The Community Foundation of Northern Illinois (CFNIL) is pleased to announce four nonprofit organizations who have been selected to participate in the tenth Carroll H. Starr Endowment Challenge: Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence (NICNE), North Rockford Convalescent Home (aka Peterson Meadows), Regional Access and Mobilization Project (RAMP), and The Lincoln Douglas Society. 

The CHS Endowment Challenge seeks to inspire nonprofits to build a permanent endowment, providing a perpetual source of stable funding. CFNIL will match $1 for every $3 raised by the nonprofit during the Challenge period, up to a $30,000 match. The combined funds create an agency endowment, stewarded by CFNIL and providing annual distributions which provide unrestricted operating support for the nonprofit.

The four organizations selected for this tenth Challenge completed applications which were reviewed by a committee of community volunteers who considered each organization’s operational and financial position and vision for endowment. Participants will have until December 31, 2023, to complete their Challenge. 

“We see the CHS Endowment Challenge as an integral part of building sustainable and healthy institutions throughout Northern Illinois”, said Dan Ross, President, CFNIL. “The four organizations selected to participate in this Challenge are unique, providing a wide range of services and with very different operating strategies and structures. Their shared commitment to improving financial stability through a perpetual reservoir of reliable funding is inspiring, and we are pleased to serve as a partner, advocate, and matching funder toward this end.”

First offered in 2001, the CHS Challenge has had 32 nonprofit participants and granted over $1M. The value of the endowments established by nonprofits via the CHS Challenge is nearly $9M. The program is named after Carroll H. Starr, a prominent Rockford businessman and founder of the Rockford Community Trust, now known as the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois. He served the Trust with an unwavering belief in its future growth and the benefit it would provide to the community, providing substantial leadership during its formative first decade until his death in 1963. Learn more about the Carroll H. Starr Endowment Challenge at https://www.cfnil.org/grants/carroll-h-starr-endowment-challenge.