our mission and values

Impact Grants Chicago connects, engages and empowers women to improve our community by collectively funding $100,000 grants to Chicago nonprofits that are dedicated to addressing the challenges facing our city.

We value...

  • connecting women for collective impact
  • offering our members an efficient and trusted philanthropic process
  • the flexibility of engagement in our process
  • every woman having an equal voice in choosing our grantees
  • the integrity, commitment and collective knowledge of our members
  • providing our members the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of Chicago nonprofits
  • our role in raising the profiles of Chicago nonprofits
  • a membership that is open to anyone who identifies as a woman
  • being an anti-racist organization that promotes a diversity of perspectives in our membership and in our support of the nonprofit community

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Our members join Impact Grants Chicago because they want to make a difference. We are proud of our process and the projects we have funded over the past three years, work that has brought our members face-to-face with the racial and economic inequity that exists in our city.

While many Chicago communities confront inequity, in this moment of racial reckoning we have to acknowledge the extra burden of racism faced by communities of color. This additional layer of inequity is reflected in the disparities we see in every measurable outcome of well-being, including health care, education, housing, and employment. The systems that create these profoundly disparate outcomes don’t just fail people of color – they fail all of us. Naming the racism we see brings us closer to defeating it, and to becoming even more effective grant-makers.

Moving forward, we will view the work we do through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Specifically:

  • We have established an ongoing DEI Task Force to lead this effort.
  • We will work to diversify our membership, which will broaden our perspectives and conversations and enable us to be more informed grant-makers.
  • We will educate ourselves about structural racism and its effects through our training, educational offerings, sharing of resources, and honest discussion.
  • We will ask our nonprofit applicants about the ways in which diversity, equity, and inclusion inform their work.
We are deeply committed to embracing diversity and working towards racial equity. We know this work is ongoing, and we will hold ourselves accountable to our members and our nonprofit partners.