Two years after Chicago philanthropist Richard Driehaus died, his foundation is awarding more than $5 million in “transformational” legacy grants to support the causes he cared about most — historic preservation, the arts and investigative journalism.
The largest grants in the foundation’s 31-year history, announced Monday, will primarily benefit three Chicago-based organizations — Preservation Chicago, Arts Work Fund and the Better Government Association — providing a charitable windfall to sustain and expand their work.
“The organizations that these grants are going to, for the most part, are ones with which there was a really long relationship with the foundation,” said Anne Lazar, executive director of the Driehaus Foundation. “These are grants that establish an entirely different level of program work.”
Preservation Chicago, a small nonprofit organization best known for its annual list of the city’s most endangered historic structures, tops the recipients with a $2.3 million grant — nearly five times its annual budget. The two-year grant, the largest in Preservation Chicago’s 21-year history, will be used to establish an endowment fund and hire a full-time development director.
“Building up the endowment would give the organization more stability and longevity,” said Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago. “This is the beginning of a really amazing, transformative process.”
The grassroots group — it currently has four full-time employees — has been punching above its weight since inception, working to save everything from historic churches and warehouses to early Chicago skyscrapers. Among the organization’s hundreds of victories was the 2021 Chicago landmark designation for the South Side home of Emmett Till, a monument to the Civil Rights Movement.
Last week, Preservation Chicago helped get preliminary landmark recommendations for The Warehouse, the three-story West Loop birthplace of house music, as well as the Century and Consumers buildings, terra cotta skyscrapers facing demolition in the Loop.
Miller said the Driehaus Foundation gave Preservation Chicago its first grant nearly 20 years ago, and has been supporting its work ever since. He is hoping the endowment fund will be the gift that keeps on giving, encouraging other donors to follow suit.
The Driehaus Foundation is also awarding a $1.43 million legacy grant to the Better Government Association to expand the nonprofit news organization’s reach beyond Chicago, establishing investigative partnerships with newsrooms in Rockford, Peoria, Springfield and Champaign.
It is the largest but not the first transformative grant the Driehaus Foundation has bestowed upon the century-old BGA. A supporter for more than 20 years, Driehaus awarded a $1 million matching grant in 2011 that provided a catalyst for reviving a news organization which had dwindled to three employees and a $300,000 annual budget in the new millennium. The BGA has since grown into a robust newsroom with 24 employees and a $5 million annual budget.
Last year, the BGA earned its first Pulitzer Prize for a collaboration with the Chicago Tribune, “The Failures Before the Fires,” an investigation into fatal fires that exposed flaws in Chicago’s building code enforcement.
The three-year legacy grant will be used to hire three new reporters and an editor to create investigative partnerships with downstate news organizations.
“Helping us take our work statewide in a really substantial way will address news deserts outside of the Chicago metro area, will bring more people into the work of doing this kind of journalism, and will really have an impact on our organization and across the state,” said David Greising, president and chief executive of the Better Government Association. “It’s really a big deal for us.”
The Driehaus Foundation also awarded $1.5 million to Arts Work Fund, a collaborative fund that provides grants for small arts and cultural organizations in Chicago and Cook County. Driehaus has partnered with Arts Work Fund since its inception in 2007.
The award will support the Arts Work Fund’s new Thrive program, which provides three-year unrestricted grants to Chicago-area arts organizations serving minorities, women, the LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities.
“It’s a game changer, actually,” said Marcia Festen, director of Arts Fund Work. “These are arts organizations that we think are often overlooked by audiences by traditional funders, but they’re critical to the vitality of Chicago.”
The foundation is also awarding a $125,000 legacy grant to the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, South Carolina.
A Chicago native who grew up in a modest Southwest Side bungalow, Richard Driehaus graduated from DePaul University and launched his career in 1968 at former Chicago investment bank A.G. Becker. A successful portfolio manager, he went on to work at several t brokerage firms before founding Driehaus Capital Management in 1982. He rose to prominence in Chicago’s philanthropic circles, supporting a number of causes, including the preservation of historical architecture.
Driehaus died in March 2021 at the age of 78, but his foundation has continued to support the causes, and organizations, that he championed.
Last year, the Driehaus Foundation awarded 45 grants for a total of $1,684,120. The average grant was about $37,500. Recipients included the Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago Public Media, Friends of the Chicago River, League of Chicago Theatres Foundation and Block Club Chicago.
Lazar said those types of operational grants will continue, but the foundation wanted to advance its philanthropic mission, and honor its founder’s legacy, with Monday’s special awards.
“The world of nonprofits out there, especially in Chicago, it’s just limitless opportunities,” Lazar said. “And as resourced as we are, it allows us to be flexible and seek out new ways in how can we support that work, make impact and do it in Richard’s spirit.”
