Local Initiatives Support Corporation

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a national community development support intermediary that works to revitalize low-income neighborhoods. The Chicago office of LISC, established in 1982, is a leading supporter of community revitalization initiatives in the metropolitan region. With this award, LISC organizes a series of six meetings between Chicago Mayor-Elect Lori Lightfoot and residents of Chicago. In these meetings, which are scheduled in neighborhoods across the city between April and June 2019, residents have the opportunity to share their concerns and priorities with the Mayor-Elect. LISC will produce publicly available summaries of each meeting for the Mayor-Elect and her administration.

Founded in Chicago in 1980, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC Chicago) builds local capacity to create and access economic opportunity in neighborhoods. Its work is focused on comprehensive community development, economic growth, and investments. In 1995, LISC Chicago created the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards to recognize outstanding achievement in neighborhood development and community building. This award supports the establishment of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Creative Placemaking Award, which recognizes projects that strengthen and revitalize communities through the use of arts and culture. This award also supports the development of a plan for Chicago’s housing priorities over the next five years, which will be produced with the City of Chicago, community developers, nonprofit organizations, and affordable housing advocates.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a national community development support intermediary that works to revitalize low-income neighborhoods. The Chicago office of LISC, established in 1982, has been a leading supporter of community revitalization initiatives in the region. The organization served as the managing intermediary for the Foundation’s New Communities Program, a revitalization initiative in 16 Chicago neighborhoods that ended in 2012. In this capacity, LISC provided planning and technical assistance to a wide range of collaborating organizations in each neighborhood, thereby supporting their efforts to significantly expand the range of revitalization efforts underway across these communities. Recognizing continuing demand for such planning and technical assistance, grant funding enables LISC to flexibly respond to requests for support from local organizations and collaborations.

The Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC/Chicago) is a community development intermediary that works to improve the quality of life in the city’s low-income neighborhoods.  LISC is collaborating with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) and World Business Chicago (WBC) as initial local partners to plan for the city’s joining the Inclusive Economic Growth Accelerator. The Accelerator is a grouping of what will grow to 10 cities in North America and Europe seeking to engage a broader cross section of local communities as participants in and beneficiaries of economic growth in each metropolitan region. The Accelerators network is led by the Royal Society for Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA), a London-based group that facilitated the building of a first Accelerator in London. Grant funds underwrite the first stage of building the Accelerator in Chicago, including engagement of RSA as facilitator of the work in Chicago, and during this stage, additional community and civic partners are being recruited, a binding shared mission agreed to, common impact indicators identified, and priority growth strategies and initial plans for implementation developed.

The Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a leading community development intermediary serving Chicago neighborhoods. Support for LISC enables the organization to build strong networks of organizations working in neighborhoods across the city. This operating support grant will enable LISC to continue to strengthen the capacities of neighborhood organizations. By funding LISC, the Foundation and other public and private funders are able to build upon this stronger organizational infrastructure to address a range of opportunities and challenges that affect quality of life in Chicago neighborhoods.

Susana Vasquez, executive director of the Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, is one of three co-chairs of the 20-member steering committee for the City of Chicago’s 2014-2018 Five Year Housing Plan. With support from LISC, which is acting as the fiscal agent for the plan development process, the City of Chicago will convene housing experts and practitioners to develop the new five-year plan, addressing housing issues in four types of markets: growing; stable; transitional; and weak. Sessions will focus on: Chicago’s Housing Market: the Big Picture; Housing Development; Community Development and Housing; and Preservation of Existing Housing.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a national community development support intermediary that works to revitalize low-income neighborhoods. This grant provides start-up support for Chicago TREND (Transforming Retail Economics for Neighborhood Development), a new retail development initiative designed to improve the vitality of neighborhood business districts and corridors in New Communities Program and adjacent areas, and provides support for the pre-development of pilot commercial real estate projects.

For 10 years, LISC/Chicago has managed the New Communities Program, which provides a strong platform for community development in Chicago by planning, implementing, and connecting a comprehensive array of activities to increase affordable housing, reduce violence, and improve financial conditions in neighborhoods. This grant provides transition support for two program initiatives: the Near North Unity Program, an effort to support community building and reduce violence around the former Cabrini-Green public housing development site; and the Smart Communities Program, a five-neighborhood demonstration that aims to increase the availability and use of information technologies by residents and businesses.

