Polk Brothers Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Polk Brothers Foundation makes grants in the areas of community development, family support, education, health, arts and culture and organizational capacity building.
IP TAKE: This foundation works broadly to improve the lives of Chicago’s low-income residents. It also offers capacity building and strategic partnership grants for grantees whose goals align closely with those of the foundation. This funder accepts unsolicited applications from nonprofits in Chicago.
PROFILE: Established in 1988, the Polk Brothers Foundation was established with a transfer of $42 million in assets from the Polk Brothers retail chain of furniture and appliance stores, which closed its doors in 1992. The foundation aims to make Chicago a city where all residents are able to reach their full potential. Its stated areas of investment are strong communities, strong families, education, health, arts access and learning, enhanced capacity and strategic collaborations.
The foundation’s strong communities initiative is a broad funding program that supports workforce development, housing, community and economic development, legal services for low-income residents and community safety. By contrast, the strong families program works extensively in the field of youth development and family behavioral health. Together, the strong communities and strong families initiatives account for about half of the foundation’s grantmaking.
Polk’s education program works to improve Chicago’s public schools through two sub-initiatives: school improvement and student academic success. School improvement grants support professional development for principals and teachers, parent engagement initiatives and systematic innovations and improvements at schools. Toward improved academic achievement, the foundation supports in-school efforts to boost achievement in core academic subjects in conjunction with established grade-level benchmarks. At the high school level, it funds college readiness, access and completion programming. The foundation’s arts access and learning initiative also prioritizes public school students and maintains a sub-initiative for school-based programs, including arts instruction, integration and teacher development. A separate sub-initiative supports out-of-school arts programs for vulnerable youth.
In health, the foundation prioritizes Chicago’s low-income residents’ access to basic and preventative healthcare. Polk maintains sub-initiatives for pediatric health services offered through public schools and community health services that address risk reduction, broad access and systematic improvements including inter-agency collaboration and advocacy.
Additionally, Polk runs capacity building and strategic partnership programs that offer financial planning, management, fund raising, organization and evaluation assistance to its grantees. These programs are generally reserved for those grantees that have a relationship with the funder.
Polk makes grants in amounts up to $500,000, with an average grant size of $50,000. Learn about past grantees in the funder’s online grants database. The foundation invests at least $25 million in 400 grantees that serve Chicago each year.
The foundation accepts unsolicited grant requests within its funding priorities, and the process starts with an eligibility quiz. From there, grantseekers can complete an online application. There are no deadlines for applications, as it accepts requests year-around. For general inquiries, grantseekers can reach the foundation staff at 312-527-4684 or info@polkbrosfdn.org.
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