Healing Illinois closes its fifth grant round, with awards of up to $50,000 for community healing projects due in late October
The state program, run by the Illinois Department of Human Services with Chicago's Field Foundation, took applications until Sept. 28 for more than $4.3 million in grants. Funded projects must be finished, and the money spent, between Nov. 1 and June 30, 2027.
Chicago. Applications closed on Sept. 28 for the fifth cycle of Healing Illinois, a state grant program for nonprofit projects on racial and community healing. Organizations that applied are due to hear in late October whether they won funding, and the grant period runs from Nov. 1 to June 30, 2027.
The program is an initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services, managed with the Field Foundation, a private foundation in Chicago that announced the new cycle on Sept. 4. The pool is more than $4.3 million. Grants for projects in one region go up to $30,000, and grants for projects that serve two or more regions up to $50,000. Daniel O. Ash, the foundation's president, said the program trusts local organizations to design their own efforts rather than prescribing solutions from the top down.
Who could apply
The request for proposals opened the grants to 501(c)(3) public charities in good standing with the Illinois Secretary of State and compliant with the Grant Accountability and Transparency Act, the state's framework for grant accountability. Applicants also had to be registered in the federal System for Award Management and could not be on federal debarment or state stop payment lists. The department's program page also names public agencies, such as schools, libraries and park districts, as eligible.
Groups without their own 501(c)(3) status or state compliance could apply through a compliant 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, which signs the grant agreement and manages the money and financial reports under a signed memorandum of understanding. The program's applicant guide lists faith-based institutions that are not separately incorporated among those that need one.
What the grants pay for
Each project had to fit one of three priorities: healing through narrative, such as oral history projects, storytelling circles and documentary media; healing through dialogue, such as healing circles and facilitated conversation series; and healing through place, such as community murals, walking tours of historic sites and the restoration of shared gathering spaces. This cycle puts explicit emphasis on projects that bring together people across race, culture, generation and geography, the request says.
Regional intermediary partners score the proposals, and the Field Foundation approves the final awards in line with the department's guidelines. Grantees file bimonthly financial reports, attend mandatory onboarding and technical assistance sessions in November, and submit final reports by July 30, 2027.
The calendar is earlier than in the last two cycles, whose grantees the department announced in January: 204 organizations sharing $4.5 million in 2025, and nearly 200 sharing $4.3 million in 2026. Of the last cycle's grantees, 41 percent used the money to start an entirely new healing initiative, the foundation said in its September announcement.
About this story
501c3.help wrote this story from the sources listed with it, not from material an organization sent. Our editors approved it on Sept. 29, 2026. Stories in The Nonprofit Herald are free, and nothing is asked in return. Editorial rules.
Found an error? Write to [email protected] and we will correct it.
For Field Foundation of Illinois: put the badge on your website
Put it on your About page or wherever you list press mentions, rather than in a footer that repeats on every page. It links to this story.
Linking is welcome and never required. Nothing about the story changes either way.