Program Overview
Our Mission
The Chicago Urban League works to achieve equity for Black families and communities through social and economic empowerment.
Community Impact
The Chicago Urban League is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization with its principal office located at 4510 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago Urban League works to achieve equity for Black families and communities through social and economic empowerment.
We support and strengthen our community by helping people establish careers, obtain jobs, become homeowners, advance their education, strengthen their leadership skills, and start or grow their businesses. We assist more than 15,000 Chicagoans each year.
Community Impact
The Chicago Urban League works to achieve equity for Black families and communities through social and economic empowerment. Since 1916, the organization has helped people find jobs, secure affordable housing, enhance their educational experiences, and grow their businesses. We do our work through partnerships and collaborative relationships with organizations across the City of Chicago. Through our six programmatic pillars, Workforce Development, Housing and Financial Empowerment, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Youth and Family Services, Impact Leadership, and the Research and Policy Center, we help more than 15,000 people each year find jobs and establish careers, secure affordable housing, advance their education, become leaders, and start and grow their businesses.
Workforce
Development Housing and Financial Empowerment Entrepreneurship and Innovation Youth and Family Services
Research and Policy Center
Workforce Development
The Workforce Development Center works to raise Black employment and income levels through job training and placement services, seminars, coaching, and long-term retention strategies.
In FY24, our Workforce Development Center:
o Served 3,721 job seekers, including 702 who received an industry-recognized credential.
Housing and Financial Empowerment
Housing & Financial Empowerment Center (HFEC) supports community-based investment and growth by facilitating homeownership and wealth building. HFEC is a HUD-approved housing counseling agency that provides low- to moderate-income residents with free professional housing counseling assistance.
In FY24 our Housing and Financial Empowerment Center:
o Provided homeownership, rental, foreclosure prevention, and financial counseling to 1,936 Chicagoans.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
helps Black people launch, grow and sustain businesses by providing them with tools and resources to facilitate innovation and maximize revenue growth, profitability, and job creation.
In FY24 our Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation:
o Served more than 2,269 entrepreneurs through business coaching, technical assistance, cohort programming and events.
Youth and Family Services
The Youth and Family Services Center serves young people ages 12 to 24 through programs including socio-emotional learning and competencies, academic enrichment and support, job readiness training, college readiness, and success, and trades exploration and entrepreneurship.
In FY24 our Youth and Family Services Center:
o Served 5,134 middle school, high school and college students through programming that includes college and career readiness, STEM/STEAM, trades, and more.
IMPACT Leadership Development
The IMPACT Leadership Development Program, in partnership with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is an intensive nine-month program that helps emerging Black leaders advance in their careers while building a more diverse leadership pipeline across Chicago.
Our IMPACT Leadership Development Program provided leadership instruction and mentorship to over 400 young Black professionals since its inception in 2014.
Research & Policy
The Chicago Urban League’s Research & Policy Center (RPC) provides research, landscape analyses, and pragmatic, evidencebased recommendations for issues that disproportionately affect Chicago’s Black residents. We also partner with policymakers and other organizations to support educational and legislative efforts designed to lessen the impact of policies and practices that disadvantage Black families and communities. In FY24, our Research & Policy Center partnered with Funding Illinois’ Futures to win a $350M increase for the Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) formula for public school in the state. RPC also released an issue brief, Three for ‘30: A Black Small Business Agenda for Programs and Policy Change by 2030 and completed work on our reparation report, Reparations are for Individuals, and a report on the opioid crisis in Black Chicago, Whitewashed II.
Thank you!