Arts and culture are essential elements of community wellbeing and living in vibrant spaces. Through our Vital Communities portfolio, the Chicago Commitment team has been exploring arts and cultural strategies that can contribute to advancing spatial, community, and economic development in Chicago’s neighborhoods.
The Chicago Commitment team seeks a nonprofit, Chicago-based regranting partner to complement our scope and reach through this Request for Proposals (RFP).
The selected organization will administer and oversee a regranting program that supports arts and cultural strategies being incorporated into spatial, community, and economic development projects in Chicago. The regranting partner would fund projects in one or more of the following categories:
- Projects in neighborhoods throughout the city of Chicago;
- Projects benefiting populations that are dispersed across several neighborhoods (for instance, Chicago’s diverse communities are not necessarily concentrated in specific neighborhoods and the community development organizations that support those communities tend to work citywide); and
- Projects led by entrepreneurs, small businesses, and unincorporated collectives.
The Chicago Commitment team expects that this organization will award a total of $350,000 in grants in its first year of grantmaking. MacArthur will also make an additional $150,000 available per year to the nonprofit for three years to invest in its capacity to implement the necessary investigation, adjudication, and grants management.
The Chicago Commitment team is open to considering a wide range of organizational partners, including entities of all budget sizes and with varying histories of redeploying financial capital for community development projects that utilize arts and culture integration.
MacArthur will select a nonprofit as its regranting partner and believes that its ideal organizational partner (and/or its leadership) will have:
- Experience working deeply in at least one Chicago community, as well as a trusted reputation across the city;
- A history of understanding the roles of arts and culture within spatial, community, and economic development;
- Preexisting and ongoing interest in increasing activity around the roles of arts and culture with spatial, community, and economic development;
- A reasonable level of fiscal and organizational health and capacity (specifically, a level that allows them to complete the MacArthur Foundation’s reporting requirements); and
- Adequate staff time and interest to share learnings with the Chicago Commitment team and other funders and policymakers.
Timeline
- RFP opens: Monday, February 19, 2024
- Attend a virtual information session. If you wish to respond to the RFP but a representative from your organization is unable to attend either session, please email us to indicate interest and receive a session recording. The same content will be covered in each session.
- RFP closes: Monday, March 18, 2024
- Awardee announcement: Fall 2024
- Expected launch of program: January 2025
- Expected initial grant cycle by regranting partner: Spring 2025
Note: Timeline is subject to change.
How to Apply
To help prepare your proposal, please view this background document which informed our learning.
We ask RFP respondents to attend one of the above listed virtual information sessions or email us to indicate interest and receive a session recording.
Submit your proposal as an attached Word document or PDF by Monday, March 18, 2024, with the below information.
- Organizational name
- EIN
- Mailing address
- CEO or Director name, title, and email address
- CFO name, title, and email address
- Primary contact for this project (if not the CEO): name, title, and email address
- Most recently available audit
- Current organizational budget
- Organizational mission statement and brief overview of programs/services
- Which of the following categories would you have interest and experience in making grants:
- Projects in neighborhoods within Chicago
- Projects benefiting populations that are dispersed across several neighborhoods (for instance, Chicago’s diverse communities are not necessarily concentrated in specific neighborhoods and the community development organizations that support those communities tend to work citywide)
- Projects led by entrepreneurs, small businesses, and unincorporated collectives
- What is one Chicago neighborhood or community in or with which you have worked deeply? Please briefly describe that work.
- How would you characterize your organization’s contribution to culturally centered development in Chicago?
- When did your organization first begin thinking about the role of arts and cultural strategies in spatial, community, and/or economic development? Briefly describe your current thinking and work in this area.
- What makes you potentially interested in this opportunity?
- What else should we know about your organization, its work, and your interest in this opportunity?
