Chicago Beyond, a new, privately held organization launched on Tuesday with the goal of creating opportunity and access that the young people of Chicago deserve in school, career and life. Led by Liz Dozier, a lifelong educator and former high school principal, Chicago Beyond will invest in innovative ideas and scalable programs to amplify impact in two areas that are flip sides of the same coin – youth safety and educational attainment. Chicago Beyond will initially focus on two kinds of investment initiatives: the GO Innovate challenge and GO Together investments. Through GO Innovate, Chicago Beyond will invest in and test new ideas from the nonprofit sector while GO Together will focus on expanding existing programs so they can serve a greater number of youth. This week, Chicago Beyond kicks off the GO Innovate challenge, which will award up to $2 million to winners with innovative ideas crowdsourced from the nonprofit sector in Chicago, the nation and around the world. Awardees will be selected from applicants that offer innovative programming in two areas:

• Supporting College Matriculation and Graduation: Potential high-impact, scalable programs that dramatically increase the pipeline of high school students on a path to complete two and four-year college degrees.
• Re-engaging Youth in Work and School: Potential high-impact scalable programs that target “Opportunity Youth,” 16-24 year olds who are disconnected from both work and school and who are living in neighborhoods most impacted by violence. Programs should be designed to prevent involvement in violence by providing paid employment, workforce skill development, and/or educational re-engagement.

Please visit ChicagoBeyond.org for information on GO Innovate. Letters of interest are due April 29, 2016.