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In 2019, we launched Lever for Change with the goal of unlocking significant philanthropic capital for transformative social change. We hoped our services would address the gap between wealthy donors' aspirations and their actual grantmaking.
We designed the Bold Solutions Network as a vital component of our mission to catalyze funding opportunities and accelerate social change. With more than 110 active nonprofits and social enterprises, the work being done by Bold Solutions Network members currently spans 12 broad interest areas and is conducted on every continent except Antarctica.
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Since its founding in 2019, Lever for Change has partnered with donors to launch nine competitions, ranging from racial and gender equity to economic development and climate change.
Racial Equity 2030 seeks to scale transformative ideas that will improve the lives of children, families and communities across the globe.
Always Growing, Auburn Gresham has been awarded the first ever Chicago Prize, a $10 million grant competition of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation that sought to invest in collaborative initiatives using physical development to spur economic activity, strengthen civic infrastructure, and improve the safety, well-being, and economic mobility of residents in the city's South and/or West sides.
Today, Pivotal Ventures announced an additional $10 million for the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, thanks to support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. The Challenge will now award at least three grants of a minimum of $10 million, with an additional $10 million to be allocated among finalists and determined at the award decision stage, bringing the total to $40 million for bold solutions to advance gender equality in the United States.
One of my early memories of my mom is watching her being arrested on the evening news. She and several friends were “sitting in” at the Trailways bus station lunch counter in Dallas, Texas. My mother, who designed and sewed her own clothes, always dressed up for marches and sit-ins. Even as a young child, I appreciated the performative aspect of her appearance—wearing a Chanel-inspired suit with matching handbag, shoes, and leather gloves, eating lunch at a counter where she might never have eaten voluntarily in a desegregated world.
On June 20, the world marked World Refugee Day—a global tradition established in 2001 to celebrate and highlight efforts to address the plight of refugees and displaced people. This year, in the midst of a global pandemic, World Refugee Day came and went with little fanfare or awareness.
Six bold solutions to critical social challenges were named finalists today in 100&Change, a global competition for a single $100 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The proposals address diverse and systemic problems, such as ocean health, homelessness, oxygen therapy, health disparities, news deserts, and mosquito-borne disease.
On June 29, 2020, Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot joined Maurice Cox, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, to announce the recipients of $11 million in grant funding to support key INVEST South/West projects. The funding will help to close capital stack gaps for two critical developments in the Auburn Gresham and North Lawndale neighborhoods.
Bradford K. Smith, President of Candid, shares how the Solutions Bank has the potential to reshape philanthropy to be more open, efficient, and democratic.