OUR
COLLABS
Our Partners
We are proud to collaborate with education, government, philanthropy, and other organizations committed to generating long-term impact.
Case Studies
ChiByDesign partners with organizations aware of the inequities and injustices people of color face. Our collaborations seek to understand how racism impacts how people view these communities, the policies and legislation that impact their lives, and, more importantly, uncover the opportunities to co-create new tools, experiences, and resources to improve their quality of life. Below are some of our collaborations ranging from improving the foster care experience for Black and Mixed-Race families to co-creating guiding visions and principles to imagine what the future of work and learning can and should be.
Next-Generation Supports for Community
College Students
Our collaboration provides a comprehensive view of One Million Degrees and City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) ecosystems, key learnings of their core strengths and competencies, with strategic recommendations to address areas of opportunity.
My Brother's Keeper Alliance: Chicago
Chicago is struggling to meet the needs (education and employment) of its young people, especially the needs of boys and young men of color. The MBK Action Plan would be the first for the My Brother’s Keeper Chicago Initiative.
Reimagining Youth Diversion through Holistic Approaches
In collaboration with youth, community leaders, and activists, we create a roadmap to design a new youth diversion model that provides adequate supports to meet youth's needs and mends the relationship between residents and the police force.
Community-Led
Food Systems
Black and Brown communities on Chicago's South and West Sides suffer from food insecurity, intergenerational inequity, and disconnection from the city's food system. With Black, Brown, and Indigenous urban growers, food producers, and organizations, we sought to create a new system—one that works for all.
Driving Equitable Resource Distribution
To deliver desired outcomes in health, housing, and education, the Driving Equitable Resource Distribution framework proposes five strategies and 14 guiding principles to ensure that the work done in the future across government, for-profit, and non-profit sectors create equitable results.
The Future of Work and Learning
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the constraints of work and learning in their traditional forms. One of Chicago's nonprofits sees an opportunity to reimagine work and learning for staff and the youth they serve.
Strengthening
Family Connections
Almost 200,000 children throughout the state of Illinois and roughly 37,000 children in Chicago have a parent who is jailed or imprisoned. Children of incarcerated parents are much more likely to be Black or Latinx. Nearly a quarter of children with an incarcerated parent are under the age of five, impacting the critical foundation-building years for these children. Illinois Action For Children (IAFC) believes that addressing the unique needs of Black and Latinx children and their jailed and incarcerated parents is long overdue.
Empowering Young Women’s Wellness
Black girls in America lack supportive and healthy outlets to release their stressors and frustrations. In Chicago, Black girls face social, environmental, systemic, and mental barriers that set them back in maintaining and attaining better physical and mental outcomes. Nike is actively engaging in a process to expand its reach by developing wellness programming for young women in Chicago.
Maternal Success Kit
A collaboration with the Department of Children & Families (DCF) and Powerful Families, Powerful Communities (PFPC) to design a preventative co-designed intervention for child and family well-being for Black and Brown mothers in New Jersey.
