Theory of Change
Cultivate Collective envisions a healthy, sustainable, and thriving future for all Chicagoans. To that end, the Cultivate Hub will foster innovation, create green jobs, expand links to urban agriculture and environmental education, and generate myriad pathways to community health and wellness.
In doing so, the campus will help weave together this community’s rich diversity into a vibrant tapestry of living and learning, while powerfully harnessing the financial power of the nascent clean economy for Black and Brown residents through access to livable wage jobs, career pathways, and equity in businesses.
Our Model
Our logic model depicts the theory of change that guides our path. Our approach amplifies the rich heritage and tenacity of our residents, whose resiliency in the face of systemic injustice and inequality fuels our efforts.Â
We work to reverse the impact of decades of resident displacement, under-employment, adverse health and education outcomes, and environmental injustice.Â
Our model for community-level change fosters the cultivation of the land, the infrastructure, and, most importantly, the people within our neighborhood.Â
We believe that a community thrives when each individual and family has accessible opportunities to build and sustain generational wealth; when each person is enriched by learning and connectedness within the community; and when the environment is regenerative, and capable of contributing to the health and well-being of those who live within it.
Four Pillars
The path to realizing Cultivate Collective’s vision of the future includes four integrated pillars:
- Environmental Sustainability
- Economic Vitality
- Community Health & Wellness
- Community Learning & Engagement
Activities, experiences, and outcomes from each pillar contribute a crucial part of the complex equation to help residents address the underlying contributors to poverty and systemic racial injustice, and pursue a thriving future for themselves and their families.
Living Buildings
The unparalleled environmental design of the Living Campus will be certified through the International Living Futures Institute’s Living Building Challenge — the most rigorous sustainability certification in the world.Â
This approach will directly improve air quality and ultimately increase the resilience of the energy and water security for residents in the area who are disproportionately impacted by climate injustice.
The Green Business Institute will catalyze economic vitality for individuals and families, providing education, tools, and access to capital to strengthen existingbusinesses and those who build new ones, while generating living-wage green and local jobs for residents.
The Cultivate Hub will connect Southwest Chicago residents to the growth and advancement happening across the city and the region as they work closer to home with shorter commute times and lower transportation costs.
Continual Learning
Learning starts in the home, continues in school, and is amplified when residents connect across generations within the community beyond the classroom.
Inspired by this understanding, we have embedded opportunities for continual learning — connecting elders, parents, individuals, and school-age children so they can learn with and from one another.
"It Takes a Village"
A foundational component of our theory of change is the realization that resolving complex matters does not happen alone.Â
In response, we foster collaborative, trusting partnerships with community leaders and placed-based neighborhood partners — including the Greater Southwest Development Corporation, Southwest Collective, and Academy for Global Citizenship; green industry partners like Elevate, Reactivate, and Phius; and construction business diversity partners like the Black Contractors Owners & Executives, the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and HIRE360.
Contributions from these partners help us build an ecosystem far greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, the seeds that Cultivate Collective, our partners, and community members plant together are joined by nutrients infused into the soil that ultimately drive impactful change.
Our deep focus on local support includes opportunities to reach and inspire communities beyond our own. Cultivate’s Green Business Institute and Community Hub will host educators-in-residence, teachers-in-training, visiting fellows, corporate delegations, researchers, and policymakers for learning summits, professional development, and symposia focused on scaling our impact.
We will also welcome community leaders from the national Purpose Built Communities network and beyond who are interested in adopting our model for change in their local neighborhoods.
Amplified by our commitment to social justice and equity for residents, Cultivate Collective unites education, wellness, sustainability, and economic vitality at the community level to drive generational impact.
Inspired by the strength of our LeClaire Courts community and its rich history, each component of our campus will help reverse decades of regional disinvestment, and fundamentally change the trajectory of health, wealth, education, and sustainability for all residents.
Together, we will strengthen pathways that connect our beacon of sustainable innovation in Southwest Chicago to the growth and advancement happening across our city, country, and the world.
