Nonprofit Capacity Building – Phase 1

Nonprofit organizations play a fundamental role in creating more equitable and thriving communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has left many nonprofits experiencing financial hardship. During the pandemic, nonprofits across Chicago saw an increase in the demand for their services without an increase in their financial and operational capacity to meet that higher demand. Nonprofits operating in low-to-moderate income areas and those with budgets less than $1M were disproportionately impacted, with many seeing decreased revenue and increased costs and have not yet fully recovered.

To ensure a strong recovery for our City’s nonprofits, the City of Chicago has created the Nonprofit Capacity Building Program. This program will provide technical assistance and capacity building services for disproportionately impacted nonprofits, helping to stabilize and scale their operations.

Curated events and seminars will be organized, specifically with the needs of nonprofits in mind. Topics and training will include:

How to apply for City/Government Requests for Proposals (RFPs)
Navigating iSupplier
Upcoming City RFP Opportunities
Compliance and Reporting Expectations
Small group workshops
- These workshops will be facilitated by capacity-builders well oriented with the Chicagoland ecosystem (philanthropy, academia, for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental agencies).

The Nonprofit Capacity Building Program will offer participants direct access to partner organizations that can help with Application Assistance. The goal of Application Assistance is to provide frequent, in-depth training and one-on-one coaching on specific topics for disproportionately impacted nonprofits seeking to apply for Recovery funding and grow their organizations. This individualized aide with be crucial to nonprofits that may be new to the City’s RFP system or feeling overwhelmed by the application process.

This program is part of the Chicago Recovery Plan, the City’s plan to amplify once-in-a-generation federal funding to create an equity-based investment strategy to catalyze a sustainable economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about this Program and BACP’s Recovery Plan efforts, please visit Chicago.gov/BACPRecoveryPlan.

Program Overview:
Nonprofit Capacity Building Program includes four types of programs:

Readiness Summits: Quarterly virtual meetings covering best practices and common mistakes when applying for City RFPs and upcoming opportunities.
- Schedule: Next Readiness Summit will be Thursday, March 9, 2023 from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
- View the March 9, 2023 Readiness Summit