Woods Fund Chicago

Woods Fund Chicago is a US private foundation based in Chicago, IL.

Profile derived from the foundation's IRS Form 990-PF filings (TY2024, TY2023, TY2022) and its website, with every statement checked against those sources. Sources read on 7 October 2026.

Priority Areas

Woods Fund Chicago funds community organisations working to advance racial and economic justice through community organising, coalition building and public policy advocacy, centring people most affected by structural racism and economic injustice. It supports direct-action organising and organising-adjacent work that strengthens organising efforts, seeking a resilient, strategic community-organising ecosystem able to dismantle structures of oppression. It favours organisations with strong structural analysis, active base-building and leaderful movements, and expects direct-action groups to be majority BIPOC-led and driven by systemically marginalised people affected by their work. Applicants must be based and working within the Chicago metropolitan area and be 501(c)(3) organisations or have a fiscal sponsor. Its grantmaking provides multiyear general operating support through a trust-based partnership that aims to shift power back into communities.

Themes

• Community organising
• Public policy advocacy
• Coalition building
• Racial justice
• Economic justice

Geographic Focus

Chicago metropolitan area. Priority: Chicago.

What They Don't Fund

• Organizing-adjacent organizations structured primarily as training or consulting groups that charge fees to grassroots organizations for services
• Business or economic development projects
• Capital campaigns, capital projects, capital acquisitions, housing construction/rehabilitation
• Endowments
• Health care institutions, including, but not limited to, hospitals and clinics
• Organizations that only provide direct services
• Medical and scientific research
• K-12 and post-secondary education scholarships
• Religious programs
• Standalone fellowship programs or organizations that focus exclusively on leadership development
• Individuals

Applicants use the grants portal during the application window. Staff review applications after the portal closes; all applicants receive a response, and selected applicants may have site visits and interviews.

Deadlines: Applications open for one month each February, with grants announced in July.

• Repeat giving: In its TY2024 filing, 81% of its grant dollars to organisations went to organisations it had also funded in its TY2022 or TY2023 filing.
• Grant size: Across its TY2022, TY2023 and TY2024 filings, half of its 304 grants to organisations were $43,500 or less.

What the foundation says:

• The fund favours organisations with strong structural analysis, active base-building and leaderful movements.
• Direct-action organisations should combine structural analysis with knowledge of local conditions to build long-term people power for racial and economic justice.
• Organisations should execute a base-building plan and run campaigns that reflect a clear sense of the power needed to win and build over the long term.
• Organisations should develop members’ capacity to lead through skill-building and political education.
• Organisations should maintain consistent supervision practices that support organisers, accountability and mission-led work.
• Direct-action organisations should be majority BIPOC-led and driven by systemically marginalised people directly affected by their campaigns and issues.
• Organising-adjacent groups should coordinate deeply with base-building organisations, collaborate with grassroots groups and act as accountable movement allies.
• Organising-adjacent groups should contribute a distinct role that strengthens organising groups or movement strategy, particularly through an equity lens.