Nonprofit Partner Grants Program
Episcopal Charities exists to seek grassroots solutions for the many social needs across Northern Illinois and to help transform the lives connected to them. This dynamic of response and transformation forms the core and mission of Episcopal Charities.
Episcopal Charities stands with its partner agencies through annual financial grants and a capacity-building program that helps them increase their own fundraising, raise visibility for their work in Northern Illinois, and build more effective governing boards.
Since its founding in 1960, Episcopal Charities has made annual grants to nonprofit partners. These grants are especially valued because they provide general operating support, giving agencies the resources they need to ensure excellence in their ministries.
Meet our Impact Nonprofit Partners
Announcing our 2027 Nonprofit Partners
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Bishop Anderson House
Bishop Anderson House cares for the human spirit in the heart of the Illinois Medical District. Founded in 1948 and named for Charles Palmerston Anderson, the fourth Bishop of Chicago, it began with a vision of bringing faith and science together in healthcare. Today it provides chaplaincy at Stroger Hospital and trains spiritual care visitors and chaplains. It also offers retreats and self-care for caregivers and medical staff. More than 600 spiritual care providers trained through its programs now serve across Northern Illinois.
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Care for Friends
Care for Friends offers food, community, and care to Chicagoans who are unhoused or struggling to get by. It began in 1968 as an outreach ministry of the Church of Our Saviour in Lincoln Park. Today it serves about 13,000 people a year through hot meals and food pantries in Lincoln Park, Edgewater, and the South Loop. Every guest is welcomed with no questions asked. Volunteer clinics also offer foot care and health screenings.
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CREO DuPage
CREO DuPage helps Hispanic and Latino high school students in DuPage County prepare for college and graduate with a degree. Its name means "I believe" in Spanish, and it stands for Comunidades Realizando Estudiantes ExtraOrdinarios: communities creating extraordinary students. Founded in 2019 and based at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, CREO offers academic coaching, one-on-one advising, and group college visits. Its bilingual, family-centered model also brings parents into monthly workshops, so families can support their students' path to college.
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East Bluff Community Center
East Bluff Community Center is a gathering place for one of Peoria's lowest-income neighborhoods. Its mission is to foster community engagement and neighborhood stability. The center runs a food pantry and youth programs, and it connects residents to the services they need. It also partners with local agencies to bring resources directly into the East Bluff, guided by what neighbors say they want and need.
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ElderCare Lake County
ElderCARE Lake County helps older adults live independently for as long as possible. Since 1998, its volunteers have offered free services to adults 60 and older across Lake County: rides to medical appointments, help with grocery shopping and technology, friendly visits, and reassurance phone calls. The work keeps older neighbors connected and protects their dignity, especially those aging in place with limited financial resources.
Hopeful Beginnings
Hopeful Beginnings of St. Mary's cares for children by caring for the people who care for them. Founded in 1887 by Sisters of the Episcopal Church, it supports expectant parents, birth parents, and adoptive families across the Chicago area. Its services include adoption, options counseling, case management, and free baby essentials. It also offers perinatal mental health counseling for parents facing postpartum depression and anxiety, pregnancy loss, or a difficult transition into parenthood. Every family is served without prejudice.
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Metro Industrial Areas Affiliates (IAF)
Metro IAF helps ordinary people build the power to improve their families and communities. It is part of the Industrial Areas Foundation, the nation's first and largest network of multi-faith organizing groups. Metro IAF trains leaders and brings congregations and other institutions together around shared concerns. The work is strictly nonpartisan and measured in generations, not news cycles. In northern Illinois, the network includes United Power in Cook County, Lake County United, DuPage United, and the Fox River Valley Initiative.
Ravenswood Community Services
Ravenswood Community Services offers food and community to neighbors in need on Chicago's North Side. It began in 1993, when parishioners at All Saints' Episcopal Church started handing bags of groceries through the church's front door to about 20 neighbors each week. A weekly hot meal soon followed. In 2001, All Saints' launched RCS as its own nonprofit. Today RCS sees more than 20,000 food pantry visits a year, serves hot meals every week, and runs after-school pantries at three neighborhood schools. Everything is open to anyone, with no restrictions.
