How the Field Foundation of Illinois Supports Community Power-Building Throughout Chicago
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Field’s 2024 Leaders for a New Chicago cohort. Photo courtesy of the Field Foundation
In 2023, the MacArthur Foundation and the Chicago-based Field Foundation of Illinois, which distributes more than $10 million annually and works to address systemic issues in historically marginalized areas of Chicago, launched a new grantmaking program called “A Road Together.”
Designed for the city’s arts and culture organizations with annual operating budgets up to $1 million, A Road Together (ART) disburses multi-year, general operating grants using a participatory grantmaking process, as well as single-year general operating grants outside of the participatory process.
In an email to IP, Field Foundation President Daniel O. Ash said the program mirrors Field’s “journey to evolve from a transactional to transformational foundation” across the past 17 months.
Ash became Field’s eighth president in June 2022 and spent six months engaging with the foundation’s stakeholders. While the experience affirmed his belief that Field was an invaluable player in the city’s philanthropic ecosystem — Ash previously had roles at the Chicago Community Trust and Chicago Public Media — he believed that “like any successful organization, we must continue to evolve for the moment and be highly relevant to the very compelling and changing needs of our community. Community wellbeing must always be our North Star.”
And so, beginning in January 2023, stakeholders began transitioning the foundation toward a more responsive grantmaking posture by ramping up larger multi-year grants, establishing what Ash called “mutual accountability for achieving resident-set agendas” and “funding strategic campaigns and collaborative projects with defined goals.” Field’s ART program, along with other initiatives that invest in Chicago’s local news outlets and organizers, underscores this gravitation toward more flexible, generous and collaborative grantmaking.
“Our thesis is that organized communities — with access to art and creative expression and the ability to amplify their authentic narratives — can set and advance a reform agenda that benefits their communities,” Ash said. “For the Field Foundation, this is power-building.”
A brief history
The foundation traces its roots to the family of retail entrepreneur Marshall Field (1834-1906), who founded the Marshall Field & Company department stores. An active philanthropist, Field provided funding for what would become the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and donated land to help found the University of Chicago in response to a funding pledge from John D. Rockefeller.
In 1960, the Field Foundation of Illinois was established under the leadership of Field’s great-grandson, Marshall Field IV. Field IV was a publisher and the owner of Field Enterprises, a private holding company whose main assets were the Chicago Sun and Parade magazine.
After Marshall Field IV passed away in 1965, his son, Marshall Field V, took over Field Enterprises Inc., which was eventually acquired by Macy's, Inc. in 2005. As a member of the Field Foundation’s board and a life director, Field V has overseen the foundation’s evolving support for organizations throughout Chicago throughout the years, including how Ash and his team have shifted its grantmaking practices to be more responsive to community needs.
“From a process perspective,” Ash said, “the Field Foundation has transitioned to a simpler, rolling grantmaking process — moving away from a letter-of-interest process — so we can be more strategic with grantmaking and move faster with funding.”
A look at the numbers
According to Field’s most recent Form 990 for the fiscal year ending April 2023, it had $56 million in noncharitable-use assets — monies that are invested in stocks, bonds or other investments and form the basis for calculating the 5% payout mandated by the IRS.
The foundation made $6 million in qualifying distributions that year, including $4.4 million for charitable purposes. By dividing the former figure by the latter, we learn that the foundation’s payout ratio was an impressive 10.75%. (The foundation’s payout ratios in 2022 and 2021 were 7.61% and 8.24%, respectively.)
The foundation awarded 165 grants for the fiscal year ending April 2023, and the largest ones topped off at $50,000. Grants were earmarked for project support, capacity-building and operating support, among other purposes. Field received a total of $4.9 million in incoming contributions from MacArthur ($4.4 million), the Democracy Fund ($225,000), the Chicago Community Trust ($150,000) and the Ford Foundation ($125,000).
Racial healing and local journalism
Ash cited two additional partnerships that underscore its shift from a “transactional” to a “transformational” grantmaking organization.
The first is Healing Illinois, an initiative with the Illinois Department of Human Services that supports nonprofits that are beginning or continuing the work of racial healing in communities across the state. The initiative, which was created in 2020 and relaunched in 2023, mirrors other funders’ efforts to foster pluralism and build bridges by addressing racial disparities that impact residents. Over 300 organizations submitted grant applications, and the program hosted a series of public events throughout the state in 2023 and 2024.
In February of this year, Healing Illinois awarded 184 community organizations grants ranging from $1,000 to $40,000. Field distributed $4.5 million in total funding and the Illinois Department of Human Services provided, among other things, an ability to reach organizations across the state’s five regions — the Chicago area, Northwestern Illinois, North Central Illinois, Central Illinois and Southern Illinois.
Field is also expanding its footprint in the journalism and public media space. The foundation is among the 10 local funding partners that have committed $10 million through Press Forward Chicago, the local chapter of the national initiative aimed at strengthening local news. Ash is a member of the Press Forward Chicago Steering Committee; Maudlyne Ihejirika, journalism and storytelling program officer at Field, is a member of the RFP Committee for Press Forward’s national initiative and the Chicago chapter, which is spearheaded by MacArthur.
Leveraging what it has learned from the ART program, Field backed its first cohort of Journalism & Storytelling grantees, who, like their peers in the arts space, will receive multi-year funding. MacArthur, the Democracy Fund, the Chicago Community Trust and the Ford Foundation support Field’s work in Journalism & Storytelling to create a more equitable, connected and inclusive local media ecosystem.
A third funding area, Field’s Justice portfolio, funds organizations working to address the root causes of inequity and systemic racism through community organizing, advocacy and policy. The foundation accepts applications for Justice and Journalism & Storytelling grants on a rolling basis. The application window for ART grants is from mid-April through mid-May; grants are awarded in the fall.
“Making community transformation happen”
Field’s commitment to power-building includes another partnership with MacArthur, Leaders for a New Chicago.
Led by Field’s Leadership Investment Program Officer analía rodríguez, the program recognizes a diverse group of leaders for bringing transformative change to their communities. Field announced the program’s sixth cohort on June 11. Each awardee receives a no-strings-attached award of $25,000, and their affiliated organizations receive an additional $25,000 general operating grant.
Ash said he and the staff have adopted “an investor/organizer approach, which blends a focus on investing with a shared commitment to driving greater social impact.” He describes this change as “fully leveraging Field’s investments and influence in support of its grantees, deploying capital aligned to tangible and measurable goals, and building community trust and mobilizing networks and relationships.”
Add it all up, and Field exhibits all the traits of a high-impact place-based regrantor. Its funders — MacArthur, Ford, et al. — appreciate its deep connections with Chicago’s sprawling arts ecosystem, local media outlets, and organizations and individuals that advance community power-building. Field is a bridge between these grantmakers and those boots on the ground, and as its strategic evolution continues to unfold, its heightened emphasis on performance management aims to strengthen these partnerships.
“We want to seek out opportunities happening within communities where we see we can make a difference,” Ash said. “We will dedicate our time, talent and treasure to making community transformation happen.”
