Wieboldt Foundation

10/13/2020

The Wieboldt Foundation Announces New Executive Director

The Wieboldt Foundation announced today that Jawanza Malone will become its Executive Director on January 1, 2021. Mr. Malone comes from the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), one of the oldest Black-led grassroots membership-based community-organizing groups in Chicago, where he served as Community Organizer, Coalition Builder, and Executive Director.

In making the announcement Wieboldt Foundation Board President John Darrow stated, “Jawanza will be succeeding Regina McGraw, Executive Director, and Carmen Prieto, Associate Director, who are retiring at year-end with a combined 56 years of remarkable service to the Foundation and the communities we fund. He joins us as the recent events have exposed and exacerbated the issues impacting low-income communities of color and raised awareness of the need to invest in them. He brings a combination of experience and skills that will help guide us as we start our second century of philanthropy and work to increase the growing recognition that empowering neighborhood residents is an important contribution in the effort to resolve social inequity.”

Mr. Malone expressed, “Wieboldt has been a steadfast champion of community organizing and has played a seminal role in advancing it as a methodology to create a just world by intentionally engaging those persons who are the most-impacted by racial and economic injustice to exercise their ability and right to strategically build power and determine their future. Their grantees have won significant victories across Chicago and Illinois. I am honored to have been selected to continue this work and am committed to maintaining that tradition.”

The Wieboldt Foundation was founded in 1921 by William and Anna Wieboldt, making it the oldest private foundation in the Chicago area. Their wealth was created by the neighborhood stores they founded, and funding has been directed to Chicago’s neighborhoods. For the last 50 years, that has been translated to a focus on community organizing and activism across the metropolitan area. Grants totaled $700,000 in 202

06/13/2020

It means both less, and more, than you might think.

06/03/2020

The Wieboldt Foundation is humble - we are not in the business of putting the foundation front and center. We support the work of our grantees and know that they will do a better job than we ever could to explain the pain and despair in under-resourced communities. They lead the hard and patient struggle of working to preserve our democracy. And they do it with the hope of community resilience and the joy of community gatherings and genuine, trusting relationships.

The community organizations we help support have won additions to overcrowded schools, new public libraries and community centers, affordable housing, and reforms in the criminal justice system. They have brought new programs to communities - parent mentors, peer-to-peer health educators, immigrant integration and citizenship services, and youth leadership development, to name a few. They have done all these things because community leaders and members are doing the work that is inspiring and provides a sense of community and hope.

This has happened because of grassroots, community organizing. Organizing is not about finding silver bullet solutions or following charismatic leaders. Leadership development as part of the strategy of organizing ensures that members of our communities are part of the decision-making process on issues, the hard work of mapping out successful strategies, and the collective community joy of accomplishments.

Our grantee organizations have been through too many crisis in the City to mention, and are now facing the difficult work of rolling out rapid responses to COVID-19, and finding resources for their new technology needs to communicate remotely with staff and leaders, and to hold strategy and community meetings, training workshops, and town halls.

Over the years we have observed that the most genuine race relations, or racial healing work, has been done by community organizing groups who know and understand the real meaning of racial equity. They know this work can be extremely difficult, at times painful, never ending, but absolutely essential.

The community organizations Wieboldt Foundation funds through long-term, general operating support are now facing the economic and psychological tolls of record-breaking unemployment and community destruction. They have been fighting for too many years for meaningful police reforms. Now they must fight for critical human rights to be included in any rebuilding plans through the Right to Recovery Campaign. And Wieboldt will be there with them.

We ask you, our colleagues and friends, to think long and hard on how to proceed in this difficult time. We have seen "fads" come and go over the years - programs for youth after civil unrest in Los Angeles. The privatization of public education under the false guise of "parental choice." Wieboldt support allows community members to identify issues and oversee the implementation and enforcement of public policy changes that benefit their communities.

It is a long and hard road, but it is the best hope for the future of our democracy.

06/01/2020

The main concern of black people right now isn’t whether they’re standing three or six feet apart, but whether their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers will be murdered by cops.

05/13/2020

A historical gem!

Here are the famous Wieboldt's commercials featuring Jack Quinlan and Lou Boudreau. They could not get through these reads without cracking up. Enjoy these a...

04/23/2020

DeVos and company are simply evil

The education secretary told colleges that congressional relief for students dislocated by campus closures cannot go to undocumented immigrants, even those under federal protection.

09/23/2019

I applaud the Woods Fund for their selection of this amazing woman - Michelle Morales - to be their new President. Can't wait to welcome and work with her to support community organizing in Chicago!

CHICAGO, Ill. – Michelle Morales, a nonprofit leader with a background in community organizing and teaching, has been named the new president of Woods Fund Chicago, a grant-making foundation with roots in promoting equal opportunity and community organizing by funding local grass-roots, policy and...

08/08/2019

Amid an ongoing teacher shortage, Illinois will scrap a basic skills test that it has long required aspiring teachers to pass.

06/19/2019

Chicago Public Schools need more strategies that don’t rely on handcuffs, Tasers and arrests to manage student misbehavior.

06/19/2019

Not only is it historically accurate to call these detention centers concentration camps, but the uproar reveals a curious and cruel irony: conservatives are more outraged by the terms used to desc…

06/19/2019

The last U.S. census missed an estimated 10 percent of children ages 0 to 4 — and the numbers determine critical services, such as health care.