Grantee Spotlights
For forty years, Family Rescue has provided life-transforming support services for survivors of domestic violence in Chicago. While our agency has provided those services to survivors throughout the city, it has helped anchor services on Chicago’s south side, where the human service infrastructure is extremely fragile.
Assisting survivors to regain safety, financial and emotional stability has been our mission. Since our inception, we have served over 90,000 survivors of domestic violence through our five programs and 24-hour bilingual hotline. And throughout the years, since 1986 in fact, the Chicago Foundation for Women (CFW) has been a staunch and trusted partner for us in our work.
In the early years, when general operating support was so important, CFW was there filling in the critical gaps in funding. When Family Rescue branched out to address housing inequity for survivors of domestic violence and opened the first transitional housing program for survivors in Chicago, CFW was there providing much-needed support. When Family Rescue addressed the need for survivors and their children to have access to trauma-sensitive counseling services in real-time, rather than being placed on long waiting lists, again, CFW was there.
And when Family Rescue came to realize that there could be no real safety for survivors of domestic violence unless we were willing to help them address their need for financial stability, CFW funding helped us to experiment with our first financial literacy classes for survivors.
Today Family Rescue’s partnership with CFW has expanded as we participate together along with other agencies serving women and girls through the Englewood Women’s Initiative. This endeavor seeks to raise the income levels of women who have faced numerous challenges. As the domestic violence partner in that initiative, we sit at the table to ensure that domestic violence need not be a barrier that impedes the successful accomplishment of goals.
A funding partner that understands the needs of women and girls across a broad spectrum of needs, is willing to fund important priorities, and plays the role of convener of colleagues around the discussion table to address funding inequities that impact services and opportunities for women and girls, is priceless. CFW has been such a partner.
Today Family Rescue’s partnership with CFW has expanded as we participate together along with other agencies serving women and girls through the Englewood Women’s Initiative. This endeavor seeks to raise the income levels of women who have faced numerous challenges. As the domestic violence partner in that initiative, we sit at the table to ensure that domestic violence need not be a barrier that impedes the successful accomplishment of goals.
A funding partner that understands the needs of women and girls across a broad spectrum of needs, is willing to fund important priorities, and plays the role of convener of colleagues around the discussion table to address funding inequities that impact services and opportunities for women and girls, is priceless. CFW has been such a partner.
Chicago Foundation for Women (CFW) & Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Mujeres) share a history and a trajectory that speaks to the power of community. In 1973, Maria Mangual, along with women volunteers, came together and through the 70s and 80s, these women took it upon themselves to respond to the needs of Latinas and their families in the Lower West Side of Chicago.
According to the great philanthropist and early Mujeres’ board member, Gwen Stern, when the organization was founded, there were no programs for women and girls in Chicago’s Latino community, and they faced many barriers as open and active feminists. She remembers church members referring to Mujeres’ leadership as “uppity women” who were trying to “break apart families.” But their dedication to cultivating leadership and helping Latinas trying to escape violence would not let them stop fighting.
Not unlike the four founding mothers of CFW, these women knew that there was power in their collective and that it would take ingenuity to establish, survive, and thrive. These early founders of Mujeres, had to get creative to find resources, even the space, to be able to help families. They would throw rent parties routinely just to pay that month’s rent.
Shortly after CFW’s 1985 founding, Mujeres would become one of the first mainstays of CFW’s portfolio, and this relationship over the next four decades would be vital to Mujeres’ survival, and ultimately, its success with over 60 full-time employees, three locations, and reaching its golden anniversary in 2023.
As our current President & CEO, Linda X. Tortolero says, “the strength of our organization is that it is Mujeres (plural) not Mujer (singular).” The broader lasting impact of CFW’s and Mujeres’ long-term relationship is tangible. Mrs. Mangual, along with the great women who worked with her, would go on to achieve amazing careers in philanthropy, social services, policy, and in the public health sector. Our founder would become intimately involved with CFW, serving as chair of the board from 1994 to 1996 and later as the Director of Development for CFW, and she continues to inspire leaders of today’s Latinx and women’s movements and philanthropy.
“I met [my mentor, Maria Mangual,] in 1990. She introduced me to the role of mainstream philanthropy, and I learned a lot about the needs of Hispanic communities in the Chicago region from her,” says Doris Salomon, a recognized leader in the philanthropic community with an extensive grantmaking portfolio that provides grants to Latino-serving nonprofits in the areas of early childhood education and capacity building for organizations serving the immigrant community.
Complacency is not an option for Mujeres or CFW. As Mrs. Mangual once said: “Our fighting days are not behind us – but once again ahead of us. This will require cross-generational efforts …. We need to ensure that we remain vigilant to protect these rights for our daughters and granddaughters.”
It is in that spirit that Mujeres launched a 3-year initiative to address the Latina Pay inequity. In Illinois, according to the National Women’s Law Center, Latinas only make 49 cents to every dollar a white man makes. Mujeres will do the difficult work to assure that our policies and our advocacy align to address the systemic barriers that Latina workers face. We will be intentional with compensation and foster an environment to lift our workers and their families; and to break cycles of income ceilings, and in the long-term, support Latina generational wealth.The stories of Mujeres and CFW are uniquely women’s stories, uniquely Chicago stories. And in Mujeres’ case, a uniquely Latina story—one whose time it is to tell. Together with CFW, we will tell this story, and together, we will fight on.
Women Employed is a nearly 50-year-old advocacy organization that pursues equity for women in the workforce by effecting policy change, expanding access to educational opportunities, and advocating for fair and inclusive workplaces. Founded in 1973, our mission is to improve the economic status of women and remove barriers to economic equity. We are growing the economic power for women in Illinois with the bold social goal of closing the wealth gap at the intersection of race and gender.
To advance women’s economic equity and grow economic power, we prioritize policy solutions that center economically marginalized women in low or unpaid work and Black and Latinx/a women. For more than 36 years, the Chicago Foundation for Women has been a critical partner in that work, helping us to build a better future for women and girls in Chicago, in Illinois, and across the nation. Their ongoing and steadfast support has allowed us to advocate for—and win—measures that prevent harassment and discrimination, allowing more women to work and care for their families, which raise the floor in low-paid jobs, making degrees and credentials more attainable for low-income working women.
With CFW by our side, WE had an integral role in winning workplace laws like the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Illinois Equal Pay Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Illinois Pregnancy Accommodation Act, paid sick time laws in
Chicago and Cook County, a Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance, the Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, the Illinois No Salary History law, a Chicago Hotel Workers Right to Return to Work ordinance, and more.
We have paved the way for women to access education and training by winning millions of dollars in need-based financial aid, championing the Illinois Student Loan Bill of Rights, building career pathways programs to help adult learners attain degrees and credentials with workforce value, winning laws to advance racial equity in higher education, among so many others spanning our 36-year partnership.
These laws, policies, and programs are putting more women—and especially low-paid women, and Black and Latina/x women who face even greater barriers to equity—on a path to financial security. And these wins would not have been possible without a partner like CFW. They understand the needs of working women, and more importantly, they are committed to staying in it for the long haul.
So, thank you, Chicago Foundation for Women. We are so proud to call you a partner in this work. We are thrilled to join you to build the ‘Road to SHEcovery™’—and realize a future where every woman can improve her life, build her economic security, and have everything she needs for her and her family to prosper.