The COVID-19 crisis has had a devastating impact on Chicago’s Black and Latinx communities, where disparate financial and health outcomes were already the norm after decades of disinvestment and systemic racism. Recognizing these structural inequities, in October 2020, The Chicago Community Trust stood up We Rise Together: For an Equitable & Just Recovery, an unprecedented coalition uniting partners from across philanthropy, government, business, and communities.

We Rise Together is guided by two goals:

• Accelerate equitable economic recovery for Black and Latinx communities by pooling and distributing philanthropic resources.
• Reform and re-envision policies and business practices to ensure our region invests more equitably moving forward.

Together with our pro bono partner BCG, Civic Consulting Alliance supported We Rise Together between January and March 2021, translating its ambitious vision into a clear and actionable strategy designed to guide investments and partnerships. We also collaborated with We Rise Together’s community engagement partners, Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) and New America, to ensure community voice was integrated throughout.

“BCG’s work on We Rise Together is a testament to the effectiveness of joint pro bono teams to tackle complex, time-sensitive challenges with highly capable social impact partners. We were excited to bring our deep strategy expertise and our passion for advancing equitable economic development together with Civic Consulting Alliance’s skill in cross-sector collaboration, and MPC and New America’s commitment to anchoring the work in community perspective. By working in tandem we were able to ramp up a team quickly, provide more support, and deliver a better product than any of us could have provided alone.” – Kedra Newsom Reeves, Managing Director & Partner, BCG Chicago – and Civic Consulting Alliance Board member

Working closely with We Rise Together Associate Vice President Gloria Castillo, the BCG and Civic Consulting Alliance team focused on two objectives:

1. Define Strategic Priorities – We conducted an in-depth market mapping exercise—looking at macro challenges impacting Black and Latinx Chicagoans, inventorying 400+ cross-sector programs working on Chicago’s economic recovery, and conducting interviews—to identify priority areas where We Rise Together could fill gaps in existing efforts and have the greatest impact. This exercise identified nine strategic priorities aligned to WRT’s three goals:

• Increase employment opportunities by connecting siloed stakeholders and creating new ways to train and hire
• Strengthen small businesses by providing capital and support to incubate and scale Black and Latinx small businesses
• Spur neighborhood development by aligning stakeholders and investing in equitable real estate development

2. Operationalize Strategies – We developed a comprehensive operating model to bring those strategies to life. The model defines We Rise Together’s role within the recovery ecosystem, and includes an organizational and governance structure—described below.

Role – We Rise Together focuses on four ‘levers’ of influence that it is uniquely positioned for and that drive engagement from cross-sector partners:

• Convening and coordinating partners, using tools to center community in conversations
• Aligning on and sharing priorities
• Raising and allocating funds to further strategic goals
• Monitoring and sharing progress on grantees and partners to ensure accountability

Organizational and Governance Structure – We Rise Together’s governance structure—consisting of cross-sector working groups and a Steering Committee—is designed to ensure that community voice is represented at every level. Community Conversations facilitate ongoing communication between staff and community members and representatives, grounding the work in their lived experiences and their vision for economic vitality. This deliberate structure ensures that the communities most impacted by We Rise Together’s work are involved in problem-solving and decision-making.

With these tools in place, We Rise Together is making fast progress toward its goals. In June 2021, it announced its 5/25 Move to Action initiative, and to date, more than 25 Chicagoland companies have pledged to pursue racial equity through tangible measures like: increasing spending with local Black and Latinx-owned companies; undertaking equity-focused hiring practices such as ‘second-chance hire’ programs (which recruit returning citizens, victims of abuse, and others who face barriers to employment); and committing financial resources to impact investments.

“We are at a unique moment in Chicago’s history, when cross-sector leaders all have a shared vision for an equitable economic recovery. Now, with We Rise Together, we have a way to activate that vision. I’m enormously thankful to Civic Consulting Alliance and BCG for supporting the development of We Rise Together from an ambitious concept into an actionable approach.” – Gloria Castillo, Associate Vice President of We Rise Together: For an Equitable & Just Recovery, The Chicago Community Trust