Barack Obama once deemed Chicago “a bustling metropolis with the warmth of a small town.” It’s this combination of big-city ambition and small-town sensibility that defines the unique landscape of philanthropy in Chicago. Â
The third-most populous city in the United States, Chicago is home to the MacArthur Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust, two of the largest foundations in the country, with around $9.2 billion and $6 billion in net assets, respectively. These larger funders are relatively accessible for their size — they both run open grant programs and collaborate with many of the smaller foundations and philanthropies in the city. And while plenty of large-scale, philanthropy-backed initiatives operate out of Chicago’s well-heeled education and research institutions, the city also plays host to a healthy range of grassroots philanthropic work rooted in neighborhood giving and mutual aid.
Then there’s the generally charitable mindset of the city’s populace. A 2015 study by the Chicago Community Trust and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy found that Chicagoans, on average, give 3.1% of their household income to nonprofits, with 73% of households donating to nonprofits, well above the national average.
The culture of philanthropy in Chicago can be traced back to the fallout of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed thousands of structures and left over a fourth of the city’s population homeless. In the aftermath, wealthy donors, philanthropies, private investors and civic leaders helped rebuild the city alongside everyday citizens. During that period, elite philanthropy helped fund some of Chicago’s major cultural institutions — the Field Museum, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Newberry Library, the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry — organizations that are sustained with support from Chicago foundations and big donors to this day.
To take one example, the Museum of Science and Industry was originally endowed by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company). Fast forward to our own time, when, in 2019, billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin donated $125 million to the same institution, which came with a name change to the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. Griffin also gifted the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago $125 million and has made large gifts to Northwestern Medicine, the Field Museum and dozens of other area organizations.
That’s just one case from the annals of big Chicago philanthropy. As is true for philanthropy in any large city, Chicago’s scene has many distinctive characteristics. Here are five that stand out.
1. Chicago philanthropies are often networked and collaborative
While philanthropies in many U.S. cities are well networked — New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Denver come to mind — it’s safe to assert that Chicago is a top city for collaborative philanthropy. Organized efforts to pursue pooled funds and joint programming abound.
One longstanding collaborative is the Arts Work Fund, which supports small arts and culture organizations. It includes several mid-sized foundations that are active in Chicago philanthropy, including the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Driehaus Foundation and Polk Bros. Foundation. The fund is also supported by larger foundations like Chicago Community Trust (CCT) and the Joyce Foundation.
Other collaboratives include the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance (funders include CCT, Joyce Foundation, Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, Polk Bros. Foundation, Robert R. McCormick Foundation) and the Neighborhood Capital Fund, a collaborative housed at CCT that has raised over $20 million to support underinvested neighborhoods. And then there’s the Field Foundation of Illinois, which partners with funders on multiple place-based collaborations.
Many of Chicagoland’s largest philanthropy collaboratives — like Elevated Chicago, which promotes equitable development — work deeply across sectors, involving public departments and officials; education, research and cultural institutions; and residents and community organizations alongside philanthropies. One example: Elevated Chicago’s grant program with the MacArthur Foundation backing public arts projects near transit hubs.
Chicago’s networked philanthropy helps the city respond to unforeseen challenges. During COVID, CCT, the Joyce Foundation, United Way, Michael Reese Health Trust and other funders joined with city and state health officials and community-based organizations to establish the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund and the Chicagoland Vaccination Partnership. And in 2025, in the wake of federal funding cuts, the Resilient Chicago Fund, a cross-sector partnership co-chaired by CCT and the MacArthur Foundation, was launched to address basic needs like food, shelter and healthcare.Â
2. Chicago plays host to the MacArthur Foundation, a hometown philanthropy with national influence
With over $9 billion in assets and an annual grantmaking budget exceeding $500 million, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest grantmakers in the U.S. It is known nationally for its big bets approach to giving and its MacArthur Fellows award, unofficially known as the “MacArthur Genius Grant.”Â
But in Chicago, MacArthur is known as a trustworthy community partner.
MacArthur’s “Chicago Commitment” program has supported Chicago communities since 1979. Its current broad mandate is to “advance racial equity and build a more inclusive Chicago,” and grantees range from arts and culture organizations to community and youth development. MacArthur has lately embraced more inclusive grantmaking practices in Chicago, including participatory grantmaking, leadership and organizational development, and general operating support grants, alongside its national commitment to an elevated annual payout.
As we explore below, MacArthur has been a pivotal supporter of journalism both in Chicago and nationally.
3. Philanthropy-backed violence prevention is a big deal in Chicago
The national perception of violence in Chicago is skewed by partisan media coverage, so while many associate Chicago with violence, few associate the city with efforts to prevent it. In fact, some of the most significant violence prevention programs and partnerships in the U.S. are based in Chicago, and they derive a good deal of their funding from philanthropy.