Long-Term Outcomes
(8–10 years+)
Environmental Sustainability
- Increased energy & water security
- Improved air quality
- Restored urban habitat
Economic Vitality
- Increased generational wealth
- Increased home ownership
- Decreased racial wealth gap
- Increased local & minority-owned business creation
Community Health & Wellness
- Improved child & maternal health
- Reduced diet-related illness
- Reduced infectious & chronic disease
Community Learning & Engagement
- Increase in numbers of community youth in selective enrollment high schools
- Increase in high school graduation rates
- Improved school performance ratings
- Increase in students achieving biliteracy
- Increase in number of local & national communities that adopt elements of the Cultivate model
Mid-Term Outcomes
(4–7 years)
Environmental Sustainability
- Increased native species
- Improved soil & land health
- Less flooding
Economic Vitality
- Increased access to capital & support to grow local businesses
- Improved rates of living-wage employment
- Increased neighborhood investment & surrounding development
Community Health & Wellness
- Increased food security & healthy food consumption
- Health care services are provided to 2,500+ annually
- Increased use of preventive care
Community Learning & Engagement
- Increase in academic growth & attainment
- Increase in students’ knowledge of sustainability & wellness
- Increase in teacher retention
- Increase in number of partners that Cultivate supports to replicate our Cultivate model
Short-Term Outcomes
(1–3 years)
Environmental Sustainability
- Achieve Living Building Challenge certification
- Reach net-positive energy & water
- Increased neighborhood access to & time spent in nature
Economic Vitality
- Increased employment-relevant knowledge & skills
- Increased apprenticeship opportunities
- Increased green jobs
Community Health & Wellness
- Increased access to nutrition education & cooking classes
- Increased access to healthcare & healthy food
Community Learning & Engagement
- Increase in access to high-quality public education & early learning opportunities
- Increase in number of children achieving kindergarten readiness
- Increase in number of adult education programs & participation
- Increase in educators’ understanding of environmental education & whole school sustainability strategies
Outputs
Environmental Sustainability
- Pre-K–8th grade environmental education & green civic spaces
- 500+ kW of solar installed
- Green Business Institute
- Square Roots hydroponic farm
- Environmental Learning Lab
Economic Vitality
- 125 living-wage permanent jobs
- Nonprofit revenues re-invested in strengthening & benefiting community
- 1,000 union & green jobs during construction
Community Health & Wellness
- Federally Qualified Health Center, operated by Esperanza with Veggie Rx program
- 2,100 daily nutrient-dense meals provided to children
- Six teaching kitchens, community wellness facilities & programs
- 100,000+ pounds of locally grown produce distributed annually
Community Learning & Engagement
- Early Childhood Head Start Center
- Pre-natal education & birth-three programs
- Tuition-free, Dual Language, International Baccalaureate & nature-based public education for 620 children, operated by Academy for Global Citizenship (AGC)
- Green Business Institute programs for adult learners (financial literacy, technology skills)
- Participation in national Purpose Built Communities network
Inputs
- 100% minority Strategic Advisory Council and 96% minority Board with community-led governance representing six generations
- Experienced, highly capable leadership with 17-year neighborhood history and community development partner organization with 48-year community roots
- $53MM mixed-use community building that includes Early Childhood Head Start Center and K-8 public school, operated by Academy for Global Citizenship (AGC)
- Comprehensive political support and $31MM in state funding
- MOU with Hearst Community Organization and LeClaire Courts Advisory Council
- Executed Community Benefits Agreement with Chicago Housing Authority
- Trusted partnerships, operating agreements, and leases with community organizations and partners
- Three esteemed research and evaluation partnerships in place
- Track record of incubating, evaluating, and scaling best practices, impacting five million people
- Three-acre farm, operated by Urban Growers Collective and LOI with large-scale hydroponic farm operator
- First project in Illinois on track to achieve robust international sustainability certification standards
- Evidenced-based Purpose Built Communities network engagement and national support
- 40-acre site under development, including 700 units of mixed-income housing financed and delivered by the Chicago Housing Authority, The Habitat Company and Cabrera Capital
