Many Chicago nonprofits struggle to sustain themselves. We can help them help themselves.
By Lori E. Lightfoot
While I remember many things from my time as mayor, one moment that will always stand out is the day in early April 2020 when I learned of data on the number of deaths caused by COVID-19.
Black Chicagoans were dramatically hardest hit, and those residents were dying at six times the rate of any other demographic. That news was like a gut punch, and I knew that we needed to act quickly and that as a government, we needed to work together with health systems and community-based organizations (CBOs) in new ways. We recruited leaders from each of these groups and formed the Racial Equity Rapid Response Team. The response team designed an equity-based strategy to respond to communities’ needs amid the emergency with services and resources provided through trusted service providers. And it worked.
Throughout the pandemic and recovery, CBOs stayed on the front lines, offering education, testing and later vaccines. These same CBOs provided safe spaces for young people, delivered meals, offered shelter, mental health support and so much more. As a city, we would not have gotten through the pandemic as well as we did without these invaluable partners.
Now, we are in a new phase of our recovery journey, and CBOs again have to be centered. Federal COVID19 recovery funding ends soon, and many CBOs are at a crossroads. COVID-19 exposed deep-seated challenges in the nonprofit sector, including a burnt-out and underpaid workforce, systemic underinvestment in CBOs led by people of color and an almost-exclusive focus on minimizing overhead costs at the expense of crucial back-office functions.
CBOs based in Chicago’s historically disinvested communities face an even larger uphill battle. For example, in a West Side neighborhood with one of the highest rates of gun violence, I got to know an organization that provides after-school activities and safe spaces for young people. This organization is one of the best at what it does. It has a small but mighty team that makes lifeor-death differences every day. But the organization struggles to sustain itself. Its small team puts services for young people first, and it lacks the bandwidth to navigate the red tape of funding applications and grant agreements. This story is not unique, and I know from my own hands-on experience governing amid cascading crises that many other CBOs face the same challenges.
To reverse this trend, we must empower and support the local organizations that embody a community’s resilience. Now is the time to take a transformative step forward by investing in capacity building to strengthen these organizations’ critical back-office functions such as budgeting, finance, data analytics, human resources, succession planning, diversifying revenue streams and much more. Technical assistance in these areas will help these CBOs become more sustainable.
Some Chicago philanthropic leaders have already taken steps to provide support, and I commend them. However, more support is needed. Corporate, government and philanthropic actors need to fund capacity building and training. In my team’s research, we heard over and over that CBOs are looking for an approach that leverages their inherent expertise. This is not charity. It is a long-term commitment to dismantling systemic barriers that hinder organizational sustainability.
Chicago Vibrant Neighborhoods Collective (CVNC), a new organization founded by some of my former City Hall colleagues and me, aims to do just that: provide small and medium homegrown CBOs with the resources needed for sustainable growth. CVNC also aims to facilitate collaboration among CBOs, as well as with the private sector. This is not about imposing solutions from the top down; it’s about further empowering organizations that have already demonstrated creativity, commitment and grit. We know this approach works. We saw it with the rapid response team, and organizations such as West Side United and Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council continue to carry it forward.
By promoting sustainability through capacity building and collaboration, we aim to create a ripple effect that extends beyond individual organizations. Empowered collectives at the neighborhood level have the ability to more strategically engage larger public, philanthropic and private partners. This approach ensures that the power to drive change remains firmly rooted in the communities themselves.
Chicago has the opportunity to lead the way in creating a more equitable and sustainable nonprofit ecosystem. Those who live and work in these communities understand the value of homegrown CBOs. It is time for the larger ecosystem to invest in their capacity and build a future in which every community can thrive.
I hope Chicagoans of goodwill will visit chivnc.org and get involved.
Lori E. Lightfoot was the 56th mayor of Chicago from 2019 until 2023.