RLD Foundation’s Second Round of Grantee Partners

The belief that Chicago’s most persistent social issues can be addressed through innovation, diligence, and collaborative action remains at the core of the Richard L. Duchossois Foundation’s vision and mission.

Guided by the values of its namesake, the Foundation focuses on three primary giving areas: Veterans, Entrepreneurs, and Strong Families, supporting organizations and initiatives that create pathways to opportunity and long-term stability.

In that spirit, the RLD Foundation is proud to share its second round of grantee partners whose missions reflect these aspirations, and whose work is creating measurable, lasting impact across Chicago’s communities.

Veterans

Each year, thousands of service members transition from military to civilian life in Illinois, navigating challenges related to employment, housing, and access to earned benefits. In the greater Chicagoland area, home to more than half of the state’s veteran population, these challenges underscore the need for coordinated, innovative support systems.

The Foundation invests in organizations advancing forward-thinking approaches to addressing underemployment, housing instability, and barriers to accessing benefits among veterans and their families. Through their efforts, these grantees are honoring the service of veterans by connecting them with resources and pathways to economic mobility in their civilian lives.

A Safe Haven Foundation – Operation Homefront

Addresses affordable housing disparities faced by veterans by providing not only housing assistance, but also support services including financial assistance, case management, counseling, vocational training, and readiness programs that provide veterans with stability and hope.

Code Platoon

Unlocks the potential of the military and military-connected community by addressing challenges in skill transferability, networks, and industry access in order to prepare and empower veterans and military families to thrive in the tech industry.

National Able Network – Veterans Forward Program

Supports veterans in achieving meaningful employment by connecting them with service-related benefits as well as providing individualized job search support, coaching, and placement, including pathways for those veterans interested in entrepreneurship.

Of Color, Inc. – Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program

Creates pathways to economic and educational prosperity for veterans in Chicago’s most disinvested communities by offering programming, case management, and services to connect veterans to quality jobs and stable housing.

Office of Military Affiliated Communities at the University of Chicago

Leads a comprehensive framework of partnerships in an integrated model to support veterans and military-affiliated individuals, from advancing medical and psychological research that addresses service-related conditions, to developing policies and programs that promote successful transitions into civilian life and more.

Rebuilding Together Metro Chicago – Veteran Home Repair Program

Provides no-cost home repairs and vital accessibility modifications for low-income Chicagoland veteran households, enabling them to live safely in their homes, thereby preventing displacement and strengthening the communities in which they live.

The Arthur Lockhart Resource Institute – Standup for Veterans Program

Empowers the holistic growth of families, veterans, seniors, and youth in Chicago’s Austin and West Garfield Park communities through trauma-informed care and advocacy, with the Standup for Veterans program providing emotional restoration, benefits access, housing navigation, and vocational support specifically for veterans.

The Multi-Faith Veteran Initiative at DePaul University

Strengthens community and faith-based organizations through leadership development, capacity building, and community circles—ensuring veterans and their families receive comprehensive, coordinated support during the transition to civilian life.

Veterans Path to Hope

Removes barriers to well-being for veterans, active military members, and their families by providing person-centered care and essential services, including housing assistance, employment support, food security, and therapeutic interventions tailored to each individual’s unique circumstances.

Volunteers of America Illinois

Supports and empowers the most vulnerable veterans by connecting them with needed resources, including case management, employment services, and healthcare navigation, as well as a safe home, a place to heal, and the opportunity to transform their life.  

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship has long served as a catalyst for economic mobility. Its impact is strongest when founders and aspiring entrepreneurs have equitable access to the capital, tools, and infrastructure needed to launch, sustain, and grow successful businesses.

The RLD Foundation is proud to support organizations and initiatives that are expanding access to capital, equipping founders with knowledge and skills, and strengthening Chicago’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. These grantees are helping founders turn ideas into viable, resilient enterprises while advancing inclusive economic growth.

Center for Creative Entrepreneurship

Serves as a centralized educational hub for the creative economy, providing access to hands-on training, mentorship, community-building, and networking events for artists and creative entrepreneurs, with an intentional emphasis on equity and accessibility.

Chicago Innovation Foundation

Educates, connects, and celebrates entrepreneurs across the Chicago region, striving to ensure innovation is for everyone by building an inclusive, forward-looking culture of innovation to drive economic growth, inspire civic pride, and position Chicago as a global leader.

Defy Ventures

Helps shift mindsets to give previously incarcerated individuals a second chance through entrepreneurship training, career readiness, and personal development programming that leverages entrepreneurship as a pathway to economic opportunity for those involved with the justice system.

Fifth Star Funds

Fosters a more equitable society by supporting a start-up ecosystem that is representative of today’s world by reducing bias in the deal sourcing process, equalizing access to opportunity, allocating early-stage capital, providing network access, and delivering thoughtful support services to meet founders’ needs.

Future Founders

Is building an inclusive community of intentional young entrepreneurs in Chicago and beyond by immersing youth in experiences that empower them to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, and that equip them to launch and grow profitable businesses.

