Grants &
Guidelines
Program
Areas.
Hello and welcome! Abortion Access, Community Organizing for Racial Justice and Urban Environmental Justice will continue to be our primary funding areas through 2025.
Abortion Access
Abortion care is essential health care.
The Abortion Access Program Area supports access to safe, affordable, and legal abortions. Organizations selected for funding receive one-year general operating grants. Three categories have emerged as priorities:
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Increasing access to self-managed medication abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol)
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Chicago-area abortion services, financial support, and transportation/housing needs
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Abortion access in southeast states
There are no formal guidelines to apply; if your organization aligns with these categories, please send an email of introduction.
2023 Grants
Abortion Care Network $10,000
ARC SouthEast $10,000
Carafem $20,000
Chicago Abortion Fund $50,000
CHOICES Carbondale Memphis $15,000
Feminist Women's Health Center $15,000
Kentucky Health Justice Network $20,000
Midwest Access Coalition $50,000
Midwest Access Project $10,000
Mountain Access Brigade $20,000
Provide $20,000
Community Organizing for Racial Justice
This Program Area utilizes participatory grantmaking, shifting decision-making power to an external Grants Team of Chicagoans with lived experience of racial injustice as well as proximity to the issues and communities the Foundation seek to engage.
Additional information on our participatory grantmaking process can be found on this page.
2023 Guidelines can be downloaded here.
Please note: the grants initiated in 2023 were for two years; the same grants will go out again in 2024. There will not be an opportunity to apply for a grant in this program area in 2024.
The organizations below will be funded in 2023 and 2024 at the amounts listed:
Chicago IWOC $25,000
We Are Dissenters $15,000
Equity And Transformation $15,000
Free Us: Chicago EM Collective $25,000
Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments $25,000
Liberation Library $25,000
MAMAs Activating Movements for Abolition & Solidarity $25,000
Nebula Mutual Aid $25,000
Not Me We $25,000
Organized Communities Against Deportation $15,000
The Final 5 Campaign $25,000
Urban Environmental Justice
The vision of the Urban Environmental Justice Program Area is that all Chicago residents live in environmentally safe communities.
Low-income communities and communities of color experience disproportionately higher levels of air, water, and soil pollution and contamination. Nonprofit organizations addressing environmental injustice in these communities are the focus of this Program Area.
Grants are made to organizations that identify environmental hazards, involve their communities in identifying solutions, and advocate for justice and remediation.
Eligible applicants will be Chicago-area nonprofit organizations that are a) led by those directly impacted, b) include community members in decision-making, and c) accountable to the communities they seek to improve.
Grants are not restricted and are awarded annually. There are no formal guidelines to apply; if your organization aligns with these categories, please send an email of introduction.
2023 Grants
Alliance of the Southeast $40,000
Block Club Chicago $35,000
Chicago Frontlines Funding Initiative $25,000
Faith in Place $25,000
Friends of the Parks $25,000
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) $40,000
Sweet Water Foundation $30,000
Long Term Commitments
The board elected to fund four organizations with multi-year commitments, separate from and in addition to the program areas listed above.
Each of the following will receive $50,000 annually through 2025:
Funder
Collaborations
The Conant Family Foundation is proud to partner with other foundations on issues that align with our mission. In 2023, these included:
Chicago Racial Justice Pooled Fund, $25,000
Chicago Fund for Safe & Peaceful Communities, $20,000
Chicago Peace Fellows, $30,000
