Chicago Mobilized Philanthropy to Connect School Kids

At the height of the pandemic in April 2020, the City of Chicago learned that roughly 1 in 5 K-12-aged students did not have internet access at home. Schools had shifted to remote learning, and Chicago needed to act quickly to ensure that students could continue their education from home. By June 2020, the City of Chicago, in partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Kids First Chicago, successfully galvanized the philanthropic sector to quickly stand up a $50 million public-private partnership, Chicago Connected. Thanks to 10 philanthropic donors and the City’s commitment of CARES Act dollars, Chicago Connected subsidizes at-home broadband costs for CPS families in need, connecting 77,000 students in its first year of operation and an estimated 100,000 students across the first two years of the program. Chicago Connected, the first program of its kind in the country, informed more than 20 cities’ approaches to the digital divide and pandemic learning and was directly replicated in Philadelphia and Miami. Philanthropic contributions allowed the City to respond swiftly to the emergency pandemic situation. Now, two years after the launch of Chicago Connected, the City is building upon the historic public-private partnership to understand and tackle the nuanced barriers to digital equity faced by Chicagoans citywide. Philanthropic dollars can be deployed quickly and nimbly. Chicago Connected partners with United Way of Metro Chicago to serve as the fiscal agent for the program, allowing it to allocate and invest funds efficiently into communities.