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)/Chicago is a leading community development intermediary that since 2003 has led the New Communities Program, the Foundation-supported initiative to revitalize 16 low-income Chicago neighborhoods. This grant supports the next phase of the initiative, a test of the comprehensive model developed and implemented in phase one that seeks to achieve measurable changes in key indicators of quality of life and community vitality: employment, economic development, violence reduction, and housing development. Funding also will be used to develop better tools for data acquisition and analysis to inform program choices, and performance management systems to improve project execution.

In support of the Micro-Market Recovery Program (over three years). To pay for staffing costs and data/consulting contracts related to a program targeting neighborhood stabilization in nine Chicago communities that have been affected by high rates of foreclosure.

Building on the success of its Foundation-funded project with the Cook County Assessor’s office to investigate new methodologies to improve the process and timeliness of property tax assessments, LISC/Chicago will oversee the work to complete the development and implementation of new statistical techniques that could help diminish a structural problem that assessment models nationwide share. A successful effort in Cook County to increase the accuracy and equity of its property tax assessments could have national implications.

The Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national community development intermediary that manages the Foundation-supported New Communities Program, which is an effort to revitalize 16 Chicago neighborhoods, and Metropolis Strategies, a civic organization that works to improve regional planning on a wide range of issues, including criminal justice reform, transportation, and economic development, will undertake a joint effort to investigate possible strategies to promote business corridor revival and business expansion that also serve to link neighborhoods to new employment opportunities.

In support of summer youth programs to reduce violence in Chicago.

To enhance technology capacity in five New Communities Program neighborhoods in Chicago.

To enhance technology capacity in five New Communities Program neighborhoods in Chicago.

To support violence reduction efforts in a Chicago neighborhood.

To support violence reduction efforts in a Chicago neighborhood.

To support business and industrial area planning for neighborhoods in the New Communities Program.

To support business and industrial area planning for neighborhoods in the New Communities Program.

To support the Centers for Working Families in Chicago.

To support the Centers for Working Families in Chicago.

To work with the Chicago Public Library to implement YouMedia in schools and to participate in a Chicago Learning Network.

To support a more fair and equitable property tax assessment system in Cook County, Illinois.

To support a more fair and equitable property tax assessment system in Cook County, Illinois.

In support of the New Communities Program.

In support of the New Communities Program.

To support an exchange between Chicago New Communities Program leaders and community development leaders in Russia.

To support foreclosure prevention activities in 16 New Communities Program neighborhoods in Chicago.

To support the Centers for Working Families.

To support the Centers for Working Families.

Program-Related Investment to help fund loans made by the Preservation Compact Fund.

In support of MetroEdge projects in the City of Chicago (over two years).

In support of foreclosure prevention efforts in New Communities Program neighborhoods.

To support the administrative costs related to the formation and closing of the Chicago/Cook County Preservation Loan Facility, as part of The Preservation Compact.

In support of the Chicago Sunday Parkways Stakeholders Committee to participate in a seminar in Ecuador.

To integrate best practices in reproductive health care into school based health centers in Chicago.

To develop a web-based social networking application targeting community development professionals.

In support of the New Communities Program (over five years).

In support of participation in an Atlantic Philanthropies demonstration of integrated services in extended day schools.

In support of operating Centers for Working Families in 13 neighborhoods in Chicago (over three years).

In support of a conference on new approaches to increasing the economic security of low-wage workers (over six months).

In support of community participation in the design and testing of Internet tools for community policing.

In support of website development and training in content management for eight community organizations.

In support of comprehensive community revitalization in 16 neighborhoods in Chicago (over three years).

To design and develop a neighborhood capacity-building program in up to 10 communities.

To support a pilot project to engage community residents in planning programs for Chicago Park District facilities.

To support a project on family child care network interventions to improve the quality of care and business practices (over three years).

To support a comprehensive community development program for Chicago neighborhoods (over five years).

To support comprehensive community development programs.

In support of general operations.

To support the Futures Committee.

Program-related investment to support property management bridge loans to community development corporations in Chicago.

To support Chicago community development programs (over three years).

Program-related investment to support community development efforts in Chicago.

Program-related investment for working capital and economic development loans in Chicago, financing the commercial real estate projects of community development corporations; providing predevelopment and property acquisition capital for experienced CDCs; and providing bridge loans to CDCs completing their first housing projects.

To support the Community Development Capacity Building Program (over eight years).

Program-related investment to be used for bridge loans for low- and moderate-income housing projects involving investments of the Chicago Equity Fund.

Program-related investment to establish Community Development Initiatives.

To support the LISC-Chicago Fund.

To establish LISC-Chicago.