• The Chicago Community Trust will provide funding through the Dan A. Nicholson Fund for vocational education and training for individuals 18 and older.
• Qualifying organizations have at least 1 active, up-to-date program entry in the target field(s) listed in the Chicagoland CareerPathways directory.
• Interested organizations can submit via the Provider Portal. Organizations not yet listed in CareerPathways who are interested in joining can submit an application.
• Submissions are due by Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST.
• Select organizations will receive invitations from the funder for a second round of evaluation by the end of June, and award recipients will be chosen from these invitees in August.
• Reach out to Becca Senatore, Product Owner, at [email protected] with any questions.

Chicagoland CareerPathways is excited to partner with the Chicago Community Trust to share this opportunity with our provider network!

Through this opportunity, the Chicago Community Trust will provide funding for vocational education and training for individuals 18 and older. Eligible programs will feature activities related to craft skills, mechanics, and engineering.

Example training programs could include carpentry, electricians, plumbing, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, biomechanics, and engineering. This opportunity is funded by the Dan A. Nicholson Fund.

Qualifying organizations will be able to submit an application through the Provider Portal. (Read on to learn more about this process.) Our funder partners will then invite select applicants to complete a second round of application outside of CareerPathways before identifying award recipients.

In order to qualify for this opportunity, organizations must:

• Be listed in Chicagoland CareerPathways. If your organization is not yet associated with our directory, click here to send in an application.
• Offer career training related to craft skills, mechanics, and engineering. Examples include carpentry, electricians, plumbing, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, biomechanics, and engineering.
• Have at least one active and up-to-date entry in the CareerPathways system.  If your entries are not currently active, reach out to Becca Senatore (Product Owner) at [email protected] to learn how to reactivate your entries.
• Report the following quality indicators for at least one qualifying program entry:
  • Average salary of program completers
  • Program completion rate
  • Job placement rate
  • One additional quality indicator of choice

Applications open to eligible organizations on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.

This opportunity will be available until Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST.

Invitations from the funder will be sent to select organizations by the end of June 2023.

Award recipients will be selected from these invitees in August 2023.

1. Log into the Provider Portal. Don’t have a login yet? Email Becca Senatore (Product Owner) at [email protected] to gain access to your organization’s Portal.
2. At the top of the window, click on the button labeled View Available Funding Opportunities.
3. If you have at least one program that is eligible for this opportunity, you will see Vocational Training Funding Opportunity (2023) listed in the pop-up window on your screen. If you do not see this listed, your program(s) have already been determined as ineligible for this opportunity. Check back in the future for other opportunities!
4. If you have multiple program entries in CareerPathways, you can see which are considered eligible by clicking the Learn More button. In the resulting window, check the section labeled Eligible Programs. Please ensure that any programs listed in this section have the necessary quality indicators listed in order to properly qualify for this opportunity.
5. Click Return to Available Funding Opportunities and click the button labeled Submit Eligible Programs at the bottom of the resulting window.
6. Click the button labeled Submit program to Vocational Funding beside any programs you wish to submit for consideration.

That’s it! Your programs are now submitted for consideration by the funder.

Please be aware that submissions are subject to review. If the CareerPathways team reviews your submission and finds that you have not included the required information or otherwise do not qualify, we will alert you via email.

CareerPathways is always open to opportunities to connect interested funders with programs they are excited about. Click here to learn about the resources we offer our funder partners. If you have questions or would like to partner with us, reach out to Becca Senatore, Product Owner, at [email protected]. We look forward to connecting with you!