Check out the latest insights from our program team and grantees.
Grantees

Congo Square Play Promotes Healing, Catharsis in Chicago
Congo Square Theatre is an ensemble dedicated to producing transformative work rooted in the African Diaspora. For 20 years it has committed to telling stories by and for Black people.
Grantee
Congo Square Theatre Company

Building collective power through research
Black Researchers Collective was founded in 2019 with a mission to train and equip communities with the research tools necessary to be more civically engaged and policy informed.
Grantee
Black Researchers Collective

The nation’s first Black arts museum
South Side Community Art Center is the nation’s first Black arts museum that develops and showcases some of the nation’s most influential Black artists.
Grantee
South Side Community Art Center

Chicago violence prevention leader joins Justice Department as senior adviser
READI Chicago Director Eddie Bocanegra Joins Justice Department as Senior Adviser
Grantee
Heartland Alliance

Engaging to protect our water
Fifty years on, Alliance for the Great Lakes expands environmental justice advocacy through inclusion and partnerships.
Grantee
Alliance for the Great Lakes

Pivoting to a reimagined stage
The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project adapts and endures, rethinking performance space and how to reach audiences and students through a pandemic.
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The Joyce Foundation received the 2022 CGLR Great Lakes Changemaker Award
The Joyce Foundation received the 2022 Great Lakes Changemaker Award from the Council of the Great Lakes Region.
Joyce Foundation Statement on Supreme Court Ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency
The Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. EPA is a step backward in protecting the environment and public health. It limits the federal government’s ability to use the Clean Air Act to drive reductions in global warming pollution.
Michigan Advocates Celebrate “Transformational” Environmental Investment
$5B bill infrastructure bill designed to improve drinking water, sewers, parks and other essential measures considered the largest and most beneficial environmental investment in Michigan in decades.
Ellen S. Alberding: $1 billion investment in cleanup is a major step toward restoring the Great Lakes
The landmark bipartisan infrastructure law to clean up toxic pollution in the Great Lakes is the single most significant restoration of the region’s history. It is also an affirmation of work Joyce supported and our grantees have advanced for decades.
Source
Chicago Tribune Opinion

Examining inequitable water debt in Chicago
Report by grantees Elevate and Metropolitan Planning Council examined millions of residential water bills from 2015-2020. The City of Chicago Water Affordability Analysis found that the lowest income households are the most burdened with high water bills.
Illinois receives $226 million for project to block invasive carp from Great Lakes
A landmark environmental project championed by Joyce Foundation grantees and many other partners to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes has received critical federal funds.

Lead in school drinking water
New Joyce-funded report by NASBE and Elevate on how states are dealing with the issue of lead in school drinking water and offers recommendations on how to improve.

Engaging to protect our water
Fifty years on, Alliance for the Great Lakes expands environmental justice advocacy through inclusion and partnerships.
Grantee
Alliance for the Great Lakes
Illinois makes history against climate change
The Foundation congratulates all of its grantees and coalition partners who worked for years with perseverance and commitment to pass a historic new Illinois law making the state a national leader in the battle against climate change.
Getting the lead out
Illinois lawmakers mandate that utilities replace toxic lead water lines, a decades old threat. New legislation provides for state grants and technical assistance and prioritizes communities at highest risk–Black and Latino.
Energy efficiency
Under-resourced communities in Minnesota soon will receive a jolt of financial support for energy efficiency, thanks to newly passed legislation to help the state achieve its decarbonization goals equitably.

Foundation’s Cisar to advise EPA on water
The Foundation is excited to announce that Elizabeth Cisar, co-director of our Environment program, has been invited to serve for a year as a senior advisor in the Office of Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Lake Michigan’s Hidden Threats
Featuring op-ed columns by Elizabeth Cisar, co-director of the Joyce Foundation’s Environment Program, and several Joyce grantees who focus on water issues.
Keeping out carp
With new funding and approvals, planning and design is moving forward on a long-envisioned, comprehensive project to help block invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes.
Toxic Threat in Federally Assisted Housing
New study reveals widespread exposure to Superfund sites, decades of environmental racism.
