August 2025 — Moving the Needle // Woods Fund Chicago

As summer wanes, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate the work of some Woods Fund Chicago grantee partners.

We have spoken early and often about resourcing grantee partners: moving more money faster, leaning into trust-based philanthropy, and acting in solidarity beyond grant dollars. Fueling those shifts is our deep belief in the work our grantee partners are doing to build a better world for us all. Under the new federal administration, these organizations are continually doing more with less. Below is just a sample of the work our partners are doing to make Chicago a forefront and a sanctuary against a backdrop of increased surveillance and repression.

A hostile federal landscape is nothing new to immigrant rights organizations, but as ICE activity has increased in volume and cruelty, organizations across the city have stepped up to challenge police collaboration with ICE in the courts, create and distribute Know-Your-Rights guides, and push the City and State to add muscle behind sanctuary rhetoric. This month, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Latino Policy Forum celebrated alongside coalition partners as Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill protecting equal access to public education for immigrant students.

The bill is designed to make sure Illinois schools remain a safe haven for all students. It prohibits K-12 schools from soliciting information on immigration status or discriminating against students based on real or perceived status. It also requires schools to create plans around any on-campus ICE action. Against a backdrop of frequent ICE enforcement, the legislation creates practical pathways to make sure students aren’t afraid to come to school.

The Children and Family Justice Center and the many grantee partners behind the Coalition to End Money Bond saw a long-fought win in the FAIR act, which will ensure more resources and independence for the state’s public defenders. Per the Coalition to End Money Bond, the act represents the first major reform to the Illinois public defense system since 1949. Over a two year implementation period, the law creates an Office of the State Public Defender, ensures that public defenders can no longer be fired without cause by the judges they practice in front of — as was the case in every county but Cook — and increases the flow of resources to public defenders across the state.

After months of debate in City Council, civil rights organizations across the city voiced solidarity with the mayor and alderpeople who voted down the Snap Curfew ordinance. Signed by a broad coalition, the letter states: “This veto protects the youth of this city, and is a commitment that this city will not use archaic, disproven, and racist tactics to criminalize our youth, target Black and brown working class communities, and threaten constitutional rights...especially at a time when President Donald Trump is issuing orders to ‘unleash policing’ and rolling back gains of the Civil Rights Movement.” The close vote — the ordinance was ultimately vetoed by Mayor Brandon Johnson — illustrated the critical work of basebuilding and ongoing organizing on a city level.

Simultaneously, these organizations are trialing alternative forms of collective safety. Vocal advocates against the snap curfew, GoodKids MadCity also organized city-funded employment for 200 youth as peacekeepers this summer, engaging them in a curriculum of community organizing, restorative justice, and conflict resolution.

After the current federal administration announced it was dropping US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) involvement in two key Chicago cases, local orgs are doubling down to push a progressive city administration to act without federal enforcement. Organizations like Alliance of the Southeast are continuing the fight to prevent polluting businesses like General Iron from locating in Black and brown communities in Chicago, while tenants rights organizations like Southside Together organize against displacement, even as the federal government has abandoned its previous stance that use of aldermanic prerogative to stall affordable housing developments was discriminatory.

In the wake of an Executive Order that allocates federal funding based on whether municipalities criminalize homelessness, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness is one of the clearest voices illustrating the cruelties of policies that seek to disappear rather than support people — and the overwhelming research on better alternatives.

Despite its discontinuation, the 2022-2024 Cook County Guaranteed Income Pilot yielded clear data in support of the transformative impact of direct cash assistance. This summer, grassroots organizations including grantee partners Equity and Transformation and Workers Center for Racial Justice engaged in a targeted canvas to talk to people about the radical potential of guaranteed income. Their work reminds us that even as we fight to avoid ceding ground, we have to keep actively dreaming of what’s possible together.

These highlights are a fraction of the work that 87 Grantee Partners are doing day over day, week over week to make this city a bulwark and a beacon, to protect our most vulnerable, and to prove what’s possible. It is a privilege to stand with them.

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