ICYMI: "Mapping COVID-19 Recovery Project in Chicago"

The Mapping COVID-19 Recovery Project, a collaborative effort of 25 Chicago foundations, nonprofit organizations, and public and private groups, links historic disinvestments in some Chicago neighborhoods with COVID-19’s impact on those communities, reports WBEZ.

The project, explains its website, "standardizes data through a series of maps illustrating where public, private and philanthropic sector investments are going in communities of color devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of strategic reinvestment and recovery to close historic funding gaps and rebuild stronger communities."

The project, according to WBEZ, consists of "a series of maps that show past and present housing discrimination, school closures, heavy public investments in incarceration, lack of healthcare access and other factors that the groups say led to the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on the city’s Black and Latino communities."

Considering philanthropic entities, the Mapping COVID-19 Recovery Project says:

In the year that preceded the COVID-19 pandemic, with all the issues we already discussed— we note that very few dollars have gone to those in the study area. This follows historic philanthropic patterns. But the COVID-19 shift was swift and tremendous. During this crisis funders came together, created robust funds, shifted application practice to make it easier and changed criteria to seek out BIPOC-led organizations and gave so much more in three months than in the previous year.

Explore the project here.

Image: Michael Cox / Unsplash