2020 Grantees
In May of 2020, Innovation 80 announced grants totaling $80,000 to its first group of four grant recipients. We are excited to continue to partner with these organizations.
The Kedzie Center & 2nd Story
Forget border walls
All a fearful waste of funds
Build skills in the young
The Kedzie Center, in collaboration with 2nd Story, will create, and Innovation 80 will fund, the Diane Plotkin DACA Storytelling Program for three groups of students who identify as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in the River North area. Students will be offered opportunities to tell their personal stories in an empowering and healing way and to deliver them for impact. The program will foster inter-group sharing and will culminate in a performance of a number of pieces from each cohort, reaching at least 100 community members.
Reading Between the Lines
Read. Think. Share.
Mine the gems of mind
New-released
Reading Between the Lines uses discussion of literature to build critical thinking and communication skills with soon-to-be released and formerly incarcerated women and men. The exchange of ideas around short, powerful texts promotes confidence, collaboration, openness and trust, offering participants tools to engage with the world in new ways. Innovation 80 is funding activities that will prepare Reading Between the Lines to deliver their program inside the Cook County jail. This project has already received official approval from CCDOC.
Silk Road Rising
Hearing journeys’ truths
Paves the way to empathy
Each soul’s tale unique
Silk Road Rising’s EPIC (Empathic Playwriting Intensive Course) program, has guided students in Chicago public schools in writing short plays that promote empathy around issues they see in their own communities. Innovation 80 is providing funding for Silk Road Rising to expand EPIC’s focus to guide other participants who are traditionally underserved to tell parts of their own stories. New target populations will be inter-generational groups, people with developmental or intellectual disabilities, and English language learners in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago.
SkyART
Minds imagine.
Hands fine-tune line and hue
Grant whimsy flight
SkyART, after 18 years of proven community engagement and youth development through free art programs in South Chicago, will begin to bring its program to young people on the West Side, aided by funding from Innovation 80. This year-long program for high school-aged young adults develops art as a pathway to their future. It offers a crucial bridge between high school and meaningful post-secondary educational and career opportunities, in an encouraging environment that promotes self-discovery, communication, and collaboration.
We continue to fund our grant recipients from previous years. Please click the buttons below to see more.
All Grantees
Artists Breaking Limits and Expectations (2022) • America SCORES Chicago (2022) • Albany Park Theatre Company (2022) • Awakenings (2023) • BandWith (2023) • Changing Worlds (2021) • CircEsteem (2021) • Chicago Arts and Music Project (2023) • Chicago Poetry Center (2023) • Chicago West Community Music Center (2022) • Free Street Theater (2022) • FreshLens (2023) • Global Girls (2022) • Green Star Movement (2021) • Ignition Community Glass (2021) • Intonation Music (2022) • Lawndale Pop-Up Spot (2023) • Mobile Makers • Music in Urban Schools Inspiring Change (2022) • Palenque LSNA (2023) • Project Danztheatre Company (2021) • Reading Between the Lines (2020) • ReinventAbility (2021) • Silk Road Rising (2020) • The Simple Good (2023) • Sit Stay Read (2021) • SkyArt (2020) • Snow City Arts (2022) • Storycatchers (2021) • Sukkah Design Festival (2023) • The Kedzie Center / 2nd Story (2020) • Theatre Y (2022) • West Point Fellowship (2021)