Special Initiatives

Connect Chicago aligns citywide efforts to make Chicago the most skilled, most connected, most dynamic digital city in America. It is a unique collaboration of dynamic partners centered at The Chicago Community Trust, the region’s community foundation and led by Smart Chicago, an organization serving as a center of gravity for investments around digital excellence since its inception. The Connect Chicago network has more than 900 people delivering training, running computer centers, and helping r...

The Community Information Deep Dive initiative (or just "Deep Dive", for short) is an experiment in synthesizing new & existing community information projects into a cohesive system for engaging with residents from the seat of a community foundation. The work is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation , a longtime funder and partner , and The Chicago Community Trust , the Chicago region's community foundation and the place where Smart Chicago is housed . The core of this...

Smart Chicago Collaborative is currently engaged with ORS Impact to do an overall organization evaluation. Here's a look at how we've defined the engagement together: History and Overview of Smart Chicago Smart Chicago is a funding collaborative devoted to improving lives in Chicago through technology. Concern about the digital divide was, and remains, at the core of its creation and purpose. The founding partners include City of Chicago, MacArthur Foundation, and Chicago Community Trust. ...

Civic Works was a program funded by the Knight Foundation and the Chicago  Community Trust to spur support for civic innovation in Chicago. The program goals are to produce 200 content pieces, 5 apps that solve government problems, and 5 apps that solve community problems.   The project had five top-level goals: Work with government entities to make more public data available Create an online publication providing news and analysis on open government Help government agencies t...