Commercial Club Foundation

Partnership Focus

In 2024, the McCormick Foundation launched a five-year partnership with the Commercial Club Foundation to support the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club’s Public Safety Task Force. The Task Force’s goal is to make Chicago the safest big city in America. The Task Force recognizes that improving public safety is a complex undertaking that requires businesses, community organizations, philanthropies, and government agencies to work together.

In support of this goal, the McCormick Foundation is partnering with the Task Force to advance two strategies designed to support the city’s crime reduction goals. Funds raised through this joint effort will support Community Violence Intervention and Workforce Development projects.

McCormick Match

The McCormick Foundation matches funds raised at 50 cents on the dollar. We pay all campaign and administrative expenses, so one hundred percent of all donations, plus the match is granted to qualified nonprofit organizations.

2025 at a Glance

PARTNERSHIP ESTABLISHED

2024

Total Funding

$3M
in grants paid to date

Programs Funded

3
nonprofit organizations benefitted in 2025

Average Grant Size

$1M
in 2025

Community Violence Intervention

The Community Violence Intervention (CVI) pillar’s goal is to take CVI programs to scale, with a top line goal of serving 75% of the population identified as highest risk.

To expand CVI programs and impact, the Task Force is working alongside fellow stakeholders within Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago (SC2), a collaborative effort of community-based and citywide partners as well as city, county, and state governments.

The McCormick SC2 Fund is intended to support the scaling of community violence intervention efforts in Chicago communities that experience the most violence. Scaling refers to the professionalization and coordination of CVI efforts through the delivery of street outreach services, education and job training services, behavioral and mental health intervention, and case management in a coordinated fashion among service providers by neighborhood. Grants from the McCormick SC2 Fund are also intended to help communities that are ready and take these core services and coordinated service delivery to scale.

Workforce Development

The Workforce Development pillar supports local hiring on the South and West sides, with a top line goal of seeing 20,000 new South and West Side hires over five years among participating companies.

To support the Task Force’s hiring goal, the McCormick Workforce Development Fund is intended to help identified workforce development partners scale to generate and place a pipeline of CVI graduates and other individuals that live in communities experiencing high levels of violence find employment.