Not a Member yet? Check out a sample of our recent programs below. Interested in becoming a Member? Learn more about the benefits and opportunities we offer.

Arts and Culture Funders Group: Rebuilding Arts Education in Urban School Districts
The Arts and Culture Funders Group presented a discussion with national education leaders from New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, who discussed how these cities built support for and reconstructed arts education programs for their schools.

Chicago Grantmakers for Effective Organizations: Effectiveness Matters
The Effectiveness Matters symposium provided an opportunity for foundation trustees, executives and program staff to explore how the complexities of organizational effectiveness work. The symposium highlighted funding initiatives and featured governance and management tools developed to help foundations achieve effectiveness.

Community Building Task Force: Criminalization of Black and Latino Youth/the Zero Tolerance Policy
The Community Building Task Force explored the impact of zero tolerance policies in Chicago public schools on black and Latino youth.

Corporate Committee: Corporate Social Responsibility. . .Myth or Reality?
What goals align the roles of public relations and corporate philanthropy? A guest presenter from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University spoke on best practices in strategic management of corporate responsibility.

Education Funders Group: Approaches to Strategic Funding for Policy and Practice Change
This session featured a dialogue among local Chicago education funders about strategic grantmaking during the last several years in Chicago schools, and kicked off the Education Funders Group's year-long series of learning-circle discussions.

Environmental Grantmakers Group: Midwest Global Warming
Environmental Grantmakers Group discussed emerging strategies in grantmaking focused on global warming. How can foundations begin funding programs that concentrate specifically on global warming, and how can smaller grant providers utilize their funds to facilitate the solution?

Family Foundations Committee: "Pursuit of Excellence"
A guest speaker from the National Center for Family Philanthropy, provided background and an overview of the Center's new work on the "Pursuit of Excellence," a body of knowledge the Center is creating about effective best practices used by family foundations in their governance and management.

Funding LGBT Issues Group: Increasing Awareness
Funding LGBT Issues Group advocates for increased philanthropic resources to organizations serving lesbians and gays, and raises awareness of LGBT issues in the philanthropic community. The group collaborated with the Youth Task Force to discuss topics such as sex education in the public schools and the University of Chicago's Black Youth Project.

Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees: Immigrant Integration
The national Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees published a toolkit on promoting immigrant integration into communities, while the New Americans Executive Order from Governor Rod Blagojevich generated a series of recommendations and policy proposals. The group hosted a funders-only session offering an advance look at the policy proposals for Illinois, as well as a discussion of the national toolkit, and how funders in a variety of program areas can promote community integration.

Grantmakers Concerned with Poverty: What is the Role of Funders in Addressing Poverty?
The entrenched poverty that many Chicagoans face is complex to understand, and challenging to effectively address. How can the limited resources of philanthropy have an impact in addressing poverty? The group was joined by panelists from Heartland Alliance's Mid America Institute on Poverty, the Field Foundation of Illinois, the Joyce Foundation and the Chicago Foundation for Women..

Health Program Affinity Group: Cook County Health Safety Net
A study of the Cook County health system commissioned by the Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute and produced by Northwestern University's Institute for Healthcare Studies was the focus of a follow-up meeting with the Health Program Affinity Group. The report includes comparative analyses and outlines recommendations for reform. Grantmakers reviewed the study, what it reveals about Cook County's health care safety net, and addressed ways in which foundations may address issues brought to light by the report.

MicroEdge Users Group: Streamlining Your Board Book
The MicroEdge Users Group held a discussion of how to use GIFTS software to put together a streamlined package, containing all the information board members need as they review information about prospective grantees. Guests from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and Polk Brothers Foundation started the discussion.

North Suburban Peer Network: Building Strategic Volunteer Programs
The North Suburban Peer Network provides an open, comfortable forum for discussion of issues related to corporate and foundation grantmakers in the north suburban Chicago area. A recent program focused on building strategic volunteer programs, including integrating communications, identifying appropriate measures to track, and challenges in obtaining reports on volunteer activities.

Public Foundation Fundraisers Network: Rules and Regulations for Donor Advised Funds
Guest presenters from Quarles and Brady LLP provided a review of the basics of offering and managing donor-advised funds, as well as a review of recent legislative provisions.

Peer Network for New Grantmakers: Reviewing Proposals
The Peer Network for New Grantmakers reviewed the ins and outs of proposal review and due diligence with a seasoned grantmaker. The group examined a case study proposal and discussed which questions to ask as part of the evaluation process.

Youth Task Force: Black Youth Project
The Youth Task Force (with co-sponsors the Education Funders Group, Funding LGBT Issues Group, and the Community Building Task Force) presented a discussion of the University of Chicago's Black Youth Project: Sex, Politics and Culture Research. The principal researcher joined us to present the voices and analysis of the young people, the economy and their social realities.

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