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Saint Leonard’s Ministries
Saint Leonard's Ministries helps men and women returning from incarceration build stable, productive lives. Father James Jones, then chaplain at what is now Cook County Jail, founded it in 1954 as an eight-bed house on Chicago's Near West Side. Today it offers transitional and permanent supportive housing, along with education and job training at its Michael Barlow Center. In fiscal year 2025, Saint Leonard's House and Grace House housed 136 men and women, and 259 returning residents completed workforce and education training.
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Waukegan to College
Waukegan to College prepares first-generation students to enroll in and graduate from a four-year college or university. It began in 2009, when Waukegan parents asked for help guiding their children down a path they had never walked themselves. Episcopal Charities answered by founding W2C with Lake County United, an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation. Today W2C offers tutoring, mentoring, and college advising to students and their families. In 2024, it celebrated its 100th college graduate. Its model also helped launch CREO DuPage, another Episcopal Charities partner.
Meet our Legacy Nonprofit Partners
Holy Family Ministries
Holy Family Ministries helps children and families in Chicago's under-resourced neighborhoods reach for futures beyond the limits of where they live. On its Homan Square campus in North Lawndale, it serves nearly 600 students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Its programs include Holy Family School, an early childhood academy, after-school and summer enrichment, and The Peace Exchange, a youth nonviolence program. Its faith-based approach pairs rigorous academics with spiritual growth. Nearly all of its eighth-grade graduates have been accepted into college-prep, selective enrollment, and magnet high schools.
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Lawrence Hall
Lawrence Hall helps children and young people heal from trauma and build stable lives. Founded in 1865, it has served Chicago youth for more than 160 years. Its programs include a child and family treatment center, a therapeutic day school, foster care, creative therapies, workforce development, and transitional and independent living for older youth. Through its community wellness work, it also helps rebuild trust and connection in Chicago neighborhoods, where the effects of trauma can ripple outward.
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Primo Center
Primo Center is Chicago's largest provider of services for families experiencing homelessness. It operates more than 350 shelter beds in Englewood and Austin and 91 units of permanent supportive housing, serving hundreds of families each year. Its model goes beyond shelter. Families receive physical and mental health care, early childhood education, and trauma-informed support for parents and children alike. Most families who leave Primo move into stable housing and stay there. The center is named for its founder, Bishop Quintin E. Primo Jr.
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ReVive Center for Housing and Healing
ReVive Center for Housing and Healing works to end homelessness and restore hope on Chicago's Near West Side. Since 1915, it has listened and responded to the needs of its neighbors. It opened the first halfway house in Illinois for people recovering from alcohol use, and in 1998 it launched one of the state's first permanent supportive housing programs. Today ReVive serves about 770 people experiencing or at risk of homelessness each year, connecting them with food, housing, income, healthcare, and community. Over the past year, 85% of participants kept their housing.
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Shelter Care Ministries
Shelter Care Ministries offers housing and hope to people experiencing homelessness in Rockford. It grew out of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, whose parishioners began responding in the early 1980s to people with mental illness living on the streets downtown. Shelter Care was incorporated in 1985 and has received support from Episcopal Charities since 1986. Today it houses 65 households every night through supportive housing and rapid rehousing. Its Jubilee Center runs a day program for adults living with mental illness, now with on-site primary medical care.
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St. Augustine College
St. Augustine College opens the door to higher education for Chicago's working adults and first-generation students. It was founded in 1980 under the auspices of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, after years of work by Spanish Episcopal Services and Father Carlos A. Plazas. Its bilingual model lets students begin their studies in Spanish and finish in English. Now part of Lewis University, it offers associate and bachelor's degrees in fields from business to social work and respiratory therapy. In 2025, U.S. News ranked it the top regional college in the Midwest for social mobility.
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Youth Guidance
Youth Guidance partners with schools and communities so that every young person has someone in their corner. It was founded in 1924 as the Church Mission of Help, a charity of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Today it serves more than 20,000 young people a year in eight cities through school-based counseling, mentoring, and career readiness programs. Its best-known program, BAM (Becoming A Man), helps young men manage emotions and make healthy decisions. Research by the University of Chicago Crime Lab found that BAM cut violent-crime arrests among participants in half.