On Wednesday, August 27, IFF gathered with leaders, funders, stakeholders, and supporters from Chicago’s arts and culture community for an event marking the conclusion of the Chicago’s Cultural Treasures (ChiTreasures) initiative.
Titled Party in the Garden: A Chicago’s Cultural Treasures Celebration, the evening celebrated the initiative, which since 2021 has distributed $20 million to 117 organizations across the Chicagoland area whose missions are to create, preserve, or disseminate art stemming from the traditions, cultures, or communities of African, Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latin American peoples.
A highlight of the night came from the keynote address from Erin Harkey, CEO of Americans for the Arts. Harkey named the challenges facing arts and culture organizations, especially those elevating BIPOC traditions and cultures, as COVID-era funding expires and federal funding becomes increasingly challenging. Combating these difficulties requires affirmative action by funders and solidarity among those within the arts and culture sector. The ChiTreasures initiative highlighted the importance of funding for organizations supporting BIPOC arts and cultural traditions and a call to action for continued support moving forward.
The evening also featured remarks from Vickie Lakes-Battle, executive director of IFF’s Chicago-metro region, and JC Aevaliotis, executive director of Arts Work Fund, as well as showcased the work of many of the organizations that participated in the initiative. Live performances included a dance by Ruben Andres Castillo Gomez and Yui Nakatani from Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre; spoken word poetry by Tara Levy, founder and CEO of Liberated Arts Movement; a musical performance by Chicago’s Own Epic Steel Orchestra from the West Point School of Music; an instrumental and vocal performance by Punisa Pov, artist-in-residence at the National Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial; and a dance by two students from Black Girls Dance. Other organizations displayed physical pieces at a small gallery in the venue.
Launched in 2021 as a regional component of the Ford Foundation’s America’s Cultural Treasures, the initiative was designed to address the historic inequity of opportunities and funding received by these organizations, compared to those representing white- and Euro-centric cultural traditions. Funding was provided by the Ford Foundation; philanthropist MacKenzie Scott; and a Chicago-based funding collaborative comprising The Joyce Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Polk Bros. Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, The Builders Initiative, and Walder Foundation.
In 2021, the initiative used a participatory grantmaking process to distribute $14 million in funding to a group of 40 arts and culture organizations from across Chicago. Over the following four years, those 40 organizations also received technical assistance and financial management trainings. A second round of funding totaling $3 million was awarded to the original 40 grantees in summer 2024. In April 2025, the initiative launched Culture Forward Chicago, a final round of funding that gifted $3 million to an additional 77 arts and culture organizations from across the Chicagoland area. The Party in the Garden event celebrated all 117 organizations that took part in the initiative.
Read more about recent coverage of the ChiTreasures initiative here, and scroll to the right to see more images from the event.