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April 2015 Welcome to our e-newsletter, which highlights LISC Chicago’s Campaign for Stronger Neighborhoods. To date, our donors have committed $38.1
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Welcome to our e-newsletter, which highlights LISC Chicago’s Campaign for Stronger Neighborhoods. To date, our donors have committed $38.1 million toward the $40 million campaign goal to make communities stronger and healthier, including recent commitments from: The Polk Bros. Foundation, Brinshore Development, Microsoft, the PERT Foundation, Associated Bank, the Chicago Cubs, Paul & Mary Finnegan, Comcast, and an anonymous donor. |
Near North has a plan of its own
Plans issued from on-high have shaped, and mis-shaped, Chicago’s Near North neighborhood for over a half century. But now there’s a new plan, one guided by folks who actually live there, a plan that aims to make this close-in and remarkably diverse place a true community of mutually supportive neighbors. Check it out.... |
Buyers of $1 Large Lots get the scoop
More than 30 South Side homeowners attended a Saturday morning workshop in search of expert advice now that they’ve successfully bid on a vacant city-owned lot near their existing property. Sponsored by LISC Chicago and Teamwork Englewood, the session was aimed at people who last year purchased more than 270 vacant lots in the initial phase of the city’s “Large Lots” program. Here's what they learned... |
The 'state' of the state budget
Virtually every neighborhood and community group allied with LISC Chicago’s local network will be impacted negatively unless the legislature reverses the severe state budget cuts being proposed by Gov. Bruce Rauner. From after-school programs to violence prevention, from mental health care to daycare services for working moms, the impending cuts likely will trigger staff and program reductions across the network. That grim prospect became painfully clear at a LISC-sponsored presentation about the budget situation by John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Learn more here... |
Investor Spotlights
To acknowledge the essential contributions of its funders, LISC Chicago is producing a series of short videos about those organizations, their interests in Chicago neighborhoods, and their reasons for investing with LISC. The first Investor Spotlight focuses on U.S. Bank and Marsha Cruzan, the bank’s Chicago market president. In Chicago, U.S. Bank’s recent contributions of $140,000 are supporting the digital skills training within the Centers for Working Families and LISC’s core work providing neighborhoods across the city with the resources they need to become healthier and stronger. Take a look... |
Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 ‘snapshot’
After nearly a year of work, The Chicago Community Trust has released "Chicago Neighborhoods 2015: Assets, Plans and Trends," a comprehensive overview of Chicago’s 77 community areas. The document includes summaries of assets, listings of community and citywide plans since the year 2000, and deep data archives at the district and census-tract levels. The material is organized around 16 planning districts that cover the entire city. LISC Chicago and the planning firm Teska Associates developed the asset summaries after convening focus groups and conducting extensive research into each district’s historic and current development activity. The overview of planning documents was developed by the Metropolitan Planning Council and Place Consulting. Data was compiled by the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University. Read all about it.... |
Three new members on Board of Advisors
Shelley Stern Grach, director, Technology and Civic Engagement at Microsoft Corporation; John Kleczynski, president, Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas; and Anne-Marie St. Germaine, managing director, Resolute Consulting, have joined LISC Chicago's Board of Advisors. The Board provides guidance and counsel to LISC Chicago. Its purview includes policy development and strategic planning; budget and finance; credit review and supervision; and fundraising. Board members are selected on the basis of their engagement in community development matters in the Chicago area. |
Civic Tech can help build a stronger city
Civic Tech is not just jargon, says Susana Vasquez, LISC Chicago's executive director. It's part of the next wave of community development. "And the more that techies and community developers engage and act together, and build strategies that put people and neighborhood issues first, the stronger our two fields will become." Read her post on Microsoft Chicago's blog.... |
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