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Chicago Community Trust Announces 2015 SMART Growth Recipients

By: Feb. 25, 2015
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The Chicago Community Trust today announced the 31 nonprofits selected for the 2015 SMART Growth program. The SMART Growth program was established to help small arts and cultural organizations to engage their boards and staffs in strengthening management practices that effectively support their missions, enabling them to contribute to their communities and to the cultural ecology of the region.

"The Trust believes that affordable and accessible arts opportunities are essential assets in every community, and this priority was affirmed by over 4,500 residents who participated in the creation of the 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan," said Suzanne Connor, senior program officer for arts and culture at The Chicago Community Trust, and one of the designers of the SMART Growth process. "This methodology empowers founders, Board members and staff leaders to recognize strengths and reallocate their limited resources toward lagging management areas so that the foundation is solid and they can cope with challenges like the loss of a founder, changing demographics or a tough economy."

Small community-based arts and cultural organizations (those with an operating budget less than $1 million) in Cook County were invited to apply for the SMART Growth capacity-building grant program.

Chosen from a pool of 136 applicants, the 2015 SMART Growth class is:

American Blues Theatre

Audience Architects

Center for Arabic Language and Culture

Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre

Chicago Slam Works (Chicago Poetry Slam)

Chicago West Community Music Center

Chinese American Museum of Chicago (Chinatown Museum Foundation)

Erasing the Distance

Filament Theatre Ensemble

Green Star Movement

Guild Literary Complex

High Concept Laboratories

Hyde Park Suzuki Institute

Imagination Theatre

Mariachi Heritage Foundation

Maywood Fine Arts

Mitchell Museum of the American Indian

Najwa Dance Corps

National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture

National Veterans Art Museum

Pride Film and Plays

Red Clay Dance Company

Rivendell Theatre Ensemble

2nd Story (Serendipity Theatre)

Snow City Arts Foundation

South Side Community Art Center

Spudnik Press Cooperative

The Arts of Life

The Miracle Center

True Star Foundation

West Point School of Music

Through a grant to the Arts & Business Council of Chicago, SMART Growth provides an individualized assessment of each nonprofit, evaluating critical business functions, such as their financial management, income generation and board governance. This signature program of the Trust also provides organizations with valuable training in the SMART Growth methodology, which includes establishing outcomes that are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timed. Organizations then receive three years of general operating grants, which range from $15,000 - $50,000 per year.

Established in 2006, past SMART Growth graduates include the Jazz Institute (2006), the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (2010) and Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance (2010). A total of 70 cultural organizations are alumni of the Smart Growth program.

About The Chicago Community Trust - The Chicago Community Trust, our region's community foundation, partners with donors to leverage their philanthropy in ways that transform lives and communities. The Trust, together with its donors, grants more than $100 million annually to nonprofits working to develop new audiences to sustain the region's vibrant arts organizations, protect the human services safety net for those hardest hit by the recession, stem the devastating effects of foreclosures on our neighborhoods, elevate teaching to meet world-class standards and improve conditions for healthy and active lifestyles. By connecting the generosity of donors with the needs of the community, the Trust ensures that our region thrives today and for future generations.



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