being as a core part of their mission or that have a philosophy that does not align with the principles for which Bright Promises stands.
* Organizations that discriminate based on race, religion, ability, gender or sexual orientation.
* Programs serving a specific gender or other subpopulations will be considered.
* Programs that are oriented around a specific religion or religious teachings.
* Religious organizations may apply if the program for which funding is being sought is not religious in nature.