Gray Matter Experience

Closes the opportunity gap for ambitious young adults with limited access by using entrepreneurship as a vehicle for personal growth and community transformation.

P33

Creates pathways into Chicago’s thriving tech economy through their entrepreneurship programs, including TechRise, which provides founders with funding, expert networks, and essential knowledge to help them thrive in high-growth sectors.

Rush University Medical Center- West Side United

Rush University Medical Center partners with West Side United to advance small business development that provides training, funding, and technical assistance in partnership with the K to help West Side entrepreneurs launch and scale their businesses, ultimately strengthening the local business community.

Women’s Business Development Center

Supports and accelerates business development and growth through programming, certification, education and advocacy, targeting women while serving all business owners to strengthen their economic participation in, and impact on, the economy.

World Business Chicago

Drives the region’s economic growth by helping companies expand, attracting global investment, and advancing Chicago 2050—the long-term strategy to ensure Chicagoland remains one of the world’s most competitive and inclusive regions for business.

Strong Families

Strong families require economic stability to thrive. When parents and guardians can earn steady incomes, access reliable childcare, and secure affordable housing, families are better positioned to navigate challenges and create positive outcomes for future generations.

The RLD Foundation is investing in organizations delivering multi-generational solutions across three interconnected areas: quality, flexible childcare; family-sustaining employment; and affordable, family-sized housing. These grantees are advancing integrated solutions that empower families to build financial security and long-term well-being.

Civic Consulting Alliance

Works with government and civic leaders to advance systems-level solutions that address opportunity gaps, health disparities, violence, and injustice, including specific projects focused on accelerating vacant property reactivation, streamlining development to expand affordable housing, and championing improvements to Illinois’ day care licensing system.

Community Investment Corporation

Creates opportunities for family stability through affordable housing preservation and neighborhood revitalization, including The Preservation Compact – a cross-sector collaborative that drives coordinated, long-term strategies to preserve affordable rental housing and strengthen communities across Cook County.

Illinois Action for Children

Uplifts children and all who care for them, advancing strong families and prosperous communities. This research project looks at non-traditional hours (NTH) child care, examining challenges and identifying barriers and solutions for parents working in various industries or attending school.

Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University

Provides reliable, impartial, and timely data to inform housing policy decisions and deepen understanding of neighborhood housing markets – focusing on affordable housing, finance, homeownership, sustainable redevelopment – and emerging trends to strengthen families and support stable communities across Chicagoland.

Lurie Children’s Hospital – Center for Childhood Resilience

Increases access to high-quality mental health services for children and youth, specifically through their leadership of the Resilience Supportive Schools Illinois initiative designed to build the capacity of school-based teams to foster safe, healing-centered and resilience-supportive school environments.

Metropolitan Planning Council

Is an independent planning and policy organization leading a Family-Friendly Housing Research project to understand family-focused housing needs, identify barriers to securing those needs, and provide a foundation for actionable recommendations related to housing that is affordable, appropriately sized, and supportive of long-term economic stability.

P33

Ensures the benefits of Chicago’s tech and innovation economy are available to all communities by leading workforce initiatives that open doors to tech careers that generate long-term economic mobility for individuals, families, and communities.

Reclaiming Chicago NFP

Is revitalizing Chicago’s historically disinvested communities by repurposing vacant lots for the development of single-family homes, ultimately creating homeownership opportunities for local residents that support generational wealth and stabilize long-neglected neighborhoods beyond traditional rental-focused affordable housing practices.

Rush University Medical Center – West Side United

Rush University Medical Center, in partnership with West Side United, is launching a Center for Wellbeing and relocating West Side United’s headquarters to the Sankofa Wellness Center—a community-driven hub in West Garfield Park that delivers comprehensive health and social services, including behavioral and mental health care, community health education, youth programming, and workforce development.

The Chicago Community Trust – 3C Initiative

Creates smoother and more sustainable pathways for residents of underinvested communities to achieve affordable homeownership, build generational wealth, and keep their homes for years to come.

The City Colleges of Chicago Foundation

Removes barriers for diverse City Colleges of Chicago students, including parenting students, enabling them to break poverty cycles and complete their education. Through scholarships, student supports, and innovative programming, CCCF empowers City Colleges students and their families to build pathways toward upward mobility. 

UChicago Inclusive Economy Lab

Uses evidence to inform policies and practices that promote equity, including the development of a secure research platform that integrates longitudinal data across schools, colleges, workforce programs, and employers to better understand how students move from high school to higher education to the labor market, and what barriers prevent them from succeeding along the way.

University of Illinois – Illinois Family and Child Wellbeing Pulse Survey

Collects essential data from families enrolled in Head Start programs in Illinois that will provide critical indicators of how changes to social welfare programs may influence family and child wellbeing, help provide information on emerging trends, and offer insights for the development of preventative policies.

Xchange Chicago Uses an innovative model to make tech careers accessible to all Chicagoans by equipping under and un-employed residents with the skills and opportunities necessary to access high-earning jobs in thriving tech sectors and harnessing existing commercial IT investments to drive workforce development and community revitalization.