Catalyst Project Fund
Since 2025, we have directed funds into the Catalyst Project Fund. Catalyst projects are flexible ideas and initiatives that can emerge at any point in the year. We shape them in collaboration with diocesan partners, clergy, lay leaders, and community organizations. Catalyst is also where we convene and start new work ourselves, building on something Episcopal Charities has explored for years. Sometimes we fund a project. Sometimes we also help organize it, coordinate it, or serve as its fiscal agent, as we do with Project PEWS and Caring Light.
Read the highlights of our Catalyst project initiatives in 2025 below:
Increasing Our Investment in Creation Care: Caring Light and our Partnership with Eco DioChicago
We saw that many of our communities across the Diocese of Chicago have long faced environmental harm and been shut out of access to clean energy. Eco DioChicago, the diocese's environmental justice task force, secured $134,000 in funding from the Illinois Solar for All program to bring grassroots solar education to these neighborhoods.
Episcopal Charities stepped in as fiscal agent for this work, called Caring Light, and invested further through the Catalyst Project Fund — helping parishes across the diocese access the benefits of clean energy. This is a shared commitment to environmental justice: stewardship of God's creation, in service of those on the margins.
Episcopal Charities granted $3,000 Catalyst Project Fund grants in 2025 to the following congregations to conduct Level II parish energy audits:
All Saints Episcopal Church (Chicago)
Church of the Ascension (Chicago)
St. Charles Episcopal Church (St. Charles)
St. James the Less Episcopal Church (Northfield)
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (Chicago)
Equity and Equality: Protecting our Most Vulnerable Neighbors
We have all watched as racism and the targeting of immigrants and asylum seekers in our communities have deepened the danger facing our most vulnerable neighbors. Episcopal Charities responded by directing the Catalyst Project Fund toward equality and dignity. Episcopal Charities provided grants to the following committees and working groups to support their anti-racism and immigration work:
Anti-racism Commission of the Diocese of Chicago
Sanctuary Committee of the Diocese of Chicago
Sanctuary Working Group of Chicago
This same commitment led to the creation of Project “Protect Evanston, Wilmette, and Skokie” (PEWS). In 2024, Episcopal Charities played a central role in organizing and resourcing Project PEWS to protect the growing number of Caribbean and African immigrants and asylum seekers arriving in Chicago’s northern communities. The following Project PEWS Partners each received $5,000 Catalyst Project Fund grants in 2025:
Evanston Cradle to Career
Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti
Samaritans for the Common Good
Sherman United Methodist Church
United African Organization
St. Andrew’s Pentecost Episcopal Church
Announcing the Second Phase of Multi-Parish Energy Audits
In 2025, five parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago opened their buildings to an energy auditor and began acting on what they learned. This year, six more congregations will follow. Through a partnership between Episcopal Charities and Eco DioChicago, each will receive a Level II energy audit to help it care for creation and use its resources well.
