Weekly Digest

At the Center for Changing Lives, Digital Skills and Financial Opportunity Go Hand in Hand

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Round-Up for the Week of March 10-14, 2025

For over 35 years, the Center for Changing Lives (CCL) has worked to connect Chicagoans to financial services that will, well, change their lives. CCL operates in four main categories of work: 1) U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved housing counseling and financial coaching, 2) employment coaching and digital literacy, 3) resource development coaching, and 4) small business coaching.

A financial opportunity center, CCL partners with those held back by lack of resources and economic opportunity to uncover possibilities, overcome barriers, and realize their potential.

“We're looking at a number of different things in tandem,” says Julio Pensamiento, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Team Lead for Resource Development & Outreach at CCL. “We're looking at a person's financial situation, their housing situation, their employment status, and also what resources they have available to them.”

The bilingual, bicultural nonprofit has a decades-long commitment to uplifting the residents of Chicago’s West Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Hermosa, Avondale, and Belmont Cragin neighborhoods. CCL knows that the solutions to community members' problems look different for every person who walks through the door. This adaptability and commitment to care spurred CCL to get involved in digital equity work as it has always been a part of its mission of building a community where everyone thrives.

“Digital skills are embedded in everything we do at CCL,” says Lili Díaz, Bilingual Employment Coach and Lead of the Employment Team.

The Center for Changing Lives has advocated for digital inclusion and expanded access to digital skills training on all levels, from citywide coalition work to 1-on-1 learning sessions. A member of the Chicago Digital Equity Council since its founding in 2022, CCL has helped develop citywide guides to obtaining internet access and supported affordable internet attainment through Chicago Connected. During the lifetime of the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), CCL conducted ACP outreach to help residents sign up for the federal broadband subsidy, and when the program expired, the organization informed community members about their connectivity options.

Currently, CCL offers free 1-on-1 digital skills training services to adults in West Logan Square and the surrounding neighborhoods. Additionally, the nonprofit maintains a device lending library, from which program participants can check out devices to help them meet their various goals and participate in CCL programs. CCL also offers specific certifications, such as the Google IT Certificate Program and the Black and Latinx in Tech (BLIT) cohort.

CCL’s digital skills-specific programming is designed to enable community members to engage with its employment coaching opportunities so that they can meet their career goals. CCL works with a large underemployed population, and, for many, not being able to apply for jobs online is a huge barrier to career advancement.

“What we do with in terms of digital skills is help folks strengthen them, build them. As we're navigating the workforce, so many employers’ applications are now online,” says Díaz.

But if someone comes in just needing to know how to turn on their phone, CCL is prepared for that, too. That’s why the organization designed its digital skills training on a 1-on-1 level, to meet people wherever they are on their digital skills journey.

“We've had instances where we had to help people transfer their contacts from one phone to another, but they're going from a little Nokia to a smartphone,” says Juanairis Castañeda, Bilingual Employment Coach at CCL.

CCL is an official NorthStar Digital Literacy Assessment location and uses the platform’s curriculum as the basis for its digital skills instruction. Through the years, CCL has expanded upon NorthStar’s curriculum to ensure that its training program fits the needs of participants.

CCL’s digital equity work has required it to address the language barrier present within digital skills curriculum offerings. CCL’s staff has had to do the bulk of English-to-Spanish translation of digital skills resources themselves. According to Diaz, this is a major challenge to making sure program participants have the tools they need.

“There are a lot of digital platforms for learning, but not a lot that are accessible in Spanish. And so we have to and really use our own skills to be able to provide support for our members,” Díaz says.

The organization previously employed a digital specialist and tapped into its staff at large to cultivate community-specific programs and fill in the gaps. Staff also collaborated with the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), which had its own curriculum that it shared with CCL.

“It's been a slow rollout being able to translate correctly the modules for NorthStar,” adds Díaz. “A lot of the work that we do as employment coaches really is a lot of in-house talent, just writing curriculum.”

Another barrier to participation is time. For many adults juggling work, family, and other responsibilities, attending a digital skills training requires support like childcare and flexible class schedules. CCL has held evening and weekend meetings to accommodate community members and meet them where they are.