This includes Chicago CRED, a gun violence prevention organization serving young men at the highest risk of gun violence, and the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities, the best-resourced effort in the U.S. to prevent gun violence in a major city. PSPC has committed $140 million to violence prevention efforts in Chicago. Its funders include dozens of individual donors and philanthropies, and even corporate donors such as JPMorganChase and Boeing. Other violence prevention nonprofits and programs in Chicago include Metropolitan Family Services, the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science at Northwestern University, Heartland Alliance, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and BUILD Chicago.
Many of Chicago’s violence prevention organizations embrace a community-based approach, which includes after-school programs in vulnerable neighborhoods and community violence intervention (CVI) programs. Many of these have demonstrated success, providing proof-of-concept as replicable pilot programs. The presence of so many violence prevention programs may partly explain why Chicago’s homicide rate decreased significantly after a post-COVID peak in 2021.Â
In addition, a major cross-sector initiative, Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago, launched in 2024 with $400 million in support from a philanthropic coalition, business leaders and government entities.Â
4. The Pritzker family is rooted in Chicago
The sprawling Pritzker family is up there with the Waltons as one of the most influential philanthropy dynasties in the U.S. — and a significant portion of that family wealth is spent in Chicago, where the late family patriarch Jay Pritzker, founder of the Hyatt Corporation, was born.
Among the clan’s many Chicago-based philanthropic vehicles is the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, with about $300 million in assets, which focuses its grantmaking on neighborhood development and infrastructure. The Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, also based in Chicago, has about $60 million in assets and gives to city institutions like Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital and Columbia College Chicago. Then there is the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation — that’s J.B. Pritzker, as in the governor of Illinois — with about $280 million in assets and a focus on children and families. J.B. and M.K. Pritzker also founded the Pritzker Children’s Initiative.
The Pritzker family has left a major mark in Chicago through one-time gifts and donations. In 2015, J.B. and M.K. Pritzker made a $100 million donation to the Northwestern School of Law, now the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Other major recipients of Pritzker gifts include the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, the Illinois Institute of Technology and Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion.
The Pritzkers are the wealthiest of several philanthropic dynasties that have given in Chicago for generations. Another to note is the Crown family, with a collective net worth of nearly $15 billion derived from the fortune of the late Chicago financier Henry Crown. Crown Family Philanthropies, founded in 1947, has about $460 million in assets. Other donors with a large giving footprint in Chicago include Mellody Hobson and George Lucas, Eric and Liz Lefkofsky, Kimbra and Mark Walter and Patrick and Shirley Ryan.Â
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5. Chicago is a leader in nonprofit journalism
Throughout the 20th century, Chicago was home to a thriving ecosystem of competing hometown newspapers, hard-knock beat reporters and journalists-turned-novelists (Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway and Theodore Dreiser all cut their teeth as reporters in Chicago). Chicago has now become a leading city in the revitalization of local news, an ongoing trend driven by the rise of private-funder-backed nonprofit models. In 2022, Sue Cross, then the executive director of the national Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), said, “Chicago is a petri dish for the re-invention of news media.”
The largest Chicagoland nonprofit conversion involves the Chicago Sun-Times, one of the city’s two major dailies (the other is the Chicago Tribune). In 2022, the Sun-Times was acquired by Chicago Public Media, becoming a nonprofit subsidiary. Inside Philanthropy covered the leading role Chicago-based philanthropies and donors played in saving the Sun-Times, to the tune of $61 million pledged before the merger was even finalized, including by Chicago businessperson Michael Sacks, the MacArthur Foundation, the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, Lukas Walton’s Builders Initiative, the Joyce Foundation, the Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation, Chicago Community Trust and the Mansueto Foundation.
As another example, Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit, digital-first neighborhood news source, launched in 2018 after former editors of DNAinfo Chicago — which was abruptly shut down by its billionaire owner — started a Kickstarter campaign to support local news coverage. Block Club is now supported by local philanthropies and donors. In 2022, the longtime alternative newspaper, the Chicago Reader, also went the nonprofit route.
Many Chicago area foundations are reliable journalism funders, and commitments in this area remain strong. In 2023, Press Forward Chicago, a local chapter of the national Press Forward local news funding initiative, launched with $10 million in initial commitments to “strengthen and sustain local news organizations and ensure Chicago’s diverse residents have access to multiple sources of reliable news and information.” The MacArthur Foundation spearheaded Press Forward’s national rollout and ongoing work.
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Chicago’s philanthropy scene is, in many regards, a reflection of the city’s larger concerns and priorities. Its collaborative nature and results-oriented grit is a combination of “Midwest nice” and Midwest pragmatism. Its attunement to deeply place-based giving results from Chicago’s geography, which is divided into over 200 distinct neighborhoods and 50 wards, each represented by its own alderperson.
It’s no surprise, then, that Chicago’s grantmaking often centers on community infrastructure — like local news, arts organizations and programs for at-risk youth. Many of the more established Chicago foundations — even those that also fund nationally — maintain relationships with local leaders and community-based organizations, serving as bridges between large pools of capital and neighborhood priorities. In other words, there’s something about philanthropy in Chicago that feels both immense and small time, even when large institutions are involved.
