A new fund with more than 100 local philanthropic investors wants to help solve some of Chicago’s biggest problems. But first, it must determine what those might be.
GreenLight Fund, a Boston-based nonprofit that partners with communities to solve local issues in areas such as food security, literacy and poverty, announced Chicago as the site of its 12th fund this week.
The fund will commit $6 million in Chicago over the next five years. GreenLight said its methods have been successful in solving community-wide problems in some of the biggest cities across the U.S.
The San Francisco GreenLight Fund, for example, identified a growing demand for accessible, reliable and nutritional food assistance and launched Food Connect in 2020 to complement the existing ecosystem by training volunteers, managing logistics and executing meal delivery to get food to families in need. The organization distributed more than 130,000 meals with nine community partners, reaching nearly 15,000 individuals in 2020–2021.
GreenLight will partner with local residents and community leaders in Chicago to address unmet needs and disparities in a city where the median income for white residents is twice that of Black residents and 72% higher than Latinos.
“The question we’re asking is what’s not happening in Chicago that should be happening? What’s an area or metric that holds back low-income children and families?” said John Simon, co-founder and board chair of the GreenLight Fund and a managing director at Boston-based venture capital firm Sigma Prime Ventures, to Chicago Inno.
Figuring out what Chicago's needs are
Over the next five years, Simon’s goal will be to invest in around four or five evidence-based programs that will address different community-identified needs that can be scaled in Chicago.
GreenLight will need to first hire an executive director to run its Chicago operation.
Simon said it will be somebody with deep Chicago roots, a passion for analytics and a rich nonprofit background. GreenLight will also establish a committee of more than 30 people with all different types of backgrounds across for-profit, not-for-profit and public university sectors.
The $6 million commitment is made possible by local investors that include prominent local institutions such as the Obama Foundation and University of Chicago, big name institutions including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs Chicago Office, philanthropic staples such as Mackenzie Scott and even a former Chicago Bear.
Simon said with more than 100 local supporters, the Chicago fund is the organization's biggest fund to date.
While the decision on what problems to address will ultimately be made by the executive director, other cities have created solutions around homelessness, affordable housing, educational issues, public safety issues and workforce development issues.