CCL offers digital skills opportunities at all levels, whether it be foundational skill building, intermediate skills, or career advancement. The organization functions with the core value of ensuring that people are holistically served.

“The ultimate goal is to have folks be able to sustain a living,” says Díaz. “And so folks are able to get credentials through us for free.”

These credentials—the aforementioned Google IT Certificate program among others the organization has previously supported (a Microsoft Office certification, for example)—work to fill in that last piece of the puzzle and connect digital learners with career opportunities now available to them. To do this, Díaz says the Google IT program includes an internship component for certificate holders.

“We've had interns at PCs for People, helping restore and refurbish devices to bring back to the community. We've had folks participate at and support small businesses with any tech that they may have needed or small local churches as well.”

These internships, at a number of supporting nonprofits and community anchor institutions, demonstrate the breadth of the digital inclusion ecosystem in Chicago, which CCL has helped to expand. This ecosystem is a crucial part of CCL’s digital navigation work, from curriculum development to connecting digital learners to opportunities. When the needs of a community member are outside of the organization’s scope of work, CCL knows where to refer them.

CCL works with the Chicago Public Library system to connect learners to tech support and ESL courses, the YMCA of Metro Chicago’s tech hubs, and countless trusted partners to build on the services CCL provides and ensure every participant’s needs are met.

Díaz cites coalition-level work as an opportunity to share information with partners who are serving similar populations and grow together to achieve common goals.

“That's what we've had to do to navigate that landscape as practitioners who are working with a Spanish-speaking population, tapping into each other and seeing what works for them, what's missing for us, and talking about the trends that we're seeing people identify and needing support,” says Díaz.

The City of Chicago is a leader in digital equity work and was recognized as a 2024 Digital Inclusion Trailblazer by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). It’s evident that the city boasts a strong digital equity ecosystem. However, despite this strength, for local nonprofits like CCL, there is still a lot of work to be done in order to secure sustainable funding and overcome challenges.

“Especially in a city like Chicago, we're getting a lot of attention for our work on digital equity,” says Díaz. “But still, that's not enough, and there's not a lot of resources for this type of work.”

The Center for Changing Lives has had to reduce its staff and reorient its programs to fit the funding challenges it faces. CCL switched from group digital skills courses, held by the organization up until fall 2024, with 8-15 participants per course. Having to navigate meeting the demands of the community and maintaining staff has been difficult for CCL.

“The data is there, the need is there that we're seeing from our community residents, but again, the shift in focus is not there,” says Pensamiento.

CCL is prepared to make changes based on the shifting federal landscape under the Trump administration and the ongoing funding challenges that many local nonprofits are facing. The organization’s ongoing coalition work is a way to galvanize the community and gather power to advocate for the needs of Chicagoans.

“What it's really sparked is creativity with a lot of our advocacy groups, to band together and share these frustrations at a higher level to advocate for funding, for opportunities to just make the case,” Pensamiento says.

As always, CCL is looking towards the future for ways it can expand its offerings for community members. As a neighborhood business development center and economic empowerment organization, CCL is looking to develop an apprenticeship program of intermixed classroom and job training to expand its employment and economic advancement opportunities.

In all of its efforts—past, present and future—CCL remains dedicated to empowering its community and helping individuals to achieve their goals, be it through digital skills training, employment opportunities, or wherever needs direct it.

“It really just boils down to having our folks tell us what goals they've set out for themselves and what financial barriers they're facing in order to achieve those goals,” says Pensamiento. Then we'll work backward to figure out how we work towards breaking down those barriers to help them achieve those financial stability goals that they've set out for themselves.”

Quick Bits

Weekend Reads

ICYMI from Benton

Upcoming Events

Mar 18––Connected for the Long Haul: Local ISPs Bridging the Digital Divide (NC State University Institute for Emerging Issues)

Mar 19––Understanding Internet Access and Use Among Older Adults (Benton Institute for Broadband & Society)

Mar 27––March 2025 Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting (FCC)

Apr 10––The DOJ v. Google Saga Continues: What’s at Stake in the Search Remedies Trial? (Information Technology & Innovation Foundation)

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