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A Better Chicago

A Better Chicago is a venture philanthropy that invests in the most promising nonprofits helping children escape poverty. We’re a supercharger. We have deployed more than $73 million to help the nonprofits in our portfolio grow. Our donors want to make pivotal, well researched investments that lift the outlook for our city.

We believe that education is the best route out of poverty. But too many Chicago children, particularly on the South and West Sides, lack the resources to learn and thrive. In order to succeed, they need programs that support their academic and social growth, while keeping them safe and meeting their essential needs.

While traditional philanthropies focus on established nonprofits, A Better Chicago aims to find and nurture promising early initiatives, or ones just beyond that stage that are on the cusp of expansion. Often, they are run by local leaders who live or grew up in the communities they serve. We employ a venture capital approach: We raise money from donors who want to maximize their impact, and we invest in innovative youth-serving nonprofits that have the potential to expand exponentially. We vet them rigorously before investing, and our continued support depends on them meeting mutually agreed milestones. As with a venture capital fund, our goal is for our investments to eventually flourish without us. We provide unrestricted funding, renewed annually based on performance. We also provide ongoing guidance and resources to help nonprofits grow. This includes funding or in-kind support for specific needs, such as strategic planning, marketing and communications, executive development or hiring. Our administrative expenses are covered by our board, ensuring that every donor dollar is deployed to the nonprofits we support.

When founded in 2010, A Better Chicago was modeled after a venture capital fund that could build a more equitable city by breaking the cycle of generational poverty. Chicago is one of the most segregated large cities in America: One in four children here lives in poverty, with Black and Latinx youth on the city’s South and West sides most affected. Three in four Chicago Public Schools students rely on schools for their primary source for meals.

A Better Chicago’s mission is to fight poverty through opportunity, creating an on-ramp for youth to the middle class. As of 2023, A Better Chicago’s investment portfolio includes 27 nonprofits that support children from cradle to career.

Sep 06, 2024  
Chief Development Officer
POSITION OVERVIEW The Chief Development Officer is a results-oriented leader responsible for the strategic oversight of A Better Chicago’s development functions including individual giving, corporate sponsorships, foundation grants, donor recognition and stewardship, and special philanthropic initiatives. They bring a proactive approach to designing and implementing both strategies and infrastructure to set A Better Chicago’s Development team up for success in reaching its ambitious goals. The Chief Development Officer directly manages and collaborates with the Director of Development to grow the amount of available funding for the organization’s mission. This position reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer and oversees a team of four. The Chief Development Officer is responsible for achieving the following key results: Drive the execution of the recently launched Capital Raise, with a goal of raising $50 million over the next five years. Develop and oversee...
A Better Chicago Hybrid (Chicago, IL, USA) Full-Time