Global Philanthropy Partnership Projects

CLIMATE:

Since 2005, Global Philanthropy Partnership has worked with partners including the City of Chicago, Chicagoland headquartered corporations, Chicago universities, and local, North American, and global non-profit organizations to coordinate adaptation and mitigation strategies regarding climate change.

Click here to learn more about Chicago’s climate focus: 2022 Climate Action Plan

Click on the partnership project links below for more on how GPP is supporting climate initiatives around the world.

SIMMONS CENTER FOR GLOBAL CHICAGO

Simmons Center for Global Chicago logo
GPP hosts the Simmons Center for Global Chicago to better link the locally-based and globally-engaged community. Initially a virtual center, linking global development practitioners and supporters through a networking website, the Simmons Center opened in June 2022 as a co-working space for practitioners of this work, connecting the international community in Chicago for greater global development impact.

Learn more here.

 

Current Partnership Projects

Artisan Grain Collaborative (AGC) logo
The Artisan Grain Collaborative

The Artisan Grain Collaborative (AGC) is a network of individuals and organizations working to build and sustain a regenerative grainshed in the Upper Midwest.

AGC is a gathering place for individuals and organizations working across the Upper Midwest from farmer to consumer to support diverse regenerative food systems. We accomplish this through multi-stakeholder collaboration to build relationships with individuals, organizations, and communities, provide education, share scientific data, and promote initiatives that result in greater public awareness and support of agricultural systems that provide multiple societal benefits. AGC’s focus is on food grade small grains as a first best opportunity to begin an economically viable regenerative transition in a region currently dominated by monocultures of only a few crops. It’s mission is to create a diverse regional grainshed built upon regenerative agriculture practices that steward the health of communities, local economies, and natural resources.

 
Chicago Bread Club
Chicago Bread Club

The mission of the Chicago Bread Club is to share the art and knowledge of bread, and to promote and expand the racial equity of the regional grain economy. CBC’s Community Grain Shares (CGS) are designed to support existing local grain growers and develop emerging small Chicagoland growers, centering Black, Indigenous, & Farmers of Color with infrastructure, labor, space and increased purchasing power. CBC purchases bulk culturally significant grain from local farmers, and distributes it to emergency food programs, as well as through paid Community Grain Shares.

 
The Emergent Learning Community Project logo
The Emergent Learning Community Project

Emergent Learning (EL) helps people across a system think, learn and adapt together in order to achieve important social change goals. People often think of “learning” as a product to deliver or as a one-off event. Emergent Learning is a habit — a way of expanding our collective thinking in order to grow our ability to achieve the results we want. Emergent Learning is about more than a pack of tools — it is about rethinking what it means to achieve complex goals in a complex world. EL focuses on discovering a shared line of sight that allows everyone to find their place in the endeavor; posing questions that invite a wider, more diverse, circle into the thinking process; making thinking visible to encourage a learning dialogue; deliberately testing hypotheses in the work itself; and sharing patterns and insights across a team, network, or community.

Launched in 2021, the Emergent Learning Community Project supports a vital, diverse and growing community of practitioners who, together and individually, are deepening their practice and achieving powerful results in expanding spheres of influence. Through a variety of activities, the EL Community Project helps practitioners both expand their vision for what’s possible and apply EL to specific and concrete goals.

 
Green Infrastructure Leadership Exchange
Green Infrastructure Leadership Exchange

The Green Infrastructure Leadership Exchange is a practitioner network that supports communities seeking to grow green stormwater infrastructure programs by accelerating implementation through peer learning, innovation, partnerships and advocacy. The Exchange develops, hosts and shares resources to advance the benefits and viability of green infrastructure.

Green stormwater infrastructure includes a range of soil-water-plant systems that intercept stormwater, infiltrate a portion of it into the ground, evaporate a portion of it into the air, and in some cases release a portion of it slowly back into the sewer system. Key programs and initiatives include the Exchange Work Groups, Annual Meeting, and Collaborative Grant Program.

GIEx members are GSI program managers or lead GSI implementers from municipal governments or municipal water utilities.

 
The Illinois Agri-Food Alliance logo
Illinois Agri-Food Alliance

The Illinois Agri-Food Alliances (formerly FARM Illinois) is a statewide association organized to develop and implement a comprehensive and integrated 21st-century strategic plan for food and agriculture in Illinois. Released in May 2015, the association’s foundational roadmap pairs the innovation and global access of the Chicago region with the fertile soils and production capacity of Illinois. Its goal is to establish leadership statewide and regionally in sustainably meeting the challenges of food supply and demand, both locally and globally.

Illinois Agri-Food Alliance is an independent, multi-stakeholder initiative working to harness the strengths of Illinois’ food and agriculture sector by convening and connecting stakeholders to catalyze and champion actions that will grow the economy, support community health, and sustain the environment. Through a collaborative network, Illinois Agri-Food Alliance partners are joining forces to align strategic priorities, spark innovation, improve coordination, catalyze new collaborations, increase visibility, and build trust. Illinois Agri-Food Alliance is creating the enabling environment to ensure Illinois’ food and agriculture sector continues to be a driver of the state’s economy while also addressing environmental and societal challenges.

 
Justice Through Food logo
Justice Through Food

Justice Through Food is a collaboration of indigenous populations, from grassroots to national, using agriculture to reclaim land. Food sovereignty engages a group of organizations from marginalized communities of color to drive advocacy and social innovation. It focuses on food for people, values providers, and puts control locally. This work is about shifting power through food to ensure justice.

 
Michigan Agriculture Advancement (MiAA) logo
Michigan Agriculture Advancement (MiAA) Michigan Agriculture Advancement uses education to empower alternatives to the commodity agriculture system that has prioritized production efficiencies at the expense of farm resiliency, production flexibility, food value, and environmental impacts. MiAA supports the work of innovative farmers building soil health and diversifying crop rotations. Recognizing the value of these changes extends beyond the farm through limited environmental impacts and enhanced local food economies, MiAA works to achieve a stronger agriculture system in Michigan.
 
The Equitable Transportation Fund logo

 

The Equitable Transportation Fund

The Equitable Transportation Fund is a new matching grant program hosted at Global Philanthropy Partnership that pairs national foundation funds with local foundation funds to support community-based advocacy around sustainable and equitable mobility. The long-term goal of this fund is to increase access to and use of active transportation modes and public transit.

The immediate goal of this fund is to meet the urgent need for safe alternatives to public transportation as Americans commute in a pandemic. it seeks to support advocacy efforts for: (1) optimizing transit capacity and safety; (2) recovery funding for transit; and (3) walking and cycling for trips that have shifted off of transit during the recovery period.

 
SCORAI - Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative
Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative

SCORAI is a multi-regional assemblage of networks with independent groups in North America, Europe, China, and Israel. SCORAI networks are made up of academics and practitioners to forge connections and work together to address challenges at the interface of material consumption, human fulfillment, lifestyle satisfaction, and macroeconomic and technological change. Each affiliation provides critical support and facilitates meaningful impact in their region. Members are either actively involved in research or avid practitioners who are driven to translate research on sustainable consumption into practical action.

 
Worldview Solutions logo
Worldview Solutions Inc

Worldview Solutions Inc. is a problem-seeking independent social enterprise utilizing journalistic principles to inspire global and local conversation around major issues affecting social and physical environments; and to propose, facilitate and mediate solutions to those issues. An evolution of the Worldview radio program, which occupied an unprecedented position in the Midwest media landscape as the only locally-produced program covering how issues of identity, the environment, religion, geopolitics, culture and economics drive and shape the news, Worldview Solutions will use a holistic strategy through various platforms, digital, interpersonal, and emerging media.

Worldview features artists, activists, and social movements centered within Chicago and the Midwest region. These parties understand that global issues manifest locally. For example, the origins and social effects of inequality are as visible in Chicago as they are in Africa, polluted air and water know no human borders. Each initiative will begin by establishing and articulating a problem, and each presentation will end with solution-oriented proposals. Worldview Solutions strives to foster deeper connections between the cultures and people of the North American Midwest and the globe, to inspire and empower communities towards positive and sustainable social change.