Chicago nonprofits got $1 million in unrestricted funding. Here’s how some used it.

In July, the food service co-op ChiFresh Kitchen was running out of money for one of its initiatives. It had partnered with an urban farm to deliver free meals to those hit hard by the pandemic, but its founder Camille Kerr realized it would have to stop the deliveries if it didn’t get more money.

The food had been delivered to people who were unemployed and often unsure of how they’d get their next meal. Kimberly Britt, one of the company’s owners, remembers a line of children outside a Montessori school that stretched around the block in Englewood, a community with about 72% of its residents affected by food insecurity. They were waiting for ChiFresh’s white van to arrive with food favorites like pizza with chicken sausage or collard greens with mac and cheese.

Kerr called the schools and nonprofits they worked with to tell them that they would have to pause meal delivery. But the next day, she got a call from the impact investment group Chicago Beyond and learned that $20,000 was coming their way, no strings attached. It was “incredible timing,” she said. She called the organizations. “Never mind,” she told them.

Run by formerly incarcerated individuals, ChiFresh Kitchen is one of 26 Chicago organizations that have received money from Chicago Beyond. The money, $1 million of which has been distributed so far with $2 million still to go, is going to smaller organizations doing “hyperlocal” work that “often don’t get resources,” said Chicago Beyond founder and CEO Liz Dozier, also a former CPS principal